Super Bowl Sunday

What is a Super Bowl Sunday like behind the counter of a Las Vegas sportsbook? It is a zoo. Starting early in the morning, customers are lined up 20 to 30 deep at several different betting stations. As a supervisor, I had to keep track of over 100 props with constant money pouring in for hours leading up to kickoff. As one line is adjusted because of a wager, there are several more that also need to be updated. It is a constant grind of activity until the kickoff.

While there will always be several exploitable props that will hurt the books, the day is usually a goldmine. For most of the fiscal year casino management doesn’t put a great deal of value on the sportsbooks. In the grand scheme of a hotel/casino operation, the underlying viewpoint of management says sportsbooks take up a lot of valuable floor space without much return. Sharp players are capable of coming into a sportsbook to beat the house on a daily basis, whereas slot machines will always churn a profit. The Super Bowl, however, is viewed a little differently by the bean counters in casino management. They see the influx of guests coming into the sportsbooks in particular, but more importantly, they see a lot of black figures in the ledgers after the game. The Super Bowl props provide a big chunk of the green for Las Vegas sportsbooks.    

Leading Up To the Super Bowl-Squares v. Sharps

While I have spent most of my time trying to defeat the sports betting market, I actually had the opportunity to work on the other side of the counter for awhile. My experience as a sportsbook supervisor at a strip casino in Las Vegas gave me a view into the unique challenges that bookmakers face on a daily basis. Because our odds were done in-house, we had to keep a close eye on every game that was put on the market. With the recent mega-casino mergers that have occurred in Las Vegas, there have become fewer “shopping” options for sports bettors to take advantage of.  My book was unique as a stand-alone outlet for players to try to get odds that might not be available at other casinos.

As a supervisor, I had to be aware of not only what was happening in my book, but what was happening in the wagering marketplace as a whole. Like most sportsbooks, my casino had a mix of square and sharp players; most of the tourists are viewed as square bettors while most of the sharps live in Las Vegas. From a volume standpoint, football is the dominant sport to bet on in Las Vegas and tourists pour in on fall weekends to wager on the college and pro card. After the college bowl season is over, the NFL delivers the ultimate climax with the Super Bowl. The pure hype of this game draws a swollen crowd, and the effect has been felt in the sports betting community. As it continued to evolve, props became a staple of Super Bowl week.

I quickly learned that bookmaking during a Super Bowl would be a massive undertaking. Even though there is usually a two-week break between the conference championships and the Super Bowl, as a bookmaker, the time to prepare is short.  On Sunday night, shortly after the conference title games have been completed, the odds for the Super Bowl are posted. Then the process of putting together over 100 props for the big game begins. Some of the basic setup procedures are done on Sunday followed by a full day of research on Monday to determine what props will be offered. Time is also spent crunching numbers and forming some basic odds. On Tuesday the final checks are done. Everything must be correct in the computer system, dozens of pages of odds sheets must be proofread before they are printed out in mass quantities and all of the props need to be written up on the sports boards in the book for the customers to see when they come into the casino. After some last checks on Wednesday, the props are made available for wagering, usually leaving 11 days before the Super Bowl.

The kinds of props that are available for the Super Bowl clearly fall into square and non-square categories. The Sharps are usually eager to jump in and attack odds that are perceived to be weak at the opening. These wagers are generally based on how the sharp player views the game or by the other numbers available in the marketplace. Las Vegas bookmakers will usually gain a healthy overall profit on their Super Bowl props, mainly through a group of props that professional sports bettors will avoid; we’ll call these the square props. 

Square props are based almost entirely on a random outcome that one (including sharp players) cannot accurately handicap. Here are some examples of some of the common square props from last year:

The Final Score of the Game Will be an: Even Number-105/ Odd Number-125   

Team to Use Coaches Challenge First: Seahawks-115/ Steelers-115

1st Team to be Penalized For Pass Interference: Seahawks-115/ Steelers-115

Another area of props that are usually profitable for the books are pool wagers. These props are similar in setup to a futures pool of 30 or so teams to win a championship (i.e.: odds to win 2007 World Series, etc.). Most futures pools will turn a profit based solely on the nature of the beast; in a 30-team pool, 29 teams will, eventually, lose. Super Bowl props provide several of these kinds of pools. For example, there will be a pool to pick the exact number of points that a club will score in the game. Meaning, the bettor can pick any number from 0 up to 50 and 50-plus in this category. Obviously 1-point is not an option but everything else is available from 0 to 50-plus. In this kind of pool wagering, 49 of the 50 options are losses. While some intuitive reasoning would tell you that most teams will score somewhere in the 20’s (at least most of the time) sharp players will avoid these types of wagers because of their random nature.

There are a group of props that will draw action from the sharps and the squares. Most of these kinds of props are “matchups”. As the wagering marketplace has become more sophisticated, the number and style of the matchup props has grown on a yearly basis. Some of these matchups have even evolved into cross-sport props (NBA, NHL, etc.). Here are some examples of some of the matchup style props from last year:

Who will have more? Seahawks + Steelers Total Points-6 ½-115/ Kobe Bryant (LAL) Points+6 ½-115

Player to Make Most Completions: Matt Hasselbeck -4.5 Completions-105/ Ben Roethlisberger +4.5 Completions-125

Player to Make Most Rushing Yards: Shaun Alexander -27.5 Rush Yards-130/ Willie Parker +27.5 Rush Yards+100

Professional/sharp bettors will handicap these kinds of matchups in the same fashion that they would handicap a regular game. The unique nature of these wagers will also draw action from the square/tourist bettors. The books, however, gain an advantage with the matchup props because of the extra juice/vig that each wager produces. Most game wagers have a vig of 10% ($110 to win $100, etc) while these kinds of props typically have a vig of 15%.

Sportsmemo.com will list 100+ Super Bowl XLI’s props in the Prop Shop once they are released (Approximately January 24, 2006) complete with insight and recommendations on at least 25 props from several of the sharpest handicappers in the nation.