With typical spread betting, where the objective is to balance the amount of wagers on both sides, the theoretical win percentage is about 4.5%. What happens is that both bettors wager $11 to win $10. The winning bettor wins $10 plus gets his $11 back. The losing bettor loses his $11 and the sportsbook keeps the remaining $1. So 1/22 is 4.54%. But the sportsbooks are winning at a higher percentage. Why? There are a couple of reasons.
One is that the books don't exactly have even amounts of wagers on both sides. They will tend to let more wagers fall on one side or the other. If they can set a spread where the general public will bet more on the side that should have a lower probability of covering, the books will win more. They will lose more if the game doesn't go their way, but they are pretty sharp at figuring games.
Another reason is that sportsbooks offer other kinds of betting options that have a higher hold (win) percentage, parlays and propositions. Parlays are a means of having multiple bets where all have to be selected correctly in order to win. So, during the regular season, you may bet a few games, but if all of them are selected correctly, you would win perhaps $60 on your $10 bet as opposed to $11 on your $10 bet. But if you don't select all correctly, you lose. Sportsbooks do very well on parlays. Propositions are those kind of bets that seem more like coin flips if anything. You can bet on who wins the coin toss, who will score first, whether the first score will be a safety, etc. The sportsbooks also do well on propositions. The article touches on "ties lose" parlay cards, where if the books are smart (they are), they may place propositions on those cards where there is a very reasonable chance that one of the underlying propositions will land on the predicted number of the card such that all bets will lose and the sportbook wins all the money.
Add up all these things, and just like New Orleans, Las Vegas wins the Super Bowl.
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