Immediately after riding I’ll Have Another to victory Saturday in the Kentucky Derby, jockey Mario Gutierrez gave a quote that secured a place in horse racing lore. “I kept telling everybody, from the first time I met him, I knew he was the one,” Gutierrez told reporters. “I knew he was good.” Gutierrez wasn’t the only one who knew it. A Las Vegas-based race and sports book discovered that the hard way when I’ll Have Another caught Bodemeister to reach the winners circle at Churchill Downs. Lucky’s race and sports books, one of the only shops in town that offers futures betting annually on the Kentucky Derby, lost a significant amount of money because of I’ll Have Another’s triumph. Lucky’s — which runs books throughout Nevada including at the Riviera, the D Las Vegas, the Plaza and Terrible’s, locally — printed several tickets on I’ll Have Another to win the Derby earlier this year at odds as high as 200-to-1. “It was our worst-case scenario,” said Dan Shapiro, who oversees Lucky’s horse book. “It was the first time in four years, since we started offering futures, that we lost money.” SourceLas Vegas Sun
