Vegas' prop bet restrictions
— -- LAS VEGAS -- An email from Cousin Sal (not my cousin Sal, but the one from "Jimmy Kimmel Live!") came across the Tuesdays With Tuley desk the other day.
Cousin Sal -- who has long discussed sports betting on Bill Simmons' B.S Report podcast in columns at Grantland.com, and this season with weekly picks on "SportsCenter" -- wanted to "shoot a remote at a Vegas casino that takes weird Super Bowl prop bets (coin toss, anthem length, Gatorade color, etc.)." However, he had heard that Nevada casinos are unable to take bets on such things, and he was asking if I could confirm that.
Unfortunately, I had to tell him, that's true, at least for now. There is movement to loosen the gambling regulations, but certainly not in time for this Sunday's game. I suggested that Kimmel should fly him to Costa Rica, Curacao or Antigua, but there's probably the same chance of that as those places having a snowstorm, so we'll see what they do later this week.
Nevada sports books are restricted to offering props that take place on the playing field and can be verified in the box score. So, no, there won't be any wagers accepted here on over/under regarding the pounds per square inch of New England's footballs.
For years, there were no bets on "Will the coin toss be heads or tails?" or "Who will win the coin toss?" Instead, the books here had to list it as "Who will receive the opening kickoff?" At least the state has changed that, and bettors can make a literal coin-flip bet (in addition to all the other theoretical coin-flip bets). Ed Salmons of The Westgate says his book always needs tails, as significantly more money is bet on heads, so I wasn't too surprised when I saw the Boyd Gaming properties run by Bob Scucci (who has his own ESPN.com Scoochcast with host Chad Millman) have heads at minus-106 and tails at minus-104.
The books here would love to be able to offer all those crazy props, as they generate a lot of conversation (which is free advertising for the books), and they're also very popular. However, there are times when they're happy to not have to deal with the headaches that some of these props bring. For example, the national anthem often finishes around the over/under, and with a full stadium cheering and/or military aircraft flying overhead it's not always easy to figure out when the singer finishes the final word "brave." And Gatorade color can be open to debate.
We'll have a lot more on prop bets that are taken here in Vegas (as well as at online offshore books) in ESPN Insider's Super Bowl Betting Guide later this week.
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