Read "Twenty-Four-Hour Happy Hour" from The Madness of March: Bonding and Betting with the Boys in Las Vegas by Alan Jay Zaremba:

"It is the morning of the first day of the tournament. I wake early, shower, dress, and prepare for the madness that I know awaits me. Before I leave my hotel room I gather what I’ll need as I travel through the day. I collect casino betting line sheets, a section of the New York Daily News that includes a description of each of the sixty-four teams in the tournament, some pens, and two small yellow notepads. It’s 6:30 when I exit the room and walk toward the bank of elevators.

I meet a fellow in the elevator who is from central casting. He is, I discover, a Texan in a long-sleeved baseball T-shirt that has the word “Aggies” written in script across the front. On his head is a Texas A&M cap. He looks to be close to fifty, is nearly six feet tall, and weighs maybe 150 pounds. He has a thick big-buckled belt through his blue jeans, a pen behind one ear, and a toothpick in his mouth. Dangling from his right hand is a spiral notebook stuffed with betting sheets that extend beyond the 8½ by 11 confines of the notebook.

I attempt to start a conversation with him while we ride down to the casino level of the hotel. It is not easy. He seems to be nervous as he anticipates the day. I manage to discover that his name is Denny and that he has been coming to Las Vegas during March Madness for fifteen years with the same group of A&M alums. This year they’re staying at the Imperial Palace because they always stay at the Imperial Palace. He tells me that back home he has his own insurance agency. While not unfriendly on the elevator, he is all business, and his business today is not selling insurance. When we reach the casino level, I say goodbye and he grunts something similar as he moves swiftly off the elevator to the sports book.

To get to the Imperial Palace sports book from the lobby elevators you have to pass the celebrity blackjack tables, find the escalators by the registration desk, and take the escalator up one flight to the second level. The sports book is straight ahead behind one of the hotel’s bars.

Denny wastes no time once he leaves the elevator. He tucks the notebook under his arm and buzzes ahead like an Olympic race walker, dodges pedestrian traffic that is teetering or otherwise blocking the way, and bolts past Roy Orbison dealing blackjack. I follow at a more moderate pace, feeling like an undercover cop trying to follow a criminal who has a sense he is being tailed and is moving stealthily through the crowd to avoid capture.

I figure Denny is moving so quickly because he believes that an army of fellow gamblers are congregating right now in the sports book and he wants to get on the betting queue before it becomes too long. When I arrive at the top of the escalator I see him immediately. He has not gone into the sports book. He sits slumped against a wall, spiral notebook open, studying the odds on the betting sheets, near, but not at, the end of a line of people waiting for the Imperial Palace ballroom to open. It has over five hundred seats. Almost every patron will be able to obtain a seat in this space. However, Denny, with a Texas A&M hat, Aggies shirt, and a spiral notebook open on his lap, apparently wants to make sure he gets a good spot. Thirty-eight people are ahead of him, and two others are now behind him. It is 6:38. The doors to the ballroom open at 8:45.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

Denny glances up at me then returns his gaze to the betting sheets. “My turn to save seats this year,” he says while he makes some notations on a piece of lined paper. His toothpick dances on his lips."

To read another excerpt or to purchase The Madness of March, visit http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Madness-of-March,674048.aspx.