You kind of had a feeling that this was coming, especially after the scenario already played itself out a few weeks ago. But nobody expected this kind of hit, and when Atlanta Falcons kicker Matt Bryant booted a field goal with 14 seconds remaining to give the Falcons a 19-13 lead, you could hear the air coming out of Las Vegas sports books.
From a potential Cowboys cover with the Falcons favored by 4.5 points and only up by 3…to unmitigated disaster.
“I’ve been here (LVH Super Book) 8 1/2 years, and this is the worst day I’ve had,” said LVH Super Book vice president Jay Kornegay.
The report comes by way of Micah Roberts from SportingNews and the result of Sunday’s NFL action is already being called one of the worst beatdowns Vegas books have ever had.
Bert Osborne, a 25-year veteran of running books for Michael Gaughan’s properties, didn’t mince his words when describing the result of Sunday’s NFL action.
“This could rival one of the worst Sundays we’ve ever had since I’ve been running a book,” said Osborne, before adding, “it’s a disaster”.
Just like the circumstances surrounding the hit Vegas sports books took two weeks ago, multiplying parlays became the talk of the town after Saturday’s college football action seeing plenty of betting winners. The momentum turned over into Sunday’s NFL games, particularly games with Denver, Baltimore, and Detroit all covering. From there, Murphy’s Law was on full effect for the books with the final strewing breaking after Bryant kicked the field goal to give the Falcons one of the most brutal backdoor covers the books have ever seen.
“If you don’t win the morning games, you can’t recover,“ Kornegay said. “You’re looking at a red number that the afternoon or evening game can’t erase.”
There’s no record on how much loss sports books took over the weekend, but the early – and somewhat conservative – estimates seem to suggest a loss amounting from $6 to $8 million collectively, an eye-popping figure considering that the books’ biggest ever hit occurred when they lost $2.5 million after the New York Giants upset the then-undefeated New England Patriots in SuperBowl 42.
But this weekend was just plain brutal for the books. Imagine having to cash out 10-team parlays with 800-to-1 odds. And that’s not even taking into account all the seven- and eight-teamers that actually hit.
You can throw words like ‘terrible’, ‘brutal’, and ‘disastrous’ around to describe the weekend’s action. But today, those words ring hollow, because they sound like understatements.
