Gambling with MGM and Las Vegas Sands

Shares of MGM MIRAGE (NYSE:MGM) and Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) trade more like Penny Stocks these days, both are up big today with the MGM already up 33%, roll the dice baby.

Traders are placing their bets with Options on the Vegas stocks, the activity is buzzing today, just look at the volume trading hands on the April 17th MGM Calls:

Strike Symbol Last Chg Bid Ask Vol Open Int 2.50 MGMDZ.X 3.71 1.66 3.60 3.80 232 3,340 5.00 MGMDA.X 1.55 1.00 1.55 1.65 8,053 12,328 6.00 MGMDF.X 1.05 0.75 1.00 1.05 5,638 1,668 7.50 MGMDU.X 0.51 0.41 0.50 0.55 6,632 375 10.00 MGMDB.X 0.15 0.10 0.10 0.15 382 436

The Las Vegas Sands options are also on fire, here's how they look so far this morning:

Strike Symbol Last Chg Bid Ask Vol Open Int 2.50 LJJDZ.X 2.59 0.63 2.55 2.70 719 14,389 5.00 LJJDA.X 0.58 0.28 0.55 0.60 11,189 65,276 7.50 LJJDU.X 0.10 0.05 0.05 0.10 1,373 4,940 10.00 LJJDB.X 0.05 0.00 N/A 0.05 25 25

More from Andrea Kramer -- A recent report in The Wall Street Journal helped spark a wave of option activity on MGM Mirage (MGM: sentiment, chart, options). On Friday, the Vegas vixen saw roughly 21,600 calls cross the tape, nearly 5.5 times its average daily volume of fewer than 4,000 contracts. The April 5 call was most popular, with about 11,700 contracts changing hands. What's more, in early trading today, this in-the-money option has already seen more than 7,250 contracts cross the tape on open interest of about 12,350. This heavy accumulation of bullish bets makes the 5 strike home to peak call open interest in the April series of options.

On the flip side, MGM saw roughly 10,700 put contracts change hands on Friday, nearly tripling its average daily volume of fewer than 3,850 bearish bets. The most active was the stock's May 2.50 put, which saw single-day volume of about 2,750 contracts. This strike is now home to peak put open interest in the back-month series, with 5,408 contracts in residence.

The bullish bias on Friday merely echoed the recent trend in the options pits. MGM's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) currently rests at 0.75, implying that calls outnumber their put rivals among options slated to expire within 3 months. Furthermore, compared to similar readings taken during the past year, the equity's SOIR registers in the 22nd annual percentile. In other words, short-term speculators have been more optimistically aligned toward MGM less than a quarter of the time during the past year.

At last check, the shares of MGM have advanced 1.63 points, or more than 35%, to hover near the 6.30 level.