Casino

After ten hours of flying and too much bad airplane coffee, the beef carpaccio from 8 East at the Circa casino was ecstasy. Topped with potato chips, served with drops of citrus-infused wasabi crème, it would have been fabulous anytime. But nursing a cold Sapporo, stoned on exhaustion and discombobulation, I shivered in delight with every bite. Just a single piece would have been worth the flight. It was my first time in Las Vegas — my first time in the States — and I was hoping to write a meaningful story about a too-much written about place.

In the five years since the Supreme Court struck down a federal law banning sports gambling in most states, the sports landscape, at least in terms of the way events are covered, has been radically altered, and in many ways, changes are yet to come. Seemingly every week, a new sportsbook app arrives on the market. Broadcasts of sports are now inundated with updates about odds, point spreads and proposed parlays from analysts that fans are invited to wager on. Prior to the Supreme Court decision, gambling was the dirty little secret of the sports establishment. Of course gambling happened, and in places like Las Vegas it was legit, but it was considered tawdry among the more buttoned-down members of the sports mainstream.