Thirteen years after his acquittal in one of the most publicised murder cases in American history, former football great OJ Simpson returns to court on Monday for jury selection in a robbery and kidnapping case that could send him to prison for life.

Legal experts say the outcome of the case is far from clear as Simpson, 61, faces a dozen felonies that stem from a confrontation in a hotel room last September in which he and a gang of gun-toting cohorts departed the scene with pillow cases stuffed full of sports memorabilia.

The charges against Simpson and one of those men, Clarence "CJ" Stewart, includes kidnapping and armed robbery, both of which carry potential life sentences in the state of Nevada.

Simpson and his group allegedly stormed the room at the Palace Station Hotel-Casino to retrieve memorabilia largely related to the football star's career that he has insisted was stolen from him.

It was in the possession of two collectibles dealers, Bruce L Fromong and Alfred Beardsley.

Simpson later insisted he did not know that two of the men with him would be carrying guns and did not see them brandish their weapons.

Four of the gang, including the two who carried weapons, have struck plea agreements for reduced sentences in exchange for testifying against Simpson.

The encounter was arranged by another memorabilia dealer, Thomas Riccio, who recorded the incident and sold those recordings to the celebrity website TMZ.Com for a reported $US165,000 ($A203,578.04) before he shared the audio with police.

Fromong said Simpson and his group took hundreds of items including his new mobile phone and many collectibles that were related to the careers of other American sports figures.

Legal analysts say that such a banal case rarely would go to trial but that the famous defendant has turned it into a much more complicated matter.

"Nothing about an OJ case is a normal case because it's OJ," says former federal prosecutor Laurie Levenson based in Los Angeles who covered the 1995 trial for CBS News. "A guy who can get off of a double homicide with DNA evidence is not a normal defendant. There's going to be some pressure to vindicate the judicial system in this case."

Choosing a jury will be a crucial phase. The court distributed a 26-page questionnaire to 500 prospective jurors to weed out those with strong feelings about Simpson, who was acquitted in the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

"It's not a total solution but I do think a younger jury would probably come in with preconceived notions against OJ," Simpson attorney Gabriel Grasso said. "But that could also go against us. Some young people don't even know OJ was a football player."

Grasso said the defence will work to impugn the credibility of the four men who have copped pleas as well as the alleged victims, all of which have criminal records and many of whom have sought to capitalise financially from their connection to this case.

Only Simpson has never been convicted of a crime, he noted.

Yet the fact that there are audio tapes of the incident could be troublesome for the defence, said Vegas lawyer David Chesnoff, who famous clients have included lifestyle guru Martha Stewart and boxer Mike Tyson.

"I think they have more things to worry about than even they realise," Chesnoff said. "The cooperation of the participants and OJ Simpson's own voice on the tapes could be big problems.

"His tone on the tape will be an important issue, whether it sounds threatening or strong-arming the alleged victim."

Interest in the case is high, although it's nothing on the order of the national obsession that was the 1995 criminal trial in which Simpson was acquitted, said TruTV executive vice-president Marlene Dann.

The network, formerly known as CourtTV, plans live gavel-to-gavel coverage.

"That was a particular time in TV history, a point at which people weren't as familiar with trial proceedings," said Dann of the 1995 trial.

"Saying that, if our email is any indication, there's a huge appetite for this trial. I think people ultimately want to see if he's going to finally end up in jail."