National Football League

Super Bowl odds a mix of science, art

Published Feb. 1, 2012 12:00 a.m. ET

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Reid Forgrave

In the nerve center of the world’s largest race and sports book — behind the massive sports gambling space at the LVH Las Vegas Hotel and Casino Race and Sports Superbook, behind the largest wagering menu in Las Vegas where 45 percent of net revenue comes from football, behind the eight windows where patrons are lined up making their bets — sits Jay Kornegay, a Wizard of Oz for Las Vegas’ sports gaming scene.

Of the scores of sports books around Nevada, not to mention the thousands of illegal bookmakers nationwide, only a handful actually make the betting lines. Kornegay leads, and the rest just follow.

And for Kornegay, one of those elite bookmakers whose opinions have exponential impact around the gaming world, the Super Bowl is the biggest annual test of his wits — whether his expertise can outsmart the legions of gamblers who make the Super Bowl the biggest single betting game of the year for Nevada’s $2.5 billion-a-year sports gaming industry.

Look around Kornegay’s office for a peek into how he determines the line, the over-under and the hundreds of proposition bets that make betting the Super Bowl fun. There are 14 televisions playing every imaginable sports show, so Kornegay, the vice president of race and sports book operations here, always is on top of things.

There’s a John Elway-signed football from his favorite team, the Denver Broncos, although he swears he takes the emotion out of it when the Broncos play. There’s an impressive Twitter feed filled with his reliable sources, where he follows gaming trends and significant injuries, like the high ankle sprain for Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski.

And, then, in the corner of the room, among the towering stacks of papers with sporting odds past and future, is the one thing that we all should take as the key to betting on the Vegas odds for Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday:

A Magic 8 Ball.

When you’re betting against Vegas, that little ball of prophesying power probably has as much chance as your vast knowledge of the NFL. Sorry, kid, but here’s a truth: You might hit a big one here and there, but in the end, Vegas always wins.

“It’s the money that dictates the movement, with just a little bit of opinion here and there,” Kornegay says of his football bookmaking. “A lot of the movement is dictated by the sharps, the professionals, the wise guys — the sophisticated bettors who go with the bigger amounts. They know the value of point spread, while the average Joe just picks who he thinks is the better team.”

The Super Bowl, however, is different. Because of the massive amount of betting on the Super Bowl each year — more than any sporting event outside the NCAA tournament — it’s the only game when the line is made based on public perception instead of the sharps. There are more bets taken at Vegas sports books at halftime of the Super Bowl than are taken on entire weekends of the NFL regular season.

Insiders believe betting on this year’s game could beat the Vegas Super Bowl record of $94 million wagered on Super Bowl XL between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks. All that means the Super Bowl line often is inflated for the perceived better team.

Here are some of the Super Bowl thoughts going on in the back areas of Vegas sports books during the past couple of weeks:

• Vegas really, really hoped the Baltimore Ravens wouldn’t make the Super Bowl. Because the Ravens aren’t considered a “public team” — a nationally popular team like the Giants or Patriots — the city would have had fewer Super Bowl tourists for a Ravens Super Bowl.

• If the Ravens had made the Super Bowl, the sports books also would have had only about half the volume of bets. People like to bet on offensive teams, not defensive teams. Super Bowl XXXV between the Ravens and Giants generated the least betting of any Super Bowl in the past dozen years. “Everyone loves to bet the favorite and likes to see a lot of points,” said Jay Rood, vice president of operations for the race and sports book at MGM Resorts International. “That’s why everyone moans and groans for the 'Bama-LSU rematch.”

• Bookmakers believed people would bet heavy on the Giants, because New York is the biggest market and people like betting their favorite teams — and because fans believe the Giants will have revenge as motivation. And bettors did: Heavy betting on the Giants moved the line from its opening line having the Patriots at a 3-1/2-point favorite down to three-point favorites. More money on the Giants could mean the tightest Super Bowl point spread in 30 years. (In Super Bowl XVI, the San Francisco 49ers were one-point favorites over the Cincinnati Bengals.)

Aside from the point spreads and the over-under, the bets that juice up the average fans are the obscure proposition bets, the more than 300 side bets that represent half of all Super Bowl bets. Will any team score in the last 3-1/2 minutes of the game? Will Patriots receiver Wes Welker get over or under 76-1/2 yards receiving?

Occasionally — very, very occasionally — Vegas makes bad numbers for the highest-profile game of the year. The most famous bad Vegas number? Putting William “The Fridge” Perry’s chances at scoring a touchdown in Super Bowl XX as 20-1. There was a feeding frenzy on that original line, so much so that it dropped to 2-1. Of course, Perry did score a touchdown, making a lot of money for the people who got the early odds.

“When you gotta call your boss and tell him you lost $1 million,” Rood said, “it’s not a good day.”

Vegas, of course, almost always wins. The state’s sports books have come out on top on 15 of the past 16 Super Bowls. The only huge hit Vegas took on recent Super Bowls? Take note: It was in 2008, with the Giants’ upset of the Patriots.

A couple of days before the AFC and NFC championship games, I asked Kornegay to pick the winners. He correctly took the Giants and the Patriots.

Then I asked him: What would he predict for the Super Bowl? He thought for a moment and then said: Patriots 30, Giants 26.

Sure enough, when the lines opened after the two championship games, Vegas had the Patriots as a 3-1/2–point favorite and had the over-under at 55. In other words, Kornegay not only predicted the teams, but he predicted the spread to within a half-point and the over-under to within a point.

And so, when you’re betting a hunch, or poring through your season’s worth of statistics, or taking a prop bets that you’re 100 percent sure will pay out this weekend, remember this: Vegas is always, always, always smarter than you are.

That doesn’t mean it’s not still fun to drop a few $20 bills on some silly bets — like the over-under on punts by Patriots punter Zoltan Mesko, set at 3-1/2 punts — to have a little bit invested in the big game.

But if you’re just feeling unsure about this Super Bowl, don’t fret: Odds are already out for next year’s champion. The favorites are two teams that aren’t even playing Sunday: the Green Bay Packers at 5-1 and the New Orleans Saints at 6-1.

But lean close and listen. Over at the Wynn Las Vegas Race and Sports Book, the poshest sports book in Vegas, Steve Fezzik, a professional gambler from Reno whose day job is as an actuary, just made six $2,000 bets on teasers for the AFC and NFC championship games. If you’re looking to make bets for next year’s game, don’t bet the favorites, he says. The odds don’t make it worth it. Take the Philadelphia Eagles and the Houston Texans for Super Bowl XLVII.

Because right now, those teams are flying under the radar.

Until you read this, at least. Sorry about that.

You can follow Reid Forgrave on Twitter @reidforgrave, become a fan on Facebook or email him at reidforgrave@gmail.com.

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