Raiders file for Vegas move

LAS VEGAS — First the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights. Soon, maybe, the Las Vegas Raiders.

Once looked on with disdain by major sports leagues, this gambling city is now just 24 votes away from cashing in on one of the biggest sports jackpots ever.

The Raiders made it official Thursday by filing for relocation from Oakland to Las Vegas, the culmination of a whirlwind romance to bring an NFL team to a city that the league had previously gone out of its way to shun because of sports betting fears.

League owners are expected to vote on the move in March, and it’s hard to find anyone betting it won’t happen.

“I don’t know how you can put a price on this,” said Steve Sisolak, a county commissioner who has been involved in the efforts to land the team. “There are only 32 cities that can say they have an NFL team and we will be one of them.”

Actually, there is a price on it. Tourists will pay increased room taxes to fund $750 million of the cost of a new $1.9 billion stadium as part of a deal rammed through a special session of the Nevada Legislature by powerful casino owner Sheldon Adelson’s family.

The stadium will be just off the glittering Las Vegas Strip, where the Golden Knights will begin play this fall in a new arena of their own. The expansion hockey team is the first major sports franchise to call the city home.

Las Vegas, which has about 2.5 million people in the metropolitan area, would be a smaller market than the Bay Area. But fans from other cities are expected to fill a third of the proposed 65,000-seat stadium, and the team will also be able to draw on Raiders fans from throughout California.

Influential owners like Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys and Robert Kraft of the New England Patriots have spoken favorably about the prospects of a move, and Raiders owner Mark Davis has been lobbying behind the scenes to secure the votes of threefourths of the 32 owners needed for relocation.

The vote is expected to take place during league meetings March 26-29.

Davis has said the team will continue to play in Oakland until the Las Vegas stadium is finished, likely by the 2020 season.