Las Vegas fearing a Giants win - Ingles

The New York Giants are currently raising the blood pressure in Las Vegas, more than a week and a half ahead of Super Bowl XLVI.

A victory by the Giants over the New England Patriots could cost some Vegas sports books a pretty penny as futures betting comes back to haunt them. A number of sports books in Nevada took significant bets on the Giants to win the Super Bowl at long odds earlier this season — some as high as 80 to 1 — putting some in a very precarious position if the Giants should knock off the Patriots in the Super Bowl again.

Futures wagering is active during the entire NFL season, and teams' odds to win the championship can fluctuate from week to week. When the Giants endured a four-game losing streak in November and December, their odds to win it all shot way up. The future payoff is based on whatever the odds were when a person makes a bet. So if the Giants had 80-1 odds to win it all and a bettor wages $100, the bettor would receive an $8,000 payout if the Giants claim the Lombardi Trophy.

Jay Kornegay, the director of the sports book at the Las Vegas Hilton told the New York Times:

I remember we opened them at about 20 to 1 last February, right after last year's Super Bowl. But when they hit that losing streak, it went up. I mean, they lost to Vince Young and the Eagles! We were lucky the bets didn't come our way, but there are some tickets out there. ... Even at the start of the playoffs we had them at 30 to 1 to win the Super Bowl. They had a very hard road."

Only a few months ago, Vegas sports books faced a similar scenario with baseball's St. Louis Cardinals. When the Cardinals were 10 1/2 games out of the playoffs with 32 games remaining in the regular season, their futures odds were extremely steep. Kornegay told the Times that he listed the Cardinals at 250 to 1 to win the World Series and 100 to 1 to win the National League pennant. "And we had action on both," he said.

For the actual Super Bowl game itself, most sports books have the Patriots as favorites with a spread of about 3 points, a markedly smaller line from the 12-point spread the Giants faced in the 2008 title game against New England.

This article was written by Ellen J Horrow and appeared in USA Today.