Las Vegas Money Moves
By Micah Roberts
Action has been good thus far in Las Vegas Sports Books for this weekends Championship games, but the sharp money hasn’t shown its hand yet. Most of the action coming in has been small money from the public with a wide array of opinions.
Ticket counts at a few different properties indicate the type of betting patterns and action that will magnify about 90% more over the weekend, but it’s a good sample ratio of what’s to come, minus the sharp money.
The Colts are trending at about a 9-to-5 edge in overall tickets written. Some books are reporting that this game is similar to what we see every year in the Super Bowl, laying the points with the favorite and taking the money line with the 'dog.
Over at the Las Vegas Hilton, they opened the game Sunday with the Colts a 7-point favorite and a standard money line of Colts minus-330 with a very generous take back of plus-270. As the game moved to 7 ½, so did the money line, peaking at -400/+330.
By Tuesday, a few Sports Books had gone to Colts -8, but the money being dealt was still set as 7 or 7 ½ point favorite on the chart.
The Hilton has their money line currently set at Colts -340/+280, which is essentially a strong 7-point favorite line.
Every year in the Super Bowl, the favorite money line is always the best value of the year because the bettor gets about 20% to 30% value of what the true number is thanks to the majority of the public forsaking the points.
The Super Bowl is the ultimate public game where they determine which way the lines go and the sharp money has little bearing on anything, as opposed to the rest of the year when the sharps are very well-respected.
As long as everyone is taking the Jets on the money line, that line will drop no matter how high the spread goes.
The story is a little different for the Vikings-Saints game. Ticket counts are showing almost split action across the board with a slight lean towards the Saints. Many Vegas Books have flirted with moving the Saints to 4-point favorites, but quickly came back to 3 ½.
Most books like to have somewhat of a decision on the big games, while others are content to grind it out and juice out the public money. The Saints game is building up to be one of those games that the books won’t have to sweat on much, other than futures. They can grind out the parlay win and then hope the 'dog doesn’t win straight up to avoid increased odds payouts on straight and parlay wagers.
The ultimate hope for the Vegas Sports Books on Sunday will be the Jets covering the spread, but losing to avoid the money line combinations on the Jets. Once all the parlays and liability is known after the Colts game going into the late Saints game, it’ll be more clear to them what they want, but it’s likely to be the same -- 'dog covers, but doesn’t win.
As for the futures, not many are rooting for the Jets even though having a New York team in the Super Bowl would be better for Super Bowl handle. The Vikings always traditionally get bet on massively much in the same way the Cubs and Twins always do for World Series futures. Many books have said that the Vikings would be the second-worst outcome.
For Las Vegas Strip properties, the futures are a huge chunk of change. Textbook bookmaking says you don’t co-mingle and make decisions for one proposition to off-set the other, but if the risk is substantial, it’s hard to ignore.
These strip properties have nurtured the Super Bowl futures all season since last Super Bowl and watched folks come in every weekend from all corners of the world taking souvenir bet slips back home and now it’s close to paying up. Generally, the book will hold 35% to 50% of the entire Super Bowl future handle. Should the favored Colts win it all, that hold percentage will be closer to 75% hold.