Prior to the NFL championship games, the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook offered Carolina at minus-3 against Denver in a Super Bowl look-ahead line but found relatively few takers. A little over a week later, the line is up to six in some places—including Westgate—and may climb higher as money continues to pour in on the Panthers.
Bettors have sided with the favorites ever since they demolished Arizona in the NFC Championship, with some books reporting up to 90 percent of tickets written for Carolina.
It’s not necessarily surprising that the Panthers, who finished the regular season with a 15-1 record, would garner loads of support. But Las Vegas bookmakers say belief in Carolina has been late-arriving.
“They got really very little love throughout the season,” CG Technology’s Jason Simbal said on Sportsline’s Opening Line podcast. “The amount of money that we were to win on a 15-1 team is something I’ve never seen before, so it just showed that there was really not much public support for this team throughout the year. Then all of the sudden, they have that great first half against Seattle and they blowout the Cardinals and everybody’s jumping on the bandwagon.
“If you were on this team early, I can see being on it late, but people’s opinions really have changed with just one performance.”
Jeff Sherman, assistant manager at the Westgate SuperBook, said they also saw little support for Carolina in futures betting.
“All the way up until the end when they were playing Arizona we had higher-than-market out there, trying to spread it out over the remaining teams that we had, but really throughout the year there wasn’t an overwhelming amount of support for them.”
Sunday’s game kicks off at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, and will be televised by CBS.
AROUND THE WEB
- Is oddsmaking a dying art? Colin Kelly of Covers.com talks to bookmakers in Las Vegas and offshore about their process and how it’s changed over the years.
- Joseph Randle says “no truth at all” to report he was cut from the Dallas Cowboys for betting on sports.
- Line on Super Bowl could get as high as 7, according to some Las Vegas bookmakers.
- DraftKings is pulling out of Hawaii after the state Attorney General said DFS is illegal gambling and a local prosecutor followed with cease-and-desist letters.
- PBS documentary series Frontline to take on DFS next week.
LOOK WHO’S TALKING
“The large mass of bettors love to bet the underdog. They also want to bet on something that can happen, not something that usually doesn’t. If we were to make a horrible mistake on those three prop bets and the world cashed in on it, we’d all have to turn out the lights and send out resumes.” —Westgate VP of Race and Sports Jay Kornegay on prop betting trends and popularity.
“…The games are getting tougher and there are a lot more people that are playing really well and are really good at playing daily fantasy, which wasn’t the case three or four years ago. Because of that, the expectation for me to win in these daily fantasy games has gone down a lot, so I don’t spend as much time on them as I used to.” —High-stakes player Cory Albertson on the diminishing edge in DFS
TWEETS OF NOTE
Offshore sportsbook @PinnacleSports says 60.6 percent of bets on the Super Bowl spread are on the #Broncos +5.5. Opposite of Vegas books.
— David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum) February 2, 2016
The new sports book at the Cosmopolitan will be open for the Super Bowl, per Simbal. Photos show it’s coming along.
@VitalVegas pic.twitter.com/dDFZzLi4Zk — Bogan Painter (@red318is) February 2, 2016
ODDS & ENDS
- Canelo Alvarez/Amir Khan fight set for May 7. Westgate set the odds at Canelo -300/Khan +250.
- Madden 16 calls for the under, a Broncos cover and a Carolina title.
- A member of the Broncos practice squad was questioned in connection to a prostitution sting
- Johnny Manziel’s days appear numbered in Cleveland.
- A senior guard on Mercer’s basketball team was shot and killed Tuesday.
- A minor dustup in the DFS world as one of the top-ranked players in the world is changing his handle (not an option for players on most sites without special permission)
ODDSMAKER’S TAKE
“If I had to guess, I think you’ll see some 6.5s. I would doubt that it will go to 7. If some place went to 7, I know it wouldn’t last more than a minute. It’s been all public driving this thing up. I’m sure there’s going to be some sharp money, they’re just waiting for their buying point to get involved on Denver.” —Westgate SuperBook assistant manager Jeff Sherman on the Super Bowl 50 point spread