National Football League

Giants put Vegas sportsbooks at risk

Published Jan. 17, 2012 12:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

If there’s one city outside of San Francisco pulling for the 49ers in the NFC championship game game against the New York Giants on Sunday, it’s Las Vegas.

Though a Giants-Ravens or Giants-Patriots Super Bowl undoubtedly would bring out New York City’s biggest bettors and a ton of additional action in the two weeks leading up to the season’s final game, several books across Sin City have a bit of a problem: They’re exposed to Giants’ “futures” money.

And that makes them big 49ers fans.

After a Week 13 loss to the Packers left the Giants at 6-6 and losers of four straight, oddsmakers shifted the Giants’ Super Bowl odds to 100-to-1. Giants fans pounced.

Even two weeks later, after the Week 15 loss to the Redskins left them a game behind the Cowboys and only a game in front of the Eagles in the NFC East, the books had the Giants at 50-1 to win the Super Bowl. Their fans pounced again.

“The Giants right now are our biggest loser if they were to win the Super Bowl,” Kevin Bradley, Bovada sportsbook manager told the New York Post last week.

“Before the first Cowboys-Giants game (in Week 14), we actually had a big customer put down a large bet on the Giants to win both the NFC crown and the Super Bowl,” Chris Andrews, assistant director of Club Cal Neva Sports Books, said. “This customer took 60-1 for the Super Bowl and 30-1 for the conference."

The Giants have not lost since the Redskins game and now are two victories away from being Super Bowl champs. They are currently listed as 3-1 favorites to win it all.

Before the start of the season, the Giants were listed at 20-1 odds to win the Super Bowl at most casinos. Despite a reloaded “Dream Team” Eagles squad being built in Philadelphia and a healthy Cowboys team getting a lot of preseason media attention, Giants believers flocked to Vegas over the summer to put money on Big Blue.

“I think they’re all a bit exposed to the Giants,” said a self-described Vegas regular who uses the alias Sid Pun. “Every summer, there’s a ton of money dumped on the Jets and Giants to win the Super Bowl. Whether it be big groups of guys from New York coming to town for July and August bachelor parties or casual bettors liking their hometown teams, there’s always a lot of Jets and Giants futures bets put down.”

In off-shore casinos, a Giants Super Bowl win could do some damage as well.

“If the Giants win the Super Bowl, it will be a very nice score for the betting public,” says David Mason, spokesperson for Panama-based BetOnline.com. “It seems like no matter the sport, there is just so much public money coming out of the Big Apple, we are more often than not exposed a bit. This year is no different. Even a season like this one, when the Giants had to go down to the wire to even make the playoffs, their faithful bettors always saw value in their long odds.”

This wouldn’t be the first time a Giants Super Bowl run stung Las Vegas. Listed as 30-1 favorites before the 2007 season, New York ran the table in the playoffs, burning more than a few Las Vegas sports books in the process.

“It’s déjà vu all over again,” Pun said. “They’re going to get burned by Eli (Manning) and (Tom) Coughlin in the futures market again.”