Clemson win was a huge loss for sports books

Deshaun Watson shed tears of joy after engineering Clemson’s thrilling 35-31 comeback win over Alabama in Monday’s national championship game. The Tigers quarterback also made bookmakers want to weep when he threw a winning touchdown pass with one second left to give the 6-point underdogs the outright upset win.

Most Las Vegas sports books suffered heavy losses on the game as the public pounded Clemson on the money line, which closed at plus-180.

William Hill’s 108 books in Nevada lost more than $1 million on the game.

“It was definitely our worst college football game ever, and I’m pretty sure it was our biggest loss in a single game,” William Hill sports book director Nick Bogdanovich said.

The game, a rematch of last year’s championship won 45-40 by the Crimson Tide, generated an estimated handle of more than $20 million in Nevada that is one of the highest ever for a college football national title game.

“It’s the highest single-game handle I’ve ever seen, which proves that college is catching up,” veteran South Point oddsmaker Jimmy Vaccaro said. “It keeps telling me I’ve been wrong for 20 years saying that we can’t get much better and we can’t write more tickets. The public keeps telling me, ‘Jimmy, go sit down. You’re wrong.’

“The intriguing thing to me was we wrote more on that game than we did on the first NFL game of the weekend.”

The Westgate, Wynn and MGM Resorts each reported six-figure losses on the game.

“It wasn’t a catastrophe. It definitely was a hard punch to the jaw,” Westgate sports book director Jay Kornegay said. “Everything the public bet came through for them.”

Kornegay said Clemson bettors cashed in on the money line, against the spread, on the second-half over and during in-progress wagering. Of the first $11,020 bet on the game at the Westgate, Kornegay said only $20 was on Alabama. The money never stopped pouring in on the Tigers, even after they fell behind 7-0 and were getting 10½ points and were down 14-0 and getting 19.

“We got a lot of Clemson money at plus-19,” he said. “From that point on, it felt like Clemson dominated the game.”

One William Hill bettor won $100,000 on a straight bet on the Tigers and another pocketed $180,000 when Clemson closed out a $30,000 three-team parlay that also featured the Pittsburgh Steelers (minus-10½) and Michigan State, which covered a 13-point spread Jan. 4 in a 93-65 college basketball win over Rutgers.

The Westgate took multiple five-figure wagers on Clemson ATS and on the money line, and over the total of 51. The teams combined for 45 points in the second half and 28 in the fourth quarter, when Watson threw two of his three touchdown passes, including the decisive 2-yard toss to Hunter Renfro.

“It was the worst loss of the year in college football, but I have no complaints about the college football season,” Kornegay said. “It really treated us well for the entire season. Except for the last game.”

The historic loss for the books will go down alongside Texas’ upset of Southern California in the 2006 Rose Bowl as one of the best title games in college football history.

“It’s spectacular viewing. You can’t script this stuff,” Vaccaro said. “Everybody got their money’s worth. We paid out, but it’s part of the racket. You win some. You lose some.”

ODDS ON TIDE-TIGERS III

Alabama is the 3-1 favorite to win the national title next season and Clemson is 18-1 at the Westgate. Florida State, which opens the season Sept. 2 against the Crimson Tide in Atlanta, is 7-1.

Oklahoma, Ohio State and USC are at 8-1, and Louisville, Michigan and Louisiana State are at 12-1.

Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0354. Follow @tdewey33 on Twitter.