‘It’s going to be crazy’ in Vegas for Mayweather-Pacquiao

He’s not a whale. More of a high roller. More of a guy who will gamble $100,000 at the tables over a weekend, who will bet $10,000 a hand for several hours a day, who is showered with all the usual complimentary items of a hotel suite and food and beverage and spa treatment for his wife or girlfriend or, well, sometimes both.

One particular guy is from Missouri.

He recently lost $98,000 over a few days here, went home and paid his markers in record time. He had 90 days to make things right but didn’t take near that long.

“My phone rings and he says, ‘Hey buddy, I paid things off early because I want to come out for the fight,’ ” Steve Cyr said. “He says, ‘I’m going to make it easy on you. I have a new girlfriend and I only need two ringside tickets.’

“I told him that I loved him, but he had no chance. He just isn’t a big enough player.”

Turns out, the guy wanted the impossible.

Turns out, even Cyr couldn’t deliver this time.

The famed casino host who has seen it all, good and bad, incredible highs and heartbreaking lows, winners who amassed a fortune and those who killed themselves or were murdered upon losing it, how the line between basking in the bright lights of Las Vegas and dying in its most ruthless and unforgiving shadows is thinner than a dealer’s next card, has never seen anything like this.

The fight that is Floyd Mayweather Jr. against Manny Pacquiao on Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden stormed past the event stage long ago and is now a full-fledged phenomenon. Whether the action inside a ring can match the ridiculously elevated level of hype that will have preceded it is no longer debated.

It absolutely can’t.

“This is Michael Jordan in his prime playing against high school kids in terms of popularity and the number of (gamblers) who want to come into town,” Cyr said. “Usually, that $100,000 player can get those ringside tickets, no matter who is fighting. Now, I’m having to say ‘No’ to most everyone. Some of my whales are going to MGM properties for better tickets than I can get because I don’t represent those casinos. You can’t blame a million-dollar player for wanting the best ticket he can find.”

It is through his eyes and experiences that “Whale Hunt in the Desert” is told, where the secrets of a Las Vegas superhost are revealed and those lifestyles and motivations of the world’s biggest gamblers are examined. The book, now in its third edition, continues to be required reading for those students majoring in hotel administration at Cornell University, a first-hand account of how casinos and their hosts harpoon incredibly rich whales.

This is an interesting week for Cyr, now a licensed independent junket agent who reps 11 casinos globally and has been one to aim that harpoon at gamblers for 28 years. He has 70 active players who fall in that high-roller category, who will risk $25,000 to $250,000 over a weekend. He also has 14 active whales, those who can blow between $250,000 to upward of several million dollars over a few days and still be breathing.

He also has countless players who have as much chance of scoring good seats Saturday (a pair of ringside tickets are going for $360,000 on secondary markets) as Bieber does not getting booed, but will still make their way here and eventually to the tables.

They just want to be in town, at the clubs, perhaps at the weigh-in Friday, almost certainly at an after-fight party or two.

Just to say they were.

Just to experience the atmosphere.

“There really is no stereotype for the players I deal with, except they’re not doctors or lawyers or Hollywood stars,” Cyr said. “All those guys are stiffs. My players are true risk-takers, business owners and entrepreneurs. I’d rather have the construction worker with five grand that’s going to give me a shot at his money than a star who’s a pain in my ass and wants everything comped and isn’t going to earn. I only earn off action.

“I’m totally event-driven. I already bet my money on Floyd, but I would love for Manny to win because that would guarantee a rematch. I’d love a trilogy. Floyd and Manny are worth every dollar for what they’re doing for the (Las Vegas) economy this week. A room at the Super 8 Motel is $299. What does that tell you?”

That the complimentary breakfast will include bacon?

Cyr expected to land tickets for a few of his million-dollar players — his most famous whale is Hustler founder Larry Flynt — but they weren’t going to be in the sort of location the MGM could offer. Still, it should be a good week for the host who once made a deal with a 75-year-old player that for every month he risked $1 million at the tables, Cyr would accompany him on an adventure. They once went white-water rafting in Costa Rica and spent another 10 days sailing the Greek islands on a yacht. It’s the life, man.

He is 51 now, this junket agent who once played Jordan one-on-one and who began in the business as a slot host at Caesars Palace, where he was told to invite anyone who bought in for $200 at the dice pit to a Sunday brunch. Before now, his most memorable fight week for players was when Tommy Hearns met Marvin Hagler at Caesars in 1985 in a match dubbed “The War.”

But it was nothing compared to this week.

Not in the same stratosphere.

“It’s going to be crazy,” Cyr said. “Players will be everywhere. I sometimes justify it by thinking they’re going to gamble anyway, so it might as well be with me. Look, there isn’t Velcro on the seat. If you lose eight straight hands, get up. But I love when a guy wins, because he’s coming back in three weeks and not three months.

“I don’t have a ticket to the fight. I’ll probably watch it in a club. But if I did, I’d sell it. My daughter is going to the University of Oregon, so that would go straight to the college fund.”

I would normally accuse him of becoming all domesticated and such, but he recently tried to steal a player from another casino by impersonating a room service attendant and insisting on speaking to the guest about a souffle.

“That,” Cyr said, “was a bad one.”

Not if he had harpooned the whale.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. His new show, “Seet and Ed,” debuts May 4 on KRLV 1340 and will be heard from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.