You’re looking live at Brent Musburger in a sports book

The wink and nod are no longer needed. Neither are the euphemisms Brent Musburger liked to use on network television for those who might have a dollar or two bet on whatever game he happened to be calling.

He used to call them “My Guys in the Desert,” and those in the know knew what Musburger was talking about. It was his way of telling viewers on CBS and later on ESPN that the final minutes of a game no longer in doubt might still mean something to people with money on the point spread.

The guys in the desert aren’t just his friends. They’re part of his business now, five days a week in a million-dollar glass booth inside the sports book at the South Point hotel at the end of the Las Vegas Strip.

Musburger is looking live these days in the middle of a bustling casino sports book, where bettors with big wads of cash line up at the windows to take their chances against bookies equally determined to leave them empty handed.

It’s there that Musburger and his guys fill listeners in on the latest odds and trends. It’s there that they also hope to knock another hole into the perception that sports betting is somehow immoral and sleazy.

“There’s a part of the population that thinks this is some kind of a dirty business,” Musburger says. “I tell people all the time it’s as clean as it gets with all the regulation they have.”

The 78-year-old broadcasting icon is the face of the Vegas Stats & Information Network (VSIN), a fledgling company started by his nephew, Brian Musburger. Unlike other sports betting information services VSIN doesn’t sell picks but delivers information 24 hours a day on Sirius XM radio.

Musburger does two hours a day, five days a week in this, his adopted city, talking about the point spreads and over/unders to what he believes to be a growing audience of listeners. On one side of him in the broadcast booth is longtime sports book operator Vinny Magliulo, and on the other professional bettor Amal Shah.