Cornell’s basketball team becomes a darling of sports bettors

Cornell has become the darling of sports gamblers, forcing veteran Las Vegas race and sports book officials to change odds on the fly as the betting momentum rises for an experienced Big Red team that will tip off Thursday against top-seeded Kentucky in an NCAA East Regional semifinal game in Syracuse, N.Y.

“We’re Big Blue fans in a big way,” Jay Rood, director of the MGM Mirage race and sports book, said, referring to Kentucky.

The massive interest in No. 12-seeded Cornell (29-4), the Ivy League champion, has cut a full point off Kentucky’s favored status since Sunday. Such a shift doesn’t happen very often.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Wildcats were 8½-point favorites, Rood said, and the Big Red’s odds of winning the national championship had plummeted from 200-1 before the tournament to 18-1.

When the season began, Cornell was part of the “field” pool of teams a bettor could choose to win the national title at odds of 100-1, Rood said.

“The fans are loving the way Cornell plays, and on championship odds they’re outpacing Kentucky and Syracuse on [betting] tickets sold,” Rood said, noting that only fellow East Regional teams Kentucky and West Virginia had generated more game bets during the first two rounds of the tournament.

“Cornell has handled its business so soundly they’ve never been in danger of losing either of these two first games at any point,” Rood said. “Plus, their roster is senior-laden. With Kentucky being so young, if this becomes a dogfight the more mature player is less likely to be rattled by the pressure. You can see the bettor understands that could be a factor.”

Cornell also will be playing about 50 miles from its Ithaca, N.Y., campus.

If it defeats Kentucky, which starts a lineup of freshmen and sophomores, Cornell would meet either No. 11-seeded Washington or second-seeded West Virginia — which has a recently injured point guard — on Saturday for a spot in the Final Four.

The disparity of “basketball’s blue blood versus these scrappy Cornell kids who go to school with no [athletic] scholarship, but only for an education,” is also driving traffic, Rood said.

“It’s an interesting game,” he added, “and it’ll be a fun event around here. It’s not like Cornell’s a 20-point underdog in this game. They’ve got a shot.”

lance.pugmire@latimes.com