Las Vegas sports books’ demise overblown

A story with a Las Vegas dateline was topped with a sensational headline: "Sports books take 'staggering' hit."

The version of the tale published Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times painted a vague picture of bettors wiping out Las Vegas books for big payouts throughout the NFL season.

To quote the third paragraph: "The problem for Las Vegas sports books is that many popular NFL teams beat the point spread during the regular season. And with many bettors combining their picks in parlays, $20 wagers turned into payouts of up to more than $1,000."

An unnamed bookmaker called the season a "staggering" financial hit for the state's books. Two book directors, Jay Kornegay of the LVH and Jay Rood of MGM Resorts, were quoted in the story.

It's a fishy tale for anyone with knowledge of how Las Vegas books typically fare during a football season. The Nevada Gaming Commission reports monthly wins and losses, and rarely do the books endure a losing year.

It's also important to know that bookmakers prefer to play up their losing weeks and downplay their winning weeks, thus encouraging the betting public to keep returning to the windows.

Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos did cash a lot of tickets this season, but this is not the first time a popular public team has covered a majority of its games.

"It was below average for the year as everything washed out. We weathered the storm. Obviously, every joint is different," said Jimmy Vaccaro, director of public relations for William Hill sports books. "As far as we're concerned, it wasn't bad whatsoever. I've seen better years, but it wasn't disastrous."

The bookmakers expected a big win for the NFL season, and, in most cases, won only a little. That storyline is not as sensational.

There was an ugly stretch through November in which, Vaccaro said, "We got beat up pretty good during that span."

But, for the most part, the books crushed the bettors for the first six weeks. "We had an unbelievable September and most of October," Vaccaro said.

WagerMinds.com followed up on the L.A. Times story with some facts and financial numbers:

"Nevada sports books haven't had a losing football season, ever. The worst year Nevada books had handling football bets was 1992. They made $19.8 million, which was 2.69 percent of the $735 million bet on football in Nevada books that year. Since then, the books have never made less than $30 million in any year handling football bets.

"Through the first 10 months of 2012, Nevada sports books have handled $1.28 billion in wagers - a record amount - and books have won $96.8 million. More specifically, books won $44 million on football bets in the quarter ending Oct. 31, 2012."

The numbers for November will be released soon, and by most accounts it was a month that staggered the books. But the lights will be on and the windows will remain open for the Super Bowl in February.

HOT 'DOGS

Underdog bettors got the best of it during the 256-game regular season. According to Dave Tuley of ViewFromVegas.com, the 'dogs covered 131 games, favorites covered 117, there were seven point-spread pushes and one pick-'em game with no favorite.

Tuley, who charts the consensus closing lines each week, said, "Home 'dogs, which started so strong, barely topped .500 at 44-42-2 against the spread."

HOME COOKING?

A note from handicapper Marc Lawrence on VegasInsider.com: "Home teams in the NFL postseason are just 113-102-5 ATS (52.7 percent) since the 1990 season and, even worse, 64-66-1 ATS (49.2) since 2000. Thus, like the economy, NFL playoff hosts have fallen on hard times."

COMPILED BY MATT YOUMANS/ LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL