Setting the Super Bowl line: Action starts tonight for sports betting’s biggest event

By Case Keefer (contact)

Sunday, Jan. 30, 2022 | 2 a.m.

When Station Casinos typically first opens betting lines on NFL games during the season, it’s lucky to draw a few immediate requests for large wagers.

That won’t be the case tonight when Jason McCormick, Station’s vice president of race and sports, and his team post the point spread and total on Super Bowl 56 either near the end or at the conclusion of the NFC Championship Game. There’s usually no delay to the action as the Super Bowl will draw “1,000% more” handle, according to McCormick, in the first couple hours compared to any other game.

“We’ve seen some six-figure bets right out of the box,” McCormick said of past conference-championship Sundays. “We’ll see big wagers immediately following the conference championships, people taking their winnings from the conference championship and rolling it right into the Super Bowl. It’s an exciting start to the lead-up to the big game.”

The Super Bowl still reigns as sports betting’s biggest one-day event of the year, no doubt helped by the two-week build-up that sees bookmakers post hundreds if not thousands of different ways to wager. But the spread specifically remains the prime attraction.

Most of the money on it still won’t come in until 72 hours before kickoff, scheduled for 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 13 at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, but the line is likely to be all but set by then. Tonight is when those bettors concerned with getting the best value will need to be ready to act, whether it be via a physical sports book or through a mobile betting app.

There’s typically an hour or longer when the consensus isn’t quite set, when not all sports books across the valley will have an identical price. Last year, for instance, a few shops offered the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at +3.5 versus the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Chiefs quickly shot down to -3 and solidified there before the game two weeks later, which the Buccaneers won outright 31-9. That may have only been a half-point — though an important one to a key betting number of -3 — but in each of the three previous years, the opening line in Las Vegas moved at least 1.5 points by the time the game kicked off.

“Early on, you’ll see some difference in opinion,” said Adam Pullen, assistant director of trading at Caesars Sports. “It doesn’t take too long for everything to get ironed out and get a consensus number among everyone, but it is a little crazy when the lines first go out.”

Although the exact number won’t be determined until bookmakers see how Cincinnati at Kansas City and San Francisco at the Los Angeles Rams plays out, discussions on the opening line are well under way in risk rooms across town. Some shops, including Caesars (formerly William Hill), have already posted odds on all the potential matchups.

At Caesars, the Chiefs are a 2.5-point favorite over the Rams in the most-likely matchup. In a potential Super Bowl 54 rematch, the Chiefs are a 3-point favorite against the 49ers. The remaining two scenarios are the Bengals sitting at +3.5 against the Rams and +2.5 against the 49ers.

Pullen doesn’t anticipate straying too far from those prices, because even if other places go with something different, he’s not afraid of taking a big bet before moving the line. That’s not necessarily the same philosophy every bookmaker would have the rest of the year.

“In the regular season, we like that opening line to be as sharp as we can because professionals are the ones betting into the opening line when we put it up,” said Jeff Stoneback, director of trading for MGM Resorts. “But the Super Bowl, you’ve got rooms full of people that are watching the championships and ready to bet. It sounds kind of odd, but if you open a line a point or 1.5 points off from what the closing line is, you’re not going to get hurt as much as we could in the regular season when we’re taking all sharp action early. You’re going to have public money (on the Super Bowl) on both sides no matter what number you put up.”

Nevada has booked more than $100 million in Super Bowl bets for eight straight years, according to the state’s gaming control board. Last season’s game brought a slight decrease from the previous four years, but still wound up fifth all-time with a $136,096,460 handle.

And that was with stricter restrictions and less travel earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving some to believe this year’s total will skyrocket up regardless of which teams advance.

“It doesn’t matter who’s going to play,” Stoneback said. “It could be Bengals-49ers, which would probably be the least marquee matchup and it’s still the Super Bowl. People are still going to come. People have their plans. The game has become much bigger than the matchup now.”

McCormick said he thought the exact matchup mattered less than it once did, but still thought Chiefs vs. Rams would stimulate the most betting action largely because of the big-name players on each side and ensuing proposition-betting interest.

Nevada sports books have collectively only lost money on the Super Bowl twice in the 31 years since the gaming control board began compiling the data. Many often wonder how that’s possible, and a large part of the answer can be found in the props and futures.

Some of the prop-betting options have higher hold percentage, as do the majority of future pools bet into all season around town. The final statewide Super Bowl tally includes all wagers on teams to win the Super Bowl from throughout the year.

One of the only scenarios that could hypothetically hand sports books a Super Bowl loss would be if a popularly-bet futures side prevailed in the Super Bowl. There is one such team still alive this year — the San Francisco 49ers.

Both Station Casinos and Caesars are facing a significant loss in the futures if the franchise claims its sixth championship. The former raised San Francisco as high as 200-to-1 after a 2-4 start to the year, while the latter operates the largest number of books in state including several in Northern Nevada where there’s a huge contingent of 49ers’ fans.

“Whenever a Bay Area team is contending for a championship, it’s not going to be a good outcome for us, at least in Nevada,” Pullen said. “That’s certainly the case here: The 49ers are the worst outcome for us in the Super Bowl, a decent seven-figure loss.”

Pullen could potentially maneuver off some of the San Francisco liability even if the 49ers beat the Rams tonight. There’s always the option to offer better prices on the Super Bowl opponent, therefore effectively inviting action on the Chiefs or Bengals.

But to be the most effective, that decision can’t wait. Especially with betting interest now higher than ever, Super Bowl season starts in earnest tonight.

“As soon as we hang it, you’ll see some really good action going into Monday,” McCormick said. “I think the initial reaction with the Super Bowl is, ‘I’m going to get down right now. I know the team I like.’ I think the excitement of knowing you’re down for that game immediately and the first instincts is why you see so much action on Sunday night.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or