Nevada Super Bowl Betting Results Good

In addition to New York, Nevada also won the Super Bowl this year. Nevada sports books (with the majority of the action of course in Las Vegas) pulled in just shy of 94 million dollars in wagers ($93.8 million), "winning" $5 million. The hold percentage was 5.4%, which beat the theoretical hold percentage on typical 11/10 straight wager sports bets of 4.54%. Part of that could be due to slightly more money wagered on the losing side of the point spread, but most likely that is due to the books actually coming up short on the point spread portions of the wagers, but making that money back on losing parlay and proposition bets, which have better hold percentages for the sports books.

The Las Vegas Sun article also touts that this year's handle was the second-largest Super Bowl handle in the last decade. Before too many champagne corks pop, do realize that what is wagered legally in Nevada is but a small fraction of illegal sports betting in the United States. My estimate that for the Super Bowl, the illegal betting was about ten times the legal betting, or about ONE BILLION DOLLARS (now put your pinky to your lips like Dr. Evil).

As part of the National Gaming Impact Study Commission effort, the FBI estimated that one billion dollars was illegally wagered each week of the NFL regular season. That study was published in 1999 - this is 2012. Yahoo has a decent overview article regarding sports wagering and the position that legal sports betting should be expanded in the United States. I agree.

If interested, other previous posts on sports betting are available for view, with my recommended choices here, here and here, with the first post discussing the softening view of the NBA to potentially expanded sports betting.

It's NFL Kickoff Weekend, But Someone Knows the Results Now!

Yes, indeed. Although the Week 1 games are still in progress, WhatIfSports thinks they know who will make the playoffs and even win the Super Bowl. Here's the teams WhatIfSports think will go to the playoffs, win the conference championships and win the Super Bowl:

AFC East - New York Jets
AFC North - Baltimore Ravens
AFC West - San Diego Chargers
AFC South - Houston Texans
Wild Card - Tennessee Titans
Wild Card - Indianapolis Colts

NFC East - Dallas Cowboys
NFC North - Green Bay Packers
NFC West - San Francisco 49ers
NFC South - New Orleans Saints
Wild Card - Minnesota Vikings
Wild Card - Carolina Panthers

AFC Champion - San Diego Chargers
NFC Champion - Green Bay Packers

Super Bowl - Green Bay Packers

They predict the New England Patriots don't even make the playoffs. We'll see. The company is touting its simulation technology, but I'm not convinced that it is that useful. I've done posts in the past which predicted fantasy rankings, based on the premise that stating what happened last year would happen this year. Individual performances may not vary significantly, but teams' performances can vary significantly from year to year. The recent Super Bowl loser slump is a great example.

Do you think WhatIfSports is correct? Do you think the top 3 teams in the AFC East will all finish with 8-8 records? I have doubts as to the usefulness of this approach with regard to team performance.

Super Bowl In NYC To Increase Sports Betting?

Casino Gambling Web reports that having the Super Bowl outdoors in a cold weather venue will lead to increased gambling on the game, particularly with regard to proposition bets. The premise is that the weather will generate more proposition bets regarding the weather, such as temperature, snow, etc. I disagree. The same propositions can be offered for games in warm weather locations, with the proposition temperature being higher and rain being substituted for snow.

The article is correct in predicting that the total points scored over/under level will likely be several points lower and that the point spread may be tighter. The article also mentions that during the two-week betting window before the game, the forecast weather may radically change, putting sportsbooks in jeopardy. This could occur if the game weather forecast moves from inclement to clear and sunny, or vice versa, during the runup to the game. If sportsbooks have taken too much action on a side that would benefit from a weather forecast change, they could be hit hard if even more action on the wrong side for them came in the days right before the game, with no real chance to balance the action.

We won't have to wait long to see if this is true as the 2014 Super Bowl will be in New Jersey, at the stadium for the New York Jets and Giants. If this occurs, will the NFL stop having the Super Bowl outdoor in cold weather locations, or will they continue to stick to their story that for them, it's about the game and not the gambling money? My guess is that if betting is hampered or the sportsbooks lose big, the Super Bowl moves back to warm weather stadiums or indoors.

One of the biggest jokes in sports betting in my opinion is the position of the NFL that it is worried about gambling because of the integrity of the game and that the popularity of the game is solely due to the game itself and not any gambling. The NFL is a great fit for gambling. Do you really think all those Monday night, Thursday night, Sunday night and Saturday night games are scheduled because those games couldn't be played on Sunday? My sentiment is that the NFL and other sports leagues oppose sports betting primarily because they don't get a cut of the money. Some consider fantasy sports gambling and you see all the major US sports leagues having fantasy sports games. Interesting, yes?

Las Vegas Sportsbooks "Win" Super Bowl

The Super Bowl scoreboard is final and so is the Las Vegas sportsbooks'. Las Vegas also won the Super Bowl, with winning (i.e. keeping) 8.3% of all the sports bettors' money bet. The details are in the linked Las Vegas Review Journal article. Due to the variances inherent in sports betting, there is a chance the house doesn't win. I discussed when that actually happened a couple of years ago with the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl in a previous post. The Review Journal article actually reports the handle and win percentage from the last 10 Super Bowls - you can see that there is a wide range of results. Over the last 10 years, Las Vegas sportsbooks had a win percentage on Super Bowl bets of 9.6%.

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.

Early 2010 Super Bowl Odds Posted

For those of you looking for pre-season guesses as to who will win Super Bowl XLIV in January 2010, SBR Global Sportsbook has posted early odds. They are:

Arizona 30/1
Atlanta 23/1
Baltimore 23/1
Buffalo 50/1
Carolina 23/1
Chicago 18/1
Cincinnati 63/1
Cleveland 75/1
Dallas 18/1
Denver 63/1
Detroit 150/1
Green Bay 30/1
Houston 40/1
Indianapolis 12/1
Jacksonville 40/1
Kansas City 63/1
Miami 50/1
Minnesota 14/1 (before Brett Favre's addition)
New England 4.5/1
New Orleans 18/1
New York (N) 11/1
New York (A) 40/1
Oakland 80/1
Philadelphia 10/1 (before Michael Vick's addition)
Pittsburgh 8.5/1
San Diego 8.5/1
San Francisco 63/1
Seattle 50/1
St. Louis 100/1
Tampa Bay 41/1
Tennessee 18/1
Washington 40/1

New England, Pittsburgh and San Diego are the early favorites, which make sense since Tom Brady is back for New England, Pittsburgh is the defending champion and LT and Shawne Merriman are back for San Diego. To me, Green Bay at 30/1 and Arizona at 30/1 seem like good bangs for the buck, but the oddsmakers aren't dumb.

The odds on both Minnesota and Philadelphia are likely to drop with the adds of Brett Favre and Michael Vick (aka Ron Mexico), respectively. Given that Detroit didn't win a game last year, I'm not so sure that 150/1 odds are high enough...perhaps 1000/1?