NFL-Las Vegas sportsbooks rooting for Patriots upset in Super Bowl

By Frank Pingue

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 6 (Reuters) – Las Vegas sportsbooks would like the New England Patriots to upset the Seattle Seahawks in Sunday’s Super Bowl, or at least keep it close, not because they love a classic underdog story but because it would keep the cash registers ringing.

The Seahawks, who enter the NFL’s Championship game in Santa Clara, California riding a nine-game winning streak, are a 4-1/2 point favourite to beat a Patriots team seeking a record seventh Super Bowl title.

While the bulk of wagers will not be made until the weekend, online sportsbook BetMGM said 60% of the Super Bowl bets it has received are on the Seahawks.

“We are rooting for the Patriots,” John Ewing, BetMGM’s PR Manager of Media Insights, told Reuters. “If the Patriots cover (the spread), that’s great. If they win outright, that’s even better.”

BETTING BONANZA

The Super Bowl creates an annual betting bonanza and Sunday’s edition is no exception with the American Gaming Association expecting a record $1.76 billion to be legally wagered in the United States on the game.

But unlike last year’s Super Bowl when the Kansas City Chiefs — who had Taylor Swift in their corner cheering on tight end Travis Kelce — were denied a third straight title by the Philadelphia Eagles, this year’s match-up lacks the same buzz.

“This year we didn’t have two teams with well-known superstar quarterbacks that were running away from the rest of the field in their conferences,” said Chris Bennett, sportsbook director for Circa Sports.

“That feeling that the teams aren’t special relative to the other teams in their conference, and Sam Darnold and Drake Maye just not being the big-name quarterbacks that we sometimes have in the Super Bowl, is responsible for some of that lack of excitement.”

Bennett said going into the weekend there is a higher ticket count at Circa Sports on Seattle to cover the spread but that since it took a large bet on the Patriots moneyline – picking the outright winner – its net position is for Seattle to win but not cover.

BAD BUNNY BETS

Aside from more traditional bets, gamblers can take a chance at proposition bets, like deciding which team will win the pre-game coin toss, whether the Seahawks or Patriots will score first and what color liquid will be poured on the winning coach.

BetOnline.ag, which has a plethora of prop bets, even has some involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including whether a player will wear anti-ICE signage or if there will be an ICE protest outside or inside Levi’s Stadium.

There are also several prop bets involving Super Bowl halftime performer Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican rapper and 2026 Grammy winner who steered clear of the continental U.S. on his recent concert tour, saying he feared federal agents would show up to arrest his fans.

At +2000, anyone who bets $100 that Bad Bunny gets arrested on stage would win a $2,000 profit.

(Reporting by Frank Pingue; Editing by Ken Ferris)