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THE WEIRD AND WONDERFUL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING, CASINOS AND THE WORLD OF BETTING

With the news that World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. (WWE) is considering Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas as the venue for its SummerSlam, we take a look at the historic link between two such commercially successful forms of entertainment in North America: casinos and betting, and professional wrestling. 

In many respects, these forms of entertainment go hand in hand. The glitz and glamour of big casinos and the theatricality of wrestling feel almost as though they’re part of the same culture. No better location sums this up than Las Vegas, the spiritual home of brash entertainment. 

Sin City – a spiritual home for pro wrestling

In fact, Sin City has played host to some of the most famous showdowns and events in wrestling history. Most recently, it staged a major WWE pay-per-view event – Elimination Chamber – in 2018. However, if you go back through the decades, you’ll find that Caesars Palace was the venue for The Showcase of the Immortals in 1993 – when WrestleMania IX staged fights between Lex Luger and Mr. Perfect, and the immortal Hulk Hogan took on mega-wrestler Yokozuna.

Later, two of wrestling’s most famous combatants – Triple H and Stone Cold Steve Austin – fought it out in a Vegas steel cage, in the No Way Out tour of 2001, which got a lot of action at new casinos Australia.

Then there’s the MGM Grand Garden Arena, which was home to World Championship Wrestling’s (WCW) Halloween Havoc for five consecutive years from 1996.

Professional wrestling, a much-loved form of entertainment rather than a competitive sport, prides itself on outlandish storylines, larger-than-life characters, and a big dose of exhibitionism. It’s for this reason that casinos seem to offer the perfect location in which to hold its events. 

Away from Vegas, it’s worth remembering that a certain Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, in Atlantic City, was the official partner of WrestleMania IV and V in the late 1980s. This actually led to an enduring partnership between Donald Trump and WWE, and the former US President has even appeared in some of its famous storylines.

For example, did you know that he shaved the head of WWE boss Vince McMahon, simulated a fight with him, and was even inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame? Lately, there have even been rumors that Trump could be lured back to appear in a future installment of WrestleMania.

Perhaps no other man better embodies the mutually reinforcing show business of casinos and professional wrestling than Trump. Just take a trip over to YouTube and see how many WWE appearances he actually made and how he’s tied up with both industries.

Sports betting on pro wrestling 

It’s at this point, upon reading this sub-heading, that many of our readers might start to scratch their heads.

How can professional wrestling, which is an entertainment rather than a competitive sport – but also a heavily scripted endeavor where the outcome is set in advance – possibly be appropriate territory for betting?

The answer is that because so few people know how the wrestling match is going to turn out, it’s possible to conceal the result and therefore to take bets on what the outcome will be.

We have betting on politics, after all – so why not also the world of professional wrestling?

Many renowned online betting companies will allow you to bet on all the most popular WWE events such as SmackDown, Royal Rumble and Raw. But there are other championships – such as the WWE-created NXT – that have attracted markets outside of North America, such as the UK. 

UK Wrestling 

In the United Kingdom professional wrestling has been popular for over one hundred years. Its popularity skyrocketed and it really became established as a mainstream spectator sport when a new television channel, Independent Television (ITV), was launched in 1955 and started to televise bouts on Saturday afternoons. The TV commentator, Kent Walton was to become a household name and was associated with the televised sport for many years. The demand for televising the sport grew, so to satisfy the viewing audience it was also shown in a mid-week slot by ITV. 

In the mid-1960s a program called World of Sport was launched and professional wrestling was firmly established as essential viewing by its thousands of fans. The wrestlers became famous and Mick McManus, Adrian Street, Giant Haystacks, Steve Vidor, Jackie Pallo, Big Daddy, the Dynamite Kid, and Kendo Nagasaki were treated like rock stars. 

There are still many wrestling fans in the UK and many of them like to gamble on WWE matches through sports betting sites. 

Types of bets

The variety of bets that they will lay on is also incredible. There is the straightforward ‘match win’, where you bet on whoever you think will win the contest. There are ‘near-misses’, in which players are allowed to bet on a wrestler almost winning the match but not quite making it. There are even scenarios in which you can bet on certain categories of wrestling character – the heroes or villains – emerging triumphant.

This growth of offer reflects the growth in the offer of online betting generally. As well as permitting sports betting and betting on WWE, trusted casino review websites offer access to myriad online casinos, game guides and even industry news. It’s a great one-stop shop that’s worth taking a look at. 

Who knows if Vegas will get the next big wrestling tournament? There are other great locations in the mix, such as New York – but soon enough, the glitz of the casino world, and Sin City in particular, is likely to entice the glamorous and brash world of wrestling back into its arms. 

 

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