Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Las Vegas oddsmakers share their favorite Super Bowl stories

Super Bowl 49: Postgame

Matt York / AP

Seattle Seahawks fans react during Super Bowl XLIX between the Seahawks and New England Patriots on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2015, in Glendale, Ariz.

Jimmy Vaccaro, one of the deans of the Las Vegas bookmaking community, marvels at how popular and accepted sports betting has become.

“For someone like me, it’s amazing where we are and where we’re headed,” Vaccaro said during an interview in advance of today's Super Bowl 54. “In three to five years, we’re going to be legal in 30 states.”

Now in his 46th year in the business, the South Point bookmaker and Vegas Stats & Information Network personality recalled some of the most memorable Super Bowl moments from his long career, which has included stops at the MGM Grand, Golden Nugget and Mirage.

One was the infamous “Black Sunday” Super Bowl of 1979 in which sports books lost heaps of cash after being “middled” when the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Dallas Cowboys, 35-31.

The line in that game opened at 3.5 in favor of the Steelers but moved to 4.5 closer to kickoff. That allowed bettors to put money on the Steelers at -3.5 and the Cowboys at +4.5 and root for the Steelers to win by four points, allowing them to cash both tickets.

Vaccaro also recalled a play during Super Bowl 20 in 1986 that spotlighted the growing popularity of proposition bets.

It was when Chicago defensive lineman William “Refrigerator” Perry scored a third-quarter rushing touchdown during a blowout win for the Bears, triggering a prop bet payout.

“At that time, props were getting bigger,” Vaccaro said. “We started doing them maybe in 1980 or 1981. I was at the original MGM running their book.”

“I remember Art Manteris was at Caesars Palace and he was the first one to put the (Perry) prop up, then I followed. I think I opened it at 40-to-1 and closed it at 8-to-1. We lost $44,000 — I remember that figure to this day,” he said.

“That gave prop bets national attention because the Associated Press did a story and then, before big events, every newspaper in the country would call us to see if we had anything like we had with the Refrigerator,” Vaccaro said.

Following are some other memorable Super Bowl betting moments as recalled by some of the best-known oddsmakers in Las Vegas.

Click to enlarge photo

MGM Resorts Sports Book Director Jay Rood monitors NFL games and bets coming in at the Mirage Race & Sports Book on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2011.

Jay Rood of Bet.Works on how a late interception improbably turned the tide in Super Bowl 49 between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots in 2015.

“It’s the more painful times that you tend to remember. If they give the ball to Beast Mode (Marshawn Lynch) at the 1-yard-line, it would have been a significantly different day for us. I think it would have been a seven-figure swing for us had Seattle scored a touchdown.

“I remember we were watching in the control room and I was looking at a tiny TV that we had a different feed on. It was six or seven seconds faster than the big screen we had in the room, so I saw the play happen, said some choice words, and everyone is asking, ‘What?’ I turned around and pointed at the big screen and said, ‘That!’ It’s part of the business. Sometimes you win; sometimes you lose."

Click to enlarge photo

Chuck Esposito, the Race & Sports Book Director for Sunset Station Casino poses for a photo inside the Sports book at Sunset Station on October 5, 2016.

Chuck Esposito, Sunset Station race and sports director, recalled Super Bowl 41 in 2006 between the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears and an opening kickoff return touchdown by Chicago’s Devin Hester.

“I love the weeks leading up to the game when you’re working on the props. What really stands out to me was in the Bears/Colts Super Bowl, which was also in Miami. We had a prop on the board that year on would Devin Hester score a touchdown, who would score the first touchdown, and would there be a special teams touchdown.

“Hester was a return star back then. He was extraordinary and the public bet Hester in all three of those categories. The Bears end up getting the opening kickoff. All week leading up to the game, we heard reports that (Colts coach) Tony Dungy said he wasn’t going to kick to Hester. Well, Dungy changes his mind on the bus ride over to the game.

“Anyway, I remember Hester being back to receive and seeing him catch the ball. I turned my head; I was at Caesars Palace at the time as their assistant vice president of race and sports, and I hear this roar that is the loudest I have every heard at a sports book in my entire career. It sounded like a jet engine.

“I look up and I see Hester running down the sideline. It was the first play of the game, which was super cool. A lot of people knew they were going to cash a ticket after the very first play of the game. From an industry standpoint, I bet it was a high-six-figure loss. Maybe seven figures. We needed the Colts in that game, though, so the final outcome of the game was good.”

Vinny Magliulo, sports director for Gaughan Gaming and another ViSN personality, worked at Caesars Palace for 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s before moving to Wynn Las Vegas, where he opened the property’s sports book. Magliulo needed to go back only a year to Super Bowl 53 between New England and the Los Angeles Rams for one of his standout memories.

“You remember how high-scoring the Rams were during the season, but there was a proposition bet at South Point that the Rams would score exactly three points (New England won, 13-3). That prop bet was 500-to-1. Someone stepped up to the counter and put $200 on that and ended up walking away with $100,000. Think about that. How unlikely was it that the Rams wouldn’t even score a touchdown? This individual felt confident enough to put $200 on that prop and bam, there you go.

“I also remember, in 1997, the Green Bay Packers were 14-point favorites over the Patriots. There was considerable wagering, obviously, on that game, but the game ended 35-21, Green Bay, so we wound up refunding money, and it took a day and a half to get everybody their money back. The lines were longer for people to get their money back than for pregame betting. I call that game the Great Refund.”

Click to enlarge photo

Jay Kornegay, the vice president of SuperBook Sports, is interviewed at the Westgate Friday, Feb. 2, 2018.

Jay Kornegay is vice president of race and sports operations at the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook, where he has been for 16 years. But he was at the Imperial Palace (now the Linq) in 1999 when Denver played Atlanta in Super Bowl 33. More than 20 years later, Kornegay still remembers a certain unhappy bettor who made an outrageous allegation.

“We knew that was most likely going to be John Elway’s last game, so we put up a proposition on whether Bubby Brister, Elway’s backup, would have a rushing attempt, meaning would he have a kneel-down? Back then, a kneel-down was a rushing attempt. The idea was that, if the Broncos were winning, they would most likely bring Elway off the field so he could receive his due.

“That’s exactly what happened, and Brister actually kneeled down twice. When the game ended, a guest started yelling at me. He was saying he knew I was from Denver and that I had called coach (Mike) Shanahan and told him to put Brister in because we needed it.

“This guy is screaming and people are just laughing at him, but he was totally serious. He thought I had a hotline — it would have had to be a landline — to coach Shanahan. He’s thinking I had called up and said, ‘Hey, it’s Jay in Vegas, can you put Bubby in? We really need him to have a rushing attempt.’ I think the guy told me he was an attorney from California. It created quite a stir.

“Back before the Ravens/49ers Super Bowl (in 2013), we had a guy come in with $30,000 and he didn’t know which team to bet. For a day or two he kept wanting to talk to us, trying to get everybody’s thoughts. He couldn’t make up his mind, so he just put it on the coin toss and he won. We lost on the coin toss for like eight consecutive years because it kept being heads. Everybody likes heads.”

Bill Sattler, director of specialty games for Bally’s, Paris Las Vegas and Planet Hollywood, remembers the famous “helmet catch” by former Giants wide receiver David Tyree, which helped New York spoil New England’s bid for a perfect season in Super Bowl 32 in 2008. Tyree’s famous catch, which sparked New York’s game-winning touchdown drive, went for an improbable 32-yard gain and a first down. He caught the ball by pressing it against his helmet as he fell to the ground.

“With the Patriots leading 14-10 and the Giants deep in their own territory with two minutes remaining, I decided to start hopping from each of my books on the Strip to make sure we were prepared to cash tickets and congratulate on a successful day due to our best scenario where the favorite wins, don’t cover and stays under.

“As I’m walking from Imperial Palace to Flamingo Las Vegas, an eruption occurs from everywhere when Tyree makes his helmet catch. I watched the end in O’Sheas, and by the time I reach the sports book at Flamingo, there must have been a thousand people in line to cash. It was one of the worst Super Bowls for all the books in the city, but seeing all the happy customers was great to witness.”