National Football League

Oddsmakers sweating Giants in playoffs

Published Jan. 10, 2012 12:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

There is a ton of money on the line in this year's NFL playoffs, and for the Bovada.lv bookmaker in Las Vegas, much of it will be going out the door if the Giants win it all.

"The Giants right now are our biggest loser if they were to win the Super Bowl, and the Packers [are Bovada's] biggest winner," according to the firm's sportsbook manager, Kevin Bradley. "So, needless to say, watching the game this weekend is one that may take a couple years off my life."

Big Blue is at 14-1 to win the Super Bowl in odds released Monday by Bovada. But back in Week 14, in the wake of their 38-35 loss to the Packers that dropped them to 6-6, they were being offered at 100-1.

"They were 100-1 for only a day or so, and we took quite a bit on them, so they started dropping all the way down to 50-1 before their Dallas game," Bradley said.

When Jason Pierre-Paul blocked a field goal to secure a 37-34 Giants win over the Cowboys, it started a 4-1 surge into the Elite Eight that has the boss at the Vegas outfit sweating it out.

"I would say after that game is where we really saw money come in on them," Bradley said, "and also going into the playoffs as a hot team at 20-1, people saw this as the best underdog value play on the board."

Bovada, however, raked in some righteous bucks courtesy of Tim Tebow over the weekend. According to Bradley, 63 percent of the bets were on the Steelers at -8, creating a score almost as big as Tebow's 80-yard overtime touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas. Bradley said he was not sure how this week's Broncos-Patriots action will play out.

"The last time the Broncos played New England, 90 percent of the money was on the Patriots on the road, and at -13 1/2 [Saturday night], it will be interesting to see if the public will lay all those points at the same rate."