Former ESPN host dies after cancer battle

The gambling world is mourning the loss of legendary sports handicapper and radio host Dave Cokin, who passed away at the age of 71 on Tuesday.

News of Cokin’s death comes one month after the Rhode Island native announced his retirement following a cancer diagnosis. “I’ve got days or weeks, perhaps a couple months left and I’ll be going, going, gone,” he wrote in a post on X on June 25 .

Despite the diagnosis, Cokin spent the last month posting his picks to both social media and his WagerTalk.com profile . In many ways, it was a fitting sendoff for the sports gambling pioneer, who established himself as a national voice and one of the first touts in the late-1970s.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal , Cokin first gained national recognition as part of Jim Feist’s Proline sports handicapping show, which aired on the USA Network for 36 years. He moved to Nevada full time in 1987 and began hosting a show on KDWN-AM known as The Stardust Line , which was one of the first shows to focus on sports betting.

In addition to The Stardust Line , he also co-hosted The Pete Rose Show on the Sports Fan Radio Network and Cofield and Cokin and The Las Vegas Sportsline on ESPN Radio. He was twice named Nevada’s Sportscaster of the Year.

“A lot of people know him as a handicapper, but he’s arguably the most well-known guy that we’ve ever had for Las Vegas sports talk radio,” his former co-host, Steve Cofield, told the Review-Journal last month. “He’s a Vegas legend. He lived the life of a Las Vegas gambler that I think a lot of people wanted to.

“Everyone knew Dave, and everyone knew his voice. He was must-listen radio. He really does epitomize what Las Vegas is and should be for sports talk radio.”

In recent years, Cokin had been a regular contributor to WagerTalk. The last listed bet on his profile lost — just like the first bet he ever placed, a $5 wager on the American Hockey League’s Providence Reds.

[ Las Vegas Review-Journal ]

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