The Philadelphia Inquirer
The numbers are staggering.
And impossible to confirm.
But the intelligent estimate is that 200 million people throughout the world have placed bets totaling $5 billion on a football game that’s scheduled to be played today in Miami.
Not all of the money, of course, has been wagered legally, which is one of the reasons it’s impossible to get a handle on the handle for Super Bowl XLIV between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints.
But you can be sure it’s X times M to the nth degree.
In Nevada, where sports betting is legal, the bookmaking operations in the state’s casinos expect to see about $90 million in action.
Internet operations, legal or quasi-legal depending on how they operate, will see about $2 billion, according to industry estimates.
The rest is anybody’s guess.
“Your volume’s going to double, maybe triple,” said Johnny B, who has been in and out of the sports betting “business” in Philadelphia and South Jersey for the last 20 years.
“I was small. I used to do about $100,000 a week,” he said. “Super Bowl, I’d do about $200,000.”
Everyone, he said, wants a piece of the action.
Regular customers are trying for one last big score or trying to make up in one game for all they’ve lost during the season.
“It’s get even … or get even worse,” said a South Philadelphia gambler named Jack who said he has been in that position.
(Nearly everyone interviewed for this article requested anonymity or wanted to be identified by his first name only because bookmaking is illegal outside Nevada.)
There are first-time, novice gamblers caught up in the excitement of the event. And invariably, Johnny B said, there are women who don’t understand or care about football, but who have a husband or boyfriend who has turned the game into a social event.
Shaking his head and rolling his eyes, Johnny B talked about women who would bet $50 on a team because they liked the quarterback, liked the team’s colors, liked the nickname.
“Now the boyfriend or the husband is betting $5,000 the other way because he’s trying to make up for everything he’s lost all year, and she’s screaming and hollering the whole game because she has $50 riding on it,” he said. “Next thing you know there’s yellow tape around the house and it’s a domestic crime scene.”
The Super Bowl is the culmination of a macho betting season that is a national phenomenon, even if the NFL won’t acknowledge it.
“Guys like to bet football,” said one bookie. “They’ve played the game. They think they understand it. Or they’re die-hard fans. … Bookies like guys who bet with their hearts.”
And they make it easy to do just that.
Unlike Nevada or the Internet, where gamblers have to put their money up to place a bet, illegal bookmaking operates on the honor system. Some bookies will allow players to continue betting until the wins or losses reach an agreed-upon level. Then there’s a payoff or a collection. Others take care of business each week.
The Super Bowl adds another twist to that scenario.
“If you’re collecting weekly, usually the guy’s going to pay up because he wants to bet the next week’s games,” explained one bookie. “With the Super Bowl, there’s no next week. So sometimes it’s a little more difficult to collect. … There are a lot of variables.”
But the numbers are mind-boggling.
Johnny B, who at different times worked with and for two of the biggest bookmakers in the Philadelphia-South Jersey area, predicted that one of his former employers, who takes about $1 million in bets each week during the football season, would see his volume double or triple for today’s game.
“It would be nothing for him to do $2 million, maybe $3 million,” he said.
That’s volume, not profit, of course.
A good book’s profit will average between 5 and 10 percent of its volume. But the Super Bowl can change that as well.
“It’s the one time of the year when a bookmaker becomes a bettor,” said a Johnny B associate who also had experience in the bookmaking business.
Johnny shook his head in agreement.
If everyone is betting the same team, it’s almost impossible to “edge off” — to take some of the action to another bookmaker.
So in essence, you’re betting against your customers.
It’s simple math.
The whole concept of bookmaking is to balance the books each week, have roughly the same amount bet on each team in each game. With dozens of games each week during the college and pro football seasons, it’s a goal that can usually be met.
The bookmaker profits from the “vig,” which in layman’s terms is the fee he assesses for handling everyone’s action. For example, a gambler bets $110 to win $100. The bookie takes $10 from each losing bet and passes the $100 on to the gambler who bet the other way.
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