Golden Knights make cross-sport prop bet debut at Westgate
It was an only-in-Las Vegas night Thursday inside the Westgate sports book, where the world’s largest indoor LED video wall lit up at 7 p.m. with approximately 400 Super Bowl LI prop bets posted in bright green-and-white letters and numbers.
It was like Christmas morning for many of the bettors who quickly lined up in front of the props-only betting window, where there was a steady line of more than 25 bettors for the first hour and beyond.
Many bettors, including professionals who declined comment, placed some wagers and then headed straight to the back of the line as it took time to digest the enormous amount of props on the menu.
The Golden Knights made their debut on the extensive list of cross-sport props, where bettors can wager on who will have more: Knights goals in their first NHL regular-season game later this year (minus-½ goal, minus-130) or total field goals made in the first half by the Falcons and Patriots (plus-½, plus-110).
Patient bettors also can bet on who will have more: Knights total 2017-18 regular-season points (minus-20½, minus-110) or Atlanta’s Devonta Freeman rushing yards (plus-20½, minus-110).
Other cross-sport props include NHL stars Connor McDavid and Alex Ovechkin, NBA stars LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Russell Westbrook and Isaiah Thomas, golfers Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, soccer players Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, boxer Wladimir Klitschko, and many more.
Bettors also can wager on virtually everything that takes place in the game — from the opening coin toss (heads and tails are both minus-102) and player to score the first touchdown (Falcons receiver Julio Jones and Patriots receiver Julian Edelman are each 8-1) to who will be named the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player (Atlanta kicker Matt Bryant is 100-1, and New England running back James White is 200-1) and everything in between.
Westgate sports book director Jay Kornegay said while props used to be known in the gaming world as “sucker bets,” that’s no longer the case.
“Over the years, the general public has had a lot of success and enjoyed themselves, and we’ve done well over the years. It’s gone both ways,” he said. “There’s only been a handful of safeties. We’re thankful for that and thankful there’s never been an overtime.”
The public cashed in on safeties in three straight Super Bowls from 2012 to 2014 — twice as the first score of the game — and the “Will there be a safety?” prop remains one of the most popular, albeit at 6-1 odds after it used to open at 10-1 or higher. Bettors can get 11-1 odds that there will be a safety in the first half and 10-1 odds that there will be one in the second half.
“Betting the safety and overtime is always going to be popular since the public got rewarded three years in a row with that thing,” Kornegay said. “Probably the most popular standard prop is the player to score the first touchdown. We’re going to take a lot of action on that. And then you start looking at the star players. Everything we have associated with Julio Jones is going to get a tremendous amount of action.”
For the record, a Super Bowl has never gone to overtime. Will there be overtime in Super Bowl LI? Yes is plus-700, and no is minus-1100.
Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0354. Follow @tdewey33 on Twitter.