Muhammad Ali's greatness even impacted the Las Vegas Strip when Ali fought Larry Holmes in 1980. Ali may have been near the end of his career by that point, but it was just the beginning for sports books and their marriage with big casinos. Jimmy Vaccaro (sports book manager of Barbary Coast) was the first to run a sports book that was physically located inside and owned by a casino. Back then casinos would accept chips from any casino in town; 'Exchange Day' would take place on Mondays when the casinos would exchange chips with other casinos. Barbary Coast turned in over $300,000 worth of Caesars Palace chips the Monday after the fight. Caesars realized they may have hosted the Ali/Holmes fight, yet all those in attendance and staying at Caesars had to leave their property and walk across the street in order to have action on the fight.

Rumor has it that Caesars Palace had a meeting the very next week after the Ali/Holmes fight to build a sports book and six weeks later they had the blueprints to start building their own sportsbook. Down goes Frazier! And up went big casinos building sports books.

Courtesy: University of Las Vegas Library