Super Bowl week has officially started! The days leading up to the big game is always crazy, and large wagers are already rolling in. The dream matchup between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs should provide for a great game, and the excitement is mounting.
The Chiefs are a consensus 3-point favorite over the Bucs, who will be playing on their home turf of Raymond James Stadium.
Prior to legalized gambling in many states, there were two meccas people would hit to gamble, Las Vegas and Atlantic City. And, after waiting decades to place legal wagers on the Super Bowl in New Jersey, people are finally getting their chance.
And, while we will hear a lot about the goings on in Vegas this week, I wanted to check out what the Super Bowl gambling scene was like on the East Coast. I also wanted to give readers a look at the life of an oddsmaker during this busy time, so I chatted with Tom Gable, the Director of Sports for Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City. He filled me in on the inner workings of his job around the big event.
The longtime oddsmaker has been working in the industry for over 20 years and has seen it all when it comes to the action surrounding the spectacle. Gable got his start in the industry at the Sands and has been in the “game” ever since.
Here is a look into Gable's typical Super Bowl Sunday:
What time do you wake up on Super Bowl Sunday?
Same as a typical NFL Sunday, which means waking up between 6 and 6:30 a.m.
From there, I go through emails and then check for any updates to see if anything changed overnight in terms of our positions.
Walk me through your typical Super Bowl Sunday.
Super Bowl Sunday isn’t much different than a typical NFL regular season Sunday for me, other than I may have more media requests than usual. It’s a longer day, as I’m here until closing. It’s a fun atmosphere all day though.
You typically have a line in the book right up until kickoff, with people trying to get their bets in. It’s all hands on deck to try and handle the volume. You need more people in than usual on all fronts: writers, supervisors, the trading team. The casino marketing team is on property in force, hosting their players and wanting to make sure they get their wagers in.
It’s just a great atmosphere, especially as the anticipation builds to the game. The book is buzzing all day.
How does your book set the Super Bowl lines and how often are they monitored?
We pretty much have the spread and totals set for potential Super Bowl match-ups heading into the conference championships. Power ratings aren’t going to change much unless there is a significant injury on a team that occurs in one of the games.
Once the spread and total open, you will see what comes in right away and react to it but after that, the line doesn’t change much through the week. The Super Bowl is a very efficient market. You’ll constantly be monitoring the wagering that comes in, but in terms of line movement, it’s pretty minimal.
That being said, with the COVID situation this year, anything could potentially happen if news breaks regarding someone testing positive.
What causes you to move the Super Bowl line?
Honestly, once the Super Bowl line settles in, there won’t be too much that moves it. This year may be an exception if some COVID news comes out, but again, it’s a very efficient market with a lot of liquidity, so you won’t see much adjusting.
Prop bets have become extremely popular. How does your book handle prop bets when it comes to setting the lines and limiting them?
The prop bet market continues to grow every year. The Super Bowl offers us the chance to get really creative and offer props that we wouldn’t offer on a typical regular season game. Some props you will find every week of the season, such as player props (quarterback passing attempts, yardage, etc.) but there are many more derivative markets available for the Super Bowl.
We have up to 20 alternate lines available on the spread and total for the full game, and many alternate lines available for the 1st half, 2nd half and every quarter specifically. You can offer a variety of team totals and alternate team totals. Those are the first props that we come out with along with the player props, Super Bowl MVP odds, and some field goal and touchdown props.
Then as we get closer to the game, we will continue to release props right up until game day. Many sportsbooks print full packets that are 20-50 pages full of available prop bets and we aren’t any different. I think customers have become accustomed to coming in and asking for a packet to leaf through and find some things they like.
We typically open prop bets with a $3,000 limit on the first day they are available and then increase them as we get closer to $10,000 a prop.
What is the craziest Super Bowl story you can remember?
It was two years ago, when the Rams were playing the Patriots. I was in the book on Saturday night the week before the game and standing out front on the cashier line. A guy came up to the window who looked pretty shabby wearing clothes with some holes in them and carrying some plastic shopping bags and asked how much he could bet on the Super Bowl. I told him, “You can bet as much as you want.” I had never seen the guy before and he wasn’t familiar to anyone working at the time.
He said, “Ok” and walked out of the book. About 15 minutes later he came back and walked up to the writer and said he wanted to put down “260” on the Rams and the over in a parlay. Looking at the guy, I was surprised that he had $260 on him but the writer entered the bet and before she printed the ticket, she told him to check the screen to make sure that the parlay was how he wanted it. He looked at the screen and said, “No, not $260.00, I want to bet $260,000.00”.
Sure enough, the guy started taking out stacks of money that had bank currency wrappers on it, from his plastic shopping bags. He had the full $260,000.00 and I have no idea how long he had been carrying it around in those bags. You can never judge a person by their appearance!
If you guys get crushed during the Super Bowl, do your bosses have a "talk" with you?
No, I think everyone understands by now that there are very high days in this business and very low days. We aren’t the slot department where we can’t lose money in a day. Swings happen all the time and everyone here has been in the casino business long enough to realize that that happens in the gambling business.
What time do you go to sleep after the Super Bowl?
Whatever time I get home after the game and after we close up the book for the day. We stay open to cash out until there isn’t a line anymore.
So, there you have it folks, that was fun. I can't wait to get out to Atlantic City next year to partake in the action.
Vikas Chokshi covers the gambling industry for BetQL and his written work can be found on the sports betting vertical of Radio.com. He has an extensive network of oddsmakers and appears frequently on podcasts, radio and television shows. His previous work can be found at The Action Network, VSiN, Gaming Today, Front Office Sports and The Big Lead.
You can find him at @docksquad33 on Twitter.