Late Money for Patriots Helps Las Vegas as Giants Win Super Bowl
Late Money for Patriots Helps Las Vegas as Giants Win Super
Rob Carr/Getty Images
Quarterback Eli Manning #10 of the New York Giants with the Vince Lombardi Trophy after the Giants defeated the Patriots by a score of 21-17 in Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium on February 5, 2012 in Indianapolis.
Quarterback Eli Manning #10 of the New York Giants with the Vince Lombardi Trophy after the Giants defeated the Patriots by a score of 21-17 in Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium on February 5, 2012 in Indianapolis. Photographer: Rob Carr/Getty Images
A late rush of losing wagers on the New England Patriots may help Nevada’s sports books turn a profit on the Super Bowl, where the majority of early bets had been on a New York Giants victory.
The Giants won the National Football League championship game 21-17 as three-point underdogs, scoring the winning touchdown with 57 seconds left at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis last night.
Nevada’s sports books have made a profit on the Super Bowl in 18 of the past 20 years and more than $90 million was projected to be legally wagered on the game, according to the state’s Gaming Control Board.
“The late rush was on the Patriots, which bailed us out,” said Jimmy Vaccaro, director of sports operations at Lucky’s Race & Sports Book in Las Vegas. “The general public was in love with this Giants team and you found out a reason why they’ve been riding them for the past eight weeks.”
Vaccaro said while Lucky’s probably came out even in terms of which team would win, it made a profit on other wagers including so-called proposition bets, such as which quarterback would pass for more yards or whether a team would score in the final 3 1/2 minutes of the game.
Nevada’s 183 sports books, most of which are located in Las Vegas and Reno, take a commission of about 4.5 percent per bet.
“Everything together made us a fair winner for the day,” Vaccaro said in a telephone interview. “It wasn’t as bad as it was three days ago. The Patriot money did show and the line went back to three in most casinos, telling you there was plenty of Patriots money.”
Losing Years
The last time Nevada’s sports books failed to win money was in 2008, when the Giants upset the Patriots as 12-point underdogs and they lost about $2.6 million. The only other losing year in the past 20 was 1995, when the San Francisco 49ers were favored by a Super Bowl-record 18 1/2 points over the San Diego Chargers and covered the spread with a 49-26 win.
Nevada’s Gaming Control Board said the state’s sports books won $724,176 on $87.5 million in wagers last year, when the Green Bay Packers were favored by three points and beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25. The books won $6.8 million on $82.7 million in wagers in 2010.
This year’s wagering results may be available by tomorrow, according to the board.
The Giants as recently as last month had odds as high as 100-1 to win the Super Bowl. When they had a 6-6 record, one bettor placed a futures bet “well over four figures” on the Giants at one of Cal Neva’s sports books, said race and sports director Chris Andrews.
Good Volume
“The Giants were up in the futures when they were going through their losing streak,” said Craig Schaffer, an assistant manager at the MGM Mirage in Las Vegas. “But overall we did OK. We would have done a little better if the Patriots had won, but the volume was good.”
The Las Vegas Hotel and Casino was a “moderate winner” on its Super Bowl futures betting even with the Giants winning, assistant sports book manager Jeff Sherman said. The casino would have fared better if the Patriots had won, he added.
Lucky’s Vaccaro said their total handle on the game was up about 5 percent from last year.
The record Super Bowl handle in Nevada was $94.5 million in 2006, when Pittsburgh beat the Seattle Seahawks 21-10.
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Matuszewski in New York at matuszewski@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Sillup at msillup@bloomberg.net
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