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The Super Bowl is traditionally a boom-or-bust type of event for the Las Vegas sports books.
Super Bowl LI was a little bit of both.
New England’s 34-28 overtime victory on Sunday covered the -3 line and 56 1/2 point over/under went comfortably over.
Popular sports book William Hill got crushed on in-game prop wagering, reporting a “six-figure loss” to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
“In-play was the killer,” sports book director Nick Bagdanovich said. “Everybody was taking the big plus price on New England when they were down 28-3. Any time a real good team gets down in any sport, it’s always bad.”
Betting odds fluctuate during the course of the game so gamblers can always get fresh action. When New England faced the 18-point deficit, it created a 12-1 money line offering that gambler jumped on.
The opposite held true for books such as Westgate and the Golden Nugget, who both reported significant wins.
“It was one of the best Super Bowls we’ve had in my 11 years at the Nugget,” sports book director Tony Miller said to the Review-Journal.
Miller said multiple $100,000 money-line bets on Atlanta produced the bulk of the profits.
The worst-case scenario for the books would have been a 31-28 New England overtime victory. Overtime bets, which are always popular with bettors during the Super Bowl, paid 7-1. And a field goal victory, creating a betting line push of sorts, would have sent back a huge portion of the handle back to the customers on both the Atlanta and New England sides.
The total handle for the game is still being tabulated, but last season’s Super Bowl L set a record with $132.5 million wagered in Las Vegas books, with the books coming out ahead $13.3 million.
cblount@express-news.net
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