Sports betting is like a world all its own, and Las Vegas is the only place in the world where you can walk in and place a legal bet on sporting events. Unless that’s not true, in which case it sounds like it could be true, and that’s close enough, right?

Anyway, there’s no busier day in sports books, in the world, than on the day of the Big Game We Can’t Name Specifically. You know the one. The one we can’t say because of the lawyers. But it’s the national pro football championship event spectacular thingy. And it’s happening February 3, 2013. Unless that date is trademarked, too, in which case all hope is lost for humanity.

We didn't say it! It's a photo of an officially-sanctioned merchandise kiosk.

We’ll say right up front, this blog is not a sports betting expert. And by “not an expert,” we mean, “We know almost exactly nothing about sports betting.”

We do, however, know sports betting experts. We popped into the sports book at Rio Las Vegas to chat with David Pemberton, Director of Specialty Games, about some of the fun bets, called “prop bets,” surrounding the Big Game We Can’t Name Specifically.

Based upon his interaction with this blog, David Pemberton may be the most patient person in Nevada.

Right off the bat, we asked David for some bets everyone can make money on, guaranteed. Apparently, those don’t exist. Who knew? However, this didn’t deter us from learning more about prop bets.

“A lot of the prop bets are the same from year to year, but each game has its own custom bets,” says Pemberton. “We compile information from a variety of sources to determine the odds. The odds change, based upon betting patterns, right up to game day.”

Fact: People who work in sports books have large brains.

David Pemberton was kind enough to give us a crash course in prop bets. Prop bets are bets on things like “Which team will score first in the game?” and “Total touchdowns scored in the game.” Odds makers use math and research this blog doesn’t even remotely understand to determine the likelihood of the various outcomes.

What makes betting on the Big Game We Can’t Name Specifically so entertaining is the virtually infinite number of wacky bets on things like “Will the team that scores first win the game?” or “Will the jersey number of the player to score the first touchdown be more or less than 27 1/2?”

It gets even better! Try this one: “Total yards of the shortest successfully-made field goal in the game.” Or “Will either team score in the final minutes of the first half?” There’s even a prop bet for “Will either team score three consecutive times without the other team scoring?” There also one for “Will the Ravens convert a fourth down attempt?”

There are even bets related to specific players, a group of bets where bettors seem to do particularly well, Pemberton says: “Total receptions by Michael Crabtree,” “Will Frank Gore score a touchdown?,” “Total rushing yards by Ray Rice,” etc.

This is how our brain saw sports betting before our Pemberton crash course.

This blog’s favorite weird bet involves a player who, we’re pretty sure, doesn’t even play football: “Which will be greater on Feb. 3, LeBron James points or the 49ers points?”

Prop bets can be made at the sports book right up to the opening kick-off, then betting is closed. At least until halftime, when more betting is allowed for the second half of the game.

Pemberton says, “Our second half betting is very popular. Everybody rushes to the windows during the halftime show. We’re writing tickets until the very last minute. During the game, people can cash as the results come in, so you don’t have to wait until the game’s over to collect.”

If you’re baffled by all the bets, ask a sports book team member for assistance. Just avoid waiting until the last minute, because things get crazed on Big Game day. Bets similar to the Rio’s prop bets can be found in sports books across Las Vegas, including the ones at Caesars Entertainment casinos, because they pay this blog’s salary.

One of the easiest ways to bet on the Big Game We Can’t Name Specifically is to use a “parlay card.” It’s kind of the keno of sports betting (with better odds), or like a Pick 4 bet in horse racing. You choose one of two options for multiple bets (up to 10 bets at once). Heck, even this blog took a stab at it. We’ll let you know how it goes.

Trying to copy this blog's parlay card could very well the worst financial decision of your life.

Here’s some inside scoop that could give you a little edge: Take a look at the prop bet for “Which will occur first, a score or punt?” It’s been a punt for the last three Big Games. Another pattern: “Will there be a special teams or defensive touchdown scored in the game?” Yes, for the last three years. “Will either team score in the last two minutes of the first half?” That’s happened in the last three years, too.

Is sports betting an art or a science? We say both. So, who you rooting for in the Big Game We Can’t Name Specifically?

They say mixed martial arts is the the fastest-growing sport in the world. Now, it’s putting down roots at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas.

The mixed martial arts (MMA) organization, World Series of Fighting, recently announced it’s inked a deal with NBC Sports Network (the folks that broadcast the Olympics) to host a series of events at Planet Hollywood.

The debut event, on Nov. 3, 2012 will feature former bantamweight champion Miguel Angel Torres, Gregor Gracie, Tyson Steel, Ronys Torres, Brian Cobb, Josh Burkman, Gesias “JZ” Cavalcante and Las Vegas local, John Gunderson, with more match-ups to be announced. Learn more at the official site.

Today's mixed martial arts term: "Ground and pound." No, we don't know what it means, but it sounds cool, if you're into that kind of thing.

The World Series of Fighting events will take place at the Planet Hollywood Live theater (formerly called the Theater for the Performing Arts).

Tickets for the Nov. 3 premier of the World Series of Fighting are on sale at Ticketmaster.com. World Series of Fighting tickets start at $19.99.

Watch for the World Series of Fighting from Planet Hollywood on the NBC Sports Network, on Nov. 3 starting at 10:30 p.m. (Eastern).

When you think “value in Las Vegas,” Imperial Palace leaps to mind like a gazelle being chased by a lion. Or something.

The Imperial Palace has upped the value game once again, at its Sports Bar (near the hotel’s Sports Book), with a Happy Hour we think might just be the best in Vegas.

First, the Sports Bar offers a Happy Hour that’s not just an hour. It lasts from 2:00 p.m. to midnight. This blog is not a mathematician, but that sounds like approximately 10 hours of happy.

The news gets even better when you discover the Happy Hour offers cocktails featuring a variety of premium liquors for just $2.50 a pop. That’s $2.50 cocktails, center-Strip, for 10 hours.

At least one of the $2.50 cocktails we were forced to try on your behalf looked exactly like the one below.

Note: Your actual $2.50 drink may not be as pleasingly back lit as the one photographed by this blog. We are a professional marketer.

The hooch featured in this Happy Hour includes Skyy Vodka, Cruzan White Rum, Sauza Blanco Tequila, Seagram’s Gin, Seagram’s 7 Crown Blended Whiskey and Jim Beam.

Bonus: The Sports Bar bartender, Kaliq, is friendly, charming and an undeniable expert in the realm of deeply-discounted imbibement facilitation.

Fact: People featured in the Pulse of Vegas blog get more action. You're welcome, Kaliq.

Oh, and don’t forget. If you tip Kaliq $1 for a $2.50 drink, you’re giving him a 40% tip. You’re a Vegas high roller, baby.

Thanks to our friends at the Five Hundy podcast (via one of their vigilant callers, Mike from Philadelphia) for letting us know about this great Happy Hour. Find the wildly mandatory Five Hundy podcast here.

If you can find a better Happy Hour in Sin City, we’d love to hear about it. We won’t be holding our breath.

You never know who you’ll bump into when you’re in Las Vegas.

Yesterday, while roaming The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace, we stumbled into an autograph signing with none other than former World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association heavyweight champion of the world, Leon Spinks.

Gratuitous Olympics tie-in: Spinks won the gold medal for boxing (light heavyweight division) at the 1976 Summer Olympics.

The Field of Dreams sports memorabilia store hosted the champ’s visit.

Who’d Spinks defeat to become world champion? None other than a 36-year-old Muhammad Ali. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.

The fighter’s famous, gap-toothed grin might be gone, but the affable boxer hasn’t lost the spark that made him a world champion.

Here’s today’s thing you might not know about Las Vegas: The Stardust was the first hotel in Sin City to add a sports book to its casino.

We found this photo in our personal photo album. We loved the Stardust.

In a spectacularly bone-headed move (at least in retrospect), the Stardust was imploded on March 13, 2007.

The college basketball championships are right around the corner, so it’s time for this blog to do some skillful trademark dodging!

Get ready for the “College Men’s Basketball Division Championships Hoops Frenzy Extravaganza” in Las Vegas. Or something! Look, we already spend enough time in the company of lawyers, so just go with it.

Whatever you call it, it’s all happening March 15-18, 2012 and the Vegas Strip is always bursting with basketball fever during the “Giant Waltz” (not trademarked, yet, phew).

This blog is currently in the process of trademarking the color orange.

Several Las Vegas hotels in the Caesars Entertainment family have conveniently slapped together a number of basketball-related party packages perfect for hoops fans. Take a look.

Rest assured, there will be 1) hooch, 2) grub, and 3) viewing of college basketball games on screens larger than the average Las Vegas self-parking garage.

Don’t wait until the last minute to make your college hoops championship plans. Because that’s not like you. At all. Ever. Ahem.

Some of the biggest names in NASCAR shut down the Las Vegas Strip on Dec. 1, 2011 to show off their flashy rides in conjuntion with Champions Week, an annual race ritual that calls Sin City home.

NASCAR fans got to see their heroes up close. And, you know, briefly.

Drivers taking part in a celebratory “Victory Lap” down the Strip were: Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Brad Keselwoski and Denny Hamlin.

Today's free brain teaser: Where's Woody?

The drivers started their “victory lap” outside The Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood, made their way north to Spring Mountain Road, then returned along the same route, stopping for some donuts along the way. (Hint: Not the glazed kind. Although, speaking of donuts…)

Sorry, this blog just likes horsies.

During the Las Vegas Boulevard loop made by the thundering race cars, driver Ryan Newman set his car aflame during a “burn-out” and had to be given a push by fellow driver, Kyle Busch (see below).

Awk-ward.

After the victory lap event, fans were treated to The Stewie Awards representing the best, boldest and funniest moments of the NASCAR season. The awards were given out by 2011 Sprint Cup Series champion Tony Stewart. Read more.

Nice product placement, Planet Hollywood!

Get all the blistering, hammer down, downforce, clipping, hairpin (and other terms we don’t know the meaning of) details about NASCAR’s Champions Week here.

Here’s our exclusive photo gallery of the NASCAR Victory Lap event. Note: Our photos would be much better if these NASCAR drivers didn’t insist on “moving” all the time.

Just because we have no idea what language these guys are speaking doesn’t mean we can’t share this video. We think it might be sports-related.

We do know one of these guys, Todd Fuhrman, is the Senior Race and Sports Book Analyst for Caesars Palace.

Todd's the one on the left who keeps saying, "When the worm turns."

Our second favorite phrase from this video: “Fluctuating their unit size.”

See? There. We blog about sports sometimes. Probably.

We tend to know everything about Las Vegas. (Actual results may vary.)

But the other day, wandering aimlessly around the Imperial Palace, we discovered something we’d never seen before: The hotel’s Race & Sports Book. We figured there must be one, somewhere. But we had no idea whatsoever it would be like this.

We never expected this. Did you?

To put it in technical terms, our brain nearly exploded. It’s massive. How does all that Race & Sports Book fit inside the Imperial Palace?

The seats seem to go on forever, like a (wait for it) sports stadium.

Holy sweet mother of Zenyatta, this is unexpectedly awesome.

The IP’s Race & Sports Book has more than 240 televisions in the race book area alone. Yes, we counted every single one of them. Probably.

So, the next time you’re in the Imperial Palace, check out this hidden Las Vegas gem.

If you don't love that carpeting, you don't love Las Vegas, plain and simple.

It’s not all shiny and new-fangled like some other Race & Sports Books, but you can bet it’ll be a pleasant, unpretentious surprise.

See what we did there? “You can bet.” Because you place bets. It’s a casino. That, dear friends, is how you win blogger awards.

Boxing great Sugar Ray Leonard schmoozed with fans at a book signing inside Caesars Palace on Sep. 17.

He posed for photos and autographed his new book, “The Big Fight: My Life In and Out of the Ring.”

It takes years of experience to convincingly pretend to sign a book for a photo op.

Thanks to David Becker for the pic.

More than 200 guests took part in the meet-and-greet at the resort’s famed Race and Sports Book. Ironic, since Sugar Ray Leonard was signing a book. Unless that’s not technically ironic. But it’s something, trust us.

Bonus sports book fact: There are about 150 licensed sports books in the United States. All of them are in Nevada casinos.

Bonus boxing fact: Yes, it’s called a boxing “ring” even though it’s square. That’s because in the early days of the sport, boxers fought in a circle drawn on the floor. Now you know.

Specifically, what the hell just happened?

Yeah, we should have put "in-depth" in quotation marks.

Thanks to Tom Donoghue for the great pic.

Legendary boxer Sugar Ray Leonard is set to square off with fans at a book-signing in the Caesars Palace Race & Sports Book (next to Pure Nightclub) on Sep. 17, noon to 2:00 p.m.

We could take him.

Leonard will sign his new autobiography, “The Big Fight: My Life In and Out of the Ring.”

Bonus Sugar Ray Leonard trivia: His real name is Ray Charles Leonard. Bonus bonus trivia: He was the first boxer to earn more than $100 million in purses.

Learn more about the famed Caesars Palace Race & Sports Book.

There are a good many things this Las Vegas blog does not know.

It does not know what an IBA is. It does not know what a “cruiserweight” is. It also isn’t sure it knows what a “haymaker” is.

But one thing this blog knows is a good deal when it sees one!

With our super-secret code (CB241) you can get 2-for-1 tickets to a boxing extravaganza at the pavilion ballrooms inside Rio Las Vegas on Apr. 1. That’s two tickets for $53.50 to the IBA Main Event Cruiserweight Championship of the Americas. Find out more.

Wait for it.

Again, use code CB241 for the hook-up.

Oh, and we don’t entirely know where the pavilion ballrooms are at Rio Las Vegas. But for a sweet $25 in savings, you’ll probably figure it out.

Las Vegas isn’t just the best place to play your favorite casino games, it’s also the place where new games are born!

Just a few days ago, a new table game, 3 Dice Football, hit the casino floor at O’Sheas on the Strip. O’Sheas is the only casino in the world that has this fun new game.

There's something great about a new felt layout. Thanks, 3 Dice Football.

The new 3 Dice Football at O’Sheas is a mix of three very popular things in Las Vegas: 1) Craps. 2) Sports. 3) Liquor. Granted, that last item is less related to 3 Dice Football than the game’s being at O’Sheas, but let’s not get bogged down by details.

Football fans will feel right at home.

Because this blog has so much Vegas mojo, we actually bumped into the game’s inventor, Jamie Abrahamson, at O’Sheas, so we cajoled him (translation: asked politely) into giving us his thoughts on the new game.

“I’ve always felt there should be a football-themed game in the casino,” says Abrahamson. “I think football partners itself perfectly with dice. 3 Dice Football a simple game to learn, so it’s accessible. Players can identify with the football theme, and in Vegas, football is a huge draw. People like to throw dice but are sometimes intimidated by craps.”

Security nearly tackled us trying to get this photo. See what we did there?

You don’t have to know football to enjoy 3 Dice Football, but it doesn’t hurt.

The basic bet is either for or against a touchdown, much like Pass and Don’t Pass in craps.

Three dice are used in the game, which is a fun twist for craps players, since tossing three dice in craps is often frowned upon by security. Two of the dice are green (representing positive yardage) and one red (negative yardage). Dice rolls advance the “football” down the field toward a touchdown. The green dice are added up and the red is deducted.

Adds the inventor, “There’s quite a bit of math involved in developing a game like this. I wanted to create a format that wouldn’t take too many rolls for an outcome. The average expected rolls per ‘game’ [before a result] is just under four, much like the downs in football. I also wanted to make sure the main bets come up as close to 50% as possible.”

There are tons of side (or proposition) bets to keep things interesting.

Of course, there are a good number of side (or “prop,” short for “proposition”) bets for variety and more action, called “Single Play Bets” in the game. Single play bets include things like “Trips TD” (all three dice match), which pays 33-to-1, or “No Gain” (if zero yards are gained), which pays 5-to-1 and the monster prop bet “Turnover,” which pays 66-to-1. A turnover occurs when a red 6 is rolled with either a green 1-1 or a green 1-2. Get more details.

From what we witnessed during our O’Sheas visit, 3 Dice Football is already winning over lots of die-hard fans. One player confided, “I love it. I played eight hours yesterday.” Some unsolicited love is always nice when you’re trying to launch a new casino game!

If you'd like to try 3 Dice Football, look for the schnazzy video monitor.

“We’re thrilled to see people are enjoying it so much,” says Abrahamson. “They’re really getting into it. As the inventor, it’s everything I could have hoped for.”

The game, “six years in the making,” according to Abrahamson, is a joint effort between FremantleMedia Enterprises (the “American Idol” and Price is Right Live folks), gaming specialists TCS John Huxley and Abrahamson.

Yes, actually, popcorn and hot dogs are available in the O'Sheas food court. It's a sports thing.

Read more about 3 Dice Football, a new game exclusively at O’Sheas Las Vegas.

British singer Matt Goss, currently wooing audiences at Caesars Palace, will host a World Cup soccer viewing party on Jun. 12. It’s free and open to the public.

Fans will gather to watch their favorite teams go head-to-head. The event will also include Matt Goss show ticket giveaways, drink specials and a chance to win a grand prize private party in a Caesars Palace or Planet Hollywood luxury suite.

Doors open at 9:00 a.m., with the featured game at 11:30 a.m., England vs. USA.

Read more about the viewing party. Here’s some video of Matt Goss on local TV.