Bet on anything Super Bowl-related
Christina Binkley
The Wall Street Journal
Jan. 24, 2003 07:55 AM
The Raiders are favored to win the Super Bowl this weekend, but here's the real question some people want answered: Who will win the coin toss?
Gamblers used to put their money on weighty issues, like who would win a football game. But rising competition, particularly from offshore-betting operations that take wagers over the Web, has Las Vegas casinos posting hundreds of novelty bets known as propositions or "props."
These bets, which hardly existed 10 years ago, have virtually taken over Super Bowl betting. An estimated $80 million or so will be wagered legally in Nevada on this year's game - much of it on these prop bets. As a result, it's now possible to bet on almost every moment of action in the game - and some that aren't. One going wager at the Imperial Palace casino this Sunday: Which will amount to more - touchdown passes by the Raiders' Rich Gannon or the total number of goals shot in a coming British soccer match between West Ham and powerhouse Manchester United?
Others focus more specifically on the Super Bowl itself or on individual players. Which team will score last in the first half? Which kicker will score more points? Will Jerry Rice have a better game than his Buccaneers counterpart Keyshawn Johnson?
"You can make a prop on anything as long as you can put a number to it," says Las Vegas oddsmaker Jason Been.
Prop betting will help draw 250,000 people to Las Vegas this weekend, where they're likely to spend even more money on hotel rooms, food and other entertainment. In addition, prop bets appeal to novices, enticing new customers to gamble. Sports books, as the casinos' betting parlors are known, are there to entertain casino customers who gamble on other games like blackjack or slot machines.
Some of the most popular bets involve some sort of celebrity worship or antipathy toward star players. Vegas bookies were thrilled last weekend when the Raiders won in the playoffs because the team is loaded with famous players who draw fans' attention. Look for plenty of bets involving wide receiver Mr. Rice and quarterback Mr. Gannon, as well as the showy younger receiver, Mr. Johnson of Tampa Bay. (One early-days prop bet was whether low-scoring heavyweight football lineman William "Refrigerator" Perry would manage to score a touchdown.)
Odds makers like Mr. Been have been at work for days throwing out bet ideas and deciding - through an unscientific process of discussion - what the odds will be. By game day, some casinos will get positively silly as bookmakers vie to offer unique bets. A favorite of Mr. Been, who works for Las Vegas Sports Consultants, a big oddsmaking firm, was when casinos took bets comparing the total score of the Super Bowl to the points scored by the Los Angeles Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal in a basketball game the same day.
"It makes the game more intriguing," says Lane Forman, a Boston advertising and marketing executive who plans to place eight different bets on the game in Las Vegas this weekend. "You can wager on who's going to score first, who last, who'll score inside the two-minute warning."
Federal law bans sports betting outside of Nevada - even in other casinos around the country. And the National Football League does its best to distance itself from gambling, legal or not. The league once refused to provide technical information about the official colors of football teams to MGM Mirage, which wanted to make balloons for a Super Bowl party, according to a spokeswoman for the company. Still, as many as $4 billion may be bet illegally on this Sunday's game in San Diego in wagers placed with local bookies or offshore betting parlors that operate Web sites.
The bets can affect the way millions view the games. Robert Walker, head of bookmaking for MGM Mirage, recalls chaos in the casino when referees ended a game after a pass was thrown with several seconds remaining on the clock. The win was without question, but thousands of dollars were riding on which team was in possession of the ball at the end of the game - and viewers couldn't tell who had caught the ball when the TV cameras cut away.
Compounding the dilemma, casinos and oddsmakers couldn't just call the NFL to settle the issue because the league won't take calls from casinos. Instead, they had to wait for the Associated Press to issue box scores an hour or so later.
This weekend, it will be possible to place bets up until game time, during half time, and in the minutes before any overtime is played. Most casinos have a separate space devoted to sports bookmaking. The bets are listed on giant screens, as well as on more-detailed sheets that gamblers can study before placing wagers.
The work developing prop bets began as soon as the playoffs ended on Sunday. Mr. Walker, who is responsible for the bets and odds at casinos including the Mirage, Bellagio, MGM Grand and New York New York, started researching play-by-plays and other game statistics early Monday morning. Four monitors on his desk flashed numbers from sites including NFL.com as a half dozen members of his staff worked overtime typing prop bets and their odds into the computer system.
To beat his competition, Mr. Walker often tries to develop a few bets that no one else will have. "Will (Tampa fullback Mike) Alstott's first rushing carry be five yards or less?" he posited. The bet could be popular because Alstott is well liked. But would five be the right number?
Mr. Walker turned to ESPN.com and started reading play-by-plays of Tampa Bay's last two games. Mr. Alstott, a bulky, slow-footed player, had one carry for six yards, but rarely carried the ball more than three yards. "So I think maybe five yards is too much for him," Mr. Walker said, adjusting the prop to read three yards. Later, Mr. Walker would set odds on the bet, then adjust them to provide the casino with a hoped-for 17 percent profit. He didn't run them by an outside oddsmaker. "When I do that, sometimes they end up at other properties," he said - though, he allowed, "in the next few days, we'll steal props from other properties."
Of course, people will clearly bet on anything. "We'll get bets that the final score will be 4 to 2," said Mr. Walker, referring to an extremely unlikely event. "They'll put $10 on it."
