Super Bowl in Vegas? You Bet
LAS VEGAS – Scott Desgrosseilliers had three simple requests when he first began dating the woman who is now his wife.
He would never settle in the Chicago suburbs. (They were living in Downtown Chicago at the time.)
He would always go to Las Vegas for Super Bowl weekend.
She would never be invited.
It’s worked out well for them both since they first met in 2007. They have a child and she gets a good laugh every year when Scott and his pals return.
“She has been awesome about the trip every year,’’ says Desgrosseilliers, a resident of Marblehead. “I chose well.’’
Spending Super Bowl weekend in Las Vegas has become the right choice for thousands of football fans. In 2014, a record $119.4 million was wagered on the game in the legal Nevada sports books. That marked a 20 percent increase over the previous year. Thanks to Seattle’s 43-8 demolition of Denver, the books hauled in a record $19.7 million profit.
For Desgrosseilliers, his annual trip [11 of the past 12 years] has become a bottomless source of stories, if not income.
As the marketing saying goes: “What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.’’
Especially on Super Bowl weekend.
Maybe that’s a good thing.
“The atmosphere is straight out of a Hunter Thompson novel,’’ Desgrosseilliers, 43, explains. “A bunch of 30 to 60 year old men, all running on adrenaline from trying to party like they were in college, but instead needing IVs and triple vodkas to even get upright.’’
Not everyone is on the north side of adulthood.
“[You have] Insanely drunk 24-year-olds at the blackjack tables betting $100 per hand [Where do they get all this money?] wearing a Cowboys jersey, explaining why the Broncos are the lock.’’
Desgrosseilliers is a member of the Vegas Big Game Facebook group. It consists of about 300 members who plan to watch the game from Sin City. It was formed about a month ago.
By the way, there’s no such thing as the Super Bowl here. It’s called “The Big Game’’ by hotels, clubs, casinos and others who want to market their wares on the biggest football betting weekend of the year. No one dares risk the burden of a lawsuit from the litigious NFL. The league may not know much about how to properly inflate a football. But just try and use the trademarked term “Super Bowl’’ to market any large event of note and see how many seconds it takes to get that “cease-and-desist’’ letter from 450 Park Ave., in New York.
Last year, the Broncos were considered a lock based on the money wagered. Seattle opened up as a 2 ½-point favorite over Denver before the line was pushed to as far as Denver -3. The biggest bet off that game in Las Vegas was a $300,000 win on Seattle at the MGM. Still, Seattle’s lopsided win and the fact that most all the prop bets on the Broncos came up as “under’’ or “no’’ meant big bucks for the books.
“People usually bet ‘over’ or ‘yes’ on the proposition bets,’’ says Jay Kornegay, vice president of race and sports for the Las Vegas Hotel Super Book. “They come here to see things happen. It’s hard to bet against that.’’
“Crime against nature’’
This year, Seattle opened up as a 2 ½-point favorite over New England.
That number quickly dissipated.
Jay Rood is the Vice President of Race and Sports for MGM Resorts. He’s sets the odds at the 12 MGM sports betting properties in Nevada, which include the MGM Grand, the Mirage, and Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
Rood calls the original line of Seattle -2 ½ “a crime against nature’’ since this was New England’s sixth Super Bowl since 2002. “That’s why we moved as quickly as we did. And got to the side to where the Patriots are slight favorites. It makes it look like the world is right again,’’ he says.
The Patriots held at -1 most of the week. Three of 14 sports books in Las Vegas have shifted the line back to a pick on Saturday, reflecting an increase of money bet on Seattle.
Those spending Super Bowl weekend in Las Vegas are pre-disposed to expect just about anything, drastic or otherwise.
Among the other printable highlights of Degrosseilliers’ annual Super Bowl trips to Vegas:
— 30-minute monologues from one of his pals – ‘the most-degenerate gambler of the group’ – on why the cover-2 defense from team X is going to be exploited by the crossing patterns from team Y, thereby making it “easy money’’ to take the “points and the over.’’
— People who have bet $1,000 or $3,000 on the game, and then don’t even watch. “This is not due to superstition, but the fact that there is a craps table inside of the place we watch the game. You literally cannot get a seat at the craps table unless you bet $100 per toss, and everyone is betting way over that to try and win it all back,’’ he says.
— “Old Mafioso’’ types with stogies, and chicks that are half their age.
— Two of his pals play pai gow, but “only after they are trashed, and only from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m.’’ No one else in the group knows how the game works. But “whatever it is that they do, it is the reason we get comped our hotel rooms and sometimes meals, so I am grateful.’’
The tales of ribaldry are usually taller than the Stratosphere’s tower. Vegas has plenty of entertainment options, regardless of your preference in music, musicals, comedy, dance, magic, or up-close erotica.
This weekend, at least as far as we’re concerned, is about the unique ability to legally wager on the Super Bowl in public, drink and eat as much as possible, and watch the game unfold along with your financial fortune and a few thousand of your closest friends.
Las Vegas is “absolutely’’ the best place in the world to watch the Super Bowl, says Kornegay. He admits he’s a little biased. The life-long Broncos’ fan has never been to an actual Super Bowl since his work has kept him at his various gaming posts since 1987. His team at the LVH Super Book sets the line on many of those infamous “prop’’ bets that often dominate gambling discussion before the game.
This year’s prop sheet from the LVH Super Book was 48 pages long and featured odds on the first player to score, the last player to score, whether or not the first kickoff by Stephen Gostkowski will result in a touchback [YES -140, NO +120], and whether or not the number of points scored Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant Saturday night against Golden State is greater than the number of yards in Rob Gronkowski’s longest catch Sunday.
[That one closes at 8:10 p.m. Eastern time Saturday, so you’d better get here quickly.]
Analytics, science, psychology
Where do these numbers come from? The Super Bowl is unique among Vegas wagers in the fact that push of public money is so large, it ultimately determines the line.
Kornegay was a panelist at the 2014 MIT Sloan Sports Conference. He was bearish when it came to using analytics and statistics as the sole basis for establishing betting lines.
“I think that a lot of this is psychology that you have to get into the mind of your players on this side of the counter,’’ Kornegay says now. “Do we use analytics? Sure. But I don’t think you should use 100 percent numbers. It’s a combination of analytics, science, psychology. You have to know what side your guests are playing. I not just going to use analytics alone to set the line. To be an odds-maker and take whatever numbers your computer spits out, or whatever your power rankings spit out, is not the best way. It’s a little bit of a feel, like artwork trying to get into the minds of which way they’re going to bet this thing. Especially the Super Bowl. You have to use that aspect, to set this line.’’
Kornegay says the so-called Deflategate scandal had “zero’’ impact on this week’s betting line, nor did it affect wagering. Rood didn’t even want to discuss it.
There are a few things you cannot wager on legally in Las Vegas. Among them are the length of the National Anthem, the color of the winning team’s Gatorade, or the amount of times Bill Belichick smiles during the game.
Those bets are the domain of websites such as Bovada.Lv, which is located in the province of Quebec and run under the laws of the Mohawk nation’s Kahnawake Gaming Commission.
When it comes to legal sports betting in Nevada, the sports books are restricted by Nevada Gaming Regulations “to the field of play. The box scores, something that has the official result,’’ Kornegay says.
“We can’t put up the [color of the] Gatorade, or the length of the National Anthem. People don’t realize that. They see bets on TV like: ‘Is Belichick ever going to smile?’ Well, is that a smile? There’s no official result. As far as the Gatorade, there could be three or four different types of Gatorade on the sidelines. Someone probably knows what type of Gatorade is going to be in their bucket. As far as [the time] of the National Anthem, there’s no official result. When she starts singing, sometimes they start humming before they say the first word. Does that count? Does it end with the beginning of the last note? Or are you going to count until she holds the last note? There’s no official result of that. You can grade it however you want.’’
Everyone against the house
Rood has some advice for anyone who wants to place a Super Bowl wager on one of those “illegal websites’’ this weekend.
Don’t.
“Get on plane and come to Vegas because what they’re doing online is illegal and they’re betting into an unregulated environment. That’s a risky proposition, riskier than trying to pick the game itself,’’ says Rood, who has been with MGM in one capacity or another for more than 20 years.
Both Rood and Kornegay stress that sports betting on Super Bowl weekend in Las Vegas is something best done in moderation, especially for first-timers and amateur gamblers. “It is about having fun,’’ Root said. “People always talk about how the amateur gambler makes biggest mistake on the Super Bowl. They make the biggest bet because it’s the last game of the year. I know plenty of professional gamblers, wise guys, who won’t have a bet on who wins this game. The amateur gambler feels compelled to make a bet and make a sizable bet. Bet your normal thing.’’
Rood says there’s “camaraderie’’ among the bettors because they’re all on one side of the window to beat the house. “It takes on a big-party atmosphere,’’ he says.
“It’s like Friday at 5:30 at the bank, and everybody is trying to cash their paycheck. It’s an overwhelming sea of humanity that shows up. An hour before the game, we’ll have 25 windows open and 30 people in each line. It’s amazing how well our writers do in that high-pressure situation for the seven or eight hours before kickoff. It’s quite a spectacle,’’ he told Sports Business Daily back in 2014.
Marblehead resident Scott Desgrosseilliers.
Back to that fun, spectacle thing. Multiple Super Bowl weekends in Las Vegas, along with all those Patriots Super Bowl rings, have helped Desgrosseilliers get past the Patriots woes of his younger days. He grew up in Maine, and like millions across New England, was left numb by the mauling suffered by the Patriots in Super Bowl XX.
“I was being driven back in a snow storm from some Rhode Island rink hockey tournament, forced to hear the dismantling on the radio until my father said ‘They f-king suck’ and turned off the radio.’’
“Better to be lucky than good’’
Not every Super Bowl-weekend gambling story ends in loss, either financially or emotionally.
Here’s one tale from Baltimore’s win over San Francisco in Super Bowl XLVII.
A member of Desgrosseilliers’ entourage wasn’t much of a sports fan.
“He goes up to the betting counter and asks the guy for $20 on what he thought was ‘There will be a safety in the game.’ It seemed like a longshot.’’
The blackout that night sent many of the sports books in Las Vegas reeling. “The stadium lights go out. He says ‘screw it,’ and leaves to hop an early flight. He literally does not give a [expletive]. Before going, he looks over the ticket, and we share a chuckle over the fact that his ticket is actually ‘The LAST score of the game will be a safety.’’’
That game ended, as you may remember, with Baltimore’s punter running out of the end zone, taking a safety in the Ravens’ 34-31 victory.
“The game is over, we get a mass text with a picture of his ticket. He won 5Gs,’’ Desgrosseilliers says. “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.’’
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