Gamblers Bracing for the Big Show

The key participants in the Super Bowl will be laying everything on the line Sunday, knowing that a win or loss can make or break their season.

We’re not talking about Joe Montana and John Elway, of course -- they’ll still have their lucrative contracts regardless of what happens in New Orleans. But the San Francisco-Denver showdown is genuinely crucial for the nation’s bookmakers: It will be the biggest betting event of the year.

“In Nevada alone, $50 million will be bet on the game,” said Michael “Roxy” Roxborough, president of Las Vegas Sports Consultants, the country’s most influential oddsmaker. “Nationally the figure might be $500 million. I’d guess that 25 percent of the adult males in America have some type of wager on the game.

“From the standpoint of bookmakers, this has been as good an NFL season as we’ve ever had. But nobody will remember that if we botch the Super Bowl.”

Over the long run, of course, bookmakers always have the percentages in their favor. On a single game, however, they can lose, if a point spread attracts a disproportionate amount of action on one team. Their worst fears are generated by fluctuations in the point spread that can leave them vulnerable to being “middled” -- i.e., losing no matter which team wins. This happened in the 1979 Super Bowl, in which Pittsburgh was favored over Dallas by anywhere from 3 to 4 1/2 points. When the Steelers wound up winning 35-31, it was Black Sunday for the nation’s bookies.

With such high stakes involved, no rocket scientist ever pored over his figures any more diligently than Las Vegas oddsmakers did before San Francisco was established as a 12 1/2-point favorite in the Super Bowl.

Roxborough explained that making a point spread for a game that generates such broad public interest is different from an ordinary football game. If Brigham Young is playing the University of Hawaii in midseason, Roxborough wants to publish the most accurate possible line, knowing the game will generate attention only from serious bettors who are looking to capitalize on an error in the point spread. But in pro football playoffs, and especially the Super Bowl, the line also must take into account public sentiment. The betting public generally loves favorites, and this year the public worships San Francisco.

What is the “correct” point spread for a game between the 49ers and the Broncos on a neutral site?

“If I were locked in a small room with the five sharpest gamblers in the world, and I had to take their action, I’d put the game up at 8 1/2,” Roxborough said. “But this is a game where the public will totally dominate the wagering, and we have to make a price that balances the action. The 49ers have just played two games as flawless as you’ll ever see -- both on national TV. The public thinks that Joe Montana can’t throw an incomplete pass. ... Still, you don’t want to put up the number too far from what it should be, and give the players a big value. So we put out the point spread at 10-just to test the waters.”

A week ago Sunday, the 10-point spread went up on the board at major sports books in Nevada, and this testing of the waters turned into a brief deluge. The money poured in on San Francisco, and half an hour later the 49ers were favored by a solid 11 1/2. By Monday, it was 12 1/2.

Because of this obvious trend, the people who want to bet Denver are waitingand their money will not show until later in the week. “The pros are waiting to see if it goes to 13,” Roxborough said. If that happens, the bookmakers’ great risk would be a San Francisco victory by exactly 12 points -- which would enable bettors on both sides to win.

The fascinating aspect of the Super Bowl is Roxborough’s acknowledgement that he thinks the “correct” spread on the game is 8 1/2. If that is the case, betting Denver plus 13 would be the kind of bargain rarely found in sports wagering -- and the pros in Las Vegas are waiting to capitalize on that phenomenon.

However, the same Vegas pros took the same position in the NFC championship game, figuring the 7 1/2-point spread favoring San Francisco over Los Angeles was inflated, and the final result was Public 30, Wise Guys 3. Roxborough points out too that in the last two Super Bowls with lopsided spreads -- Chicago vs. New England and New York vs. Denver -- the smart money “took the perceived value with the underdog, and wound up getting blown out.”

The Broncos could easily get blown out on Sunday too. But a bettor who takes the underdog will go down to defeat in the company of the wise guys.