This weekend’s lines are set and if Las Vegas (and the online sports books) knows their stuff, the winners of these games will be the New Orleans Saints, the New England Patriot, the Baltimore Ravens and the Green Bay Packers. Of course don’t tell the fans of the other teams that!
And just because those teams are favored, it doesn’t mean that they’ll win. After all Las Vegas just creates the odds, but they don’t place any bets. It’s up the gamblers and NFL fans to bet on who they think will win, and the sports books will adjust the odds accordingly. For example, Drew Brees and the Saints are favored in San Fran this week, but if more people bet on the 49ers than New Orleans, the sports books will adjust the odds and the 49ers could be the favorites.
This rarely happens because Las Vegas knows this and they try to set the odds so that they will get 50% of the bets on one team, and 50% on the other. See the sports books want to make money based on whoever wins or loses, and they do that by trying to get an equal amount of bets on both sides. That way they have no risk.
Let’s use this weekend’s NFL game between the Houston Texans and the Baltimore Ravens as an example. The Ravens are a good team. They won their division and ended their season at 12-4. They’ve also been to the playoffs before and recently, so a lot of people know the players on their team such as quarterback Joe Flacco, running backs Ray Rice and Ricky Williams, and wide receivers Anquan Boldin and Lee Evans. These are all big name players. Now let’s look at the Texans…
Houston finished the year at 10-6. This is their first time ever playing in the NFL playoffs. They have a few big NFL players on their team such as running back Arian Foster and wide receiver Andre Johnson and Kevin Walter. They also have a solid defense, but due to injuries during the regular season their going into this game with a rookie quarterback T.J Yates leading the team.
Now after know these basic facts about both teams, the average bettor (as well as the seasoned sports bettor) would pick the Ravens to win this game, and by a fair margin. After all they won more games during the NFL regular season, they have more stars, they are rested and they are playing at home. Las Vegas knows all these facts too, and that is why the spread on this game is set at 7.5 points with Baltimore as the favorite.
So, to bet with the spread, if you where to bet on the Ravens to win, you would need to give 7.5 point and bet $110 to win $100. The extra ten dollars is called the vig and this is how the sports books make their money. If you wanted to bet on the Texans, you would get an extra 7.5 point and you would still have to bet $110 to win $100. Again the sports books (and Vegas) are getting an extra $10.
This is the way that sportsbooks make money no matter who wins. Let’s say Ricky bet on the Ravens and William bet on the Texans to win. Each guy bet $110 to win $100, and the Ravens won and cover the spread. Ricky would win his bet and get back $210, the $110 he bet and the $100 he won. William would lose the $110 he bet. The sports book would make $10 by taking the $110 dollars from each player (adds up to $220) and only paying Ricky $210. The extra $10 is the sports books profit.
No because this is the way that it works, the sports books really try to set the spread so that they get an equal amount of bets on each side. This is especially important for the NFL Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is the most heavily bet game of the year. This is the game that a sports book can make the most money on all year. This is a great weekend for Las Vegas. That said, this is also the game that sports books can lose a lot of money on if they spread is not right and a lot more bets come in on one team than the other.
Let’s say the Packers and the San Francisco 49ers meet in the Super Bowl, and Las Vegas sets the line at the Patriot minis 3 (meaning that San Francisco is favored). But the betting public really like Green Bay, and bets more money on them than the 49ers. Now the sports books have a position where they need the 49ers to win to make money because the line was set incorrectly. Let’s say that the Packers then go on to win the Super Bowl. In a scenario like that Las Vegas could actually lose money on the Super Bowl. This is very real. It’s happened before and it can happen again.
The last time that I remember hearing that Las Vegas lost money on the Super Bowl was the 2008 Super Bowl when the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots. In that Super Bowl the Patriots were favored by 12 points which is a huge spread. Because the spread was so big, All the Giants fans bet on the Giants to win on the money line straight up (at about 3-1 odds), while the New England fans bet on the Patriots to win with the spread. New York ended up winning the game out right, the Giants bettor won his Super Bowl bet and Las Vegas had to pay the Giants money line bets which cost a lot more at 3-1 than the Patriots spread bets.
See Vegas didn’t get equal action in this Super Bowl. The Giants money line paid about $300 for a $100 bet, while the Patriots money line paid $100 for a $110. The sports books ended up taking in a lot of money on the New England bettors, but they paid out even more to the people who bet on the Giants. This was a bad Super Bowl for the sports books and a great Super Bowl for sports bettor! We always hope that it will end up this way!
Well that’s it for now, as always thanks for stopping by and learning how to bet the Super Bowl. We’ll have more news and updated later in the week and every other day until the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis! Take Care and Good Luck!
