The books got hammered and all I'm hearing on the betting podcasts is that the books "won a ham sandwich" or some such sh.t. That's a straight up lie and I'd love to know why they're trying to sell that.
The Super Bowl is not a game the pro punters bet heavily on. They constantly preach that the value is on the props and that fading the public who are betting Over and Yes on all the outcomes is the way to go. There is little value in the spread and they say (rightly so) that they look for edges elsewhere. Besides, pro bettors aren't betting Sides and Totals in amounts of money that could balance the books in the Super Bowl.
But the limits on the props are low and the money the pros can get down pales in comparison to what the public bets on the opposite side, simply because the numbers of pro bettors are minuscule compared to the number of public bettors FOR THIS GAME.
When missed field goals, missed PAT's, 4th Down conversion attempts, 2 pt Conversion attempts happen in the Super Bowl, when Gronkowski, Blount and co score 9 touchdowns, when Over 3.5 Field Goals are kicked and when both QB's throw record numbers, THE BOOKS LOSE. Books that say they lost on the Side and Total but got it all back on the props are flat out lying going by their own words in the past regarding these bet types.
All week the Vegas books were reporting that "Bettor X" who reportedly won 6 straight ML bets on the World Series for 7 figures each and stopped after Game 6, came back wanting $10m on the Eagles ML. He apparently got $2m down in 2 bets of $1m each at Will Hill and I don't know how much besides that he got down. On top of that, neutral Public bettors, who outnumber the professional bettors by a pretty big number in this particular game were mainly betting Philly to win outright. I would also say that Philly fans won more on this game than Pats fans lost, but even if they didn't it would have been close to even.
The books all admitted this in the 2 weeks prior. They were reporting HEAVY one sided action on the dog and they admitted prior to the game that they would need the Pats to win.
Also, the analytics community was expecting a lot of offence in this game. I heard and read this numerous times. One of the analysts I respect most was predicting 52 points and I can't remember the last time her figures predicted such a high scoring game. Basically, both the Public and at least half the stats guys were on the Over.
This is just about the biggest single event betting wise in North America and one of the biggest events worldwide. The handle in Vegas was $158m. A record. And I can't see any way those books in Vegas won on this game. Did anyone notice the smile on the faces of the commentators just before Half Time as they mentioned the word "Underdog"? They said it 3 times between them. This was a pretty well publicised prop - "Will The Word Underdog Be Mentioned During The Game Broadcast?" The NBC production crew is well aware of all the props that are offered.
The books even lost on the Coin Toss prop ffs when Heads came up (I heard a bookmaker joking about the stupidity of bettors saying "the small bettors bet on Tails, but the big money is on Heads).
Yet the official figures from the Gaming Commission reports that the books did in fact win money on Super Bowl LII. $1.17m on a handle of $158m.
I don't believe it.
This was a strange game. To me it looked like there was a 3 way agreement between the NFL, NE and PHI to keep penalties low, offence high (no rushing the passer), and to have a high scoring game. Why not? The NFL makes money on the entertainment factor of the game and this game broke records for scoring. Both QB's had reception attempts lol.
2 of Philly's TD's could have been disallowed with less controversy than some of those in the regular season if the refs had wanted to go the other way. There were minimal PI penalties (were there any?). I think this game was set up for a high scoring affair behind the scenes. I also think the books know this and that they just don't want to let it be known that they were beaten by the setup. Unfortunately for the NFL no NE receiver could pull in the Hail Mary to send it to OT and really knock the books out, but they had their result by then anyway and that wasn't a big issue.
Thats my tinfoil hat take on the game and I'm sticking to it. Pile on guys.