2016 Super Bowl Handle

I tend to follow sports betting a little too much for someone who doesn't actually bet on sports. With this year's Super Bowl between Carolina and Denver, I had heard that all the money was on Carolina. And that was true, initially. At the start of the week (after the one week break between games), 86% of the money bet was on Carolina. But then Denver was getting bet more and more heavily, to the point where it ended up being just 51% of the money on Carolina at kick off.

The Panthers winning but not covering the spread would have been the best-case scenario for the books. It looked like it might happen when they had the ball and were down 16-10. But Denver ended up winning and the sports books did pretty well.

One area where the books didn't two well was on a prop bet "Will there be a successful two-point conversion?" 96% of those bets were on "Yes" and it did happen.

Another area was betting on the Super Bowl MVP. Von Miller opened as high as 60-1 and was bet all the way down to 15-1 at the MGM. MGM vice president of race and sports Jay Rood said it cost his shop six figures. It was the first year Nevada books had been allowed to take bets on the Super Bowl MVP. "We'll have to book that for 10 more years before we get any ROI on that," Rood said.

Super Bowl 50 set the all-time record for sportsbook handle in Nevada, according to figures released by the Nevada State Gaming Control Board.

$132.5 million was staked on the Super Bowl, which beats the previous record of $119.4 million on Super Bowl XVIII between the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks.

While the outcome was not the home run Vegas hoped for given the surge of late Denver money - which caused the line to drop 1.5 points and money line to drop by as much as 30 cents at top sportsbooks - Vegas still made money; $13.3 million, to be exact.

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