Congratulations, bettors – you’re winning March Madness.“It hasn’t been a great tournament for us,” said Jay Kornegay, executive director of Las Vegas Hotel & Casino SuperBook. “The tournament is a great event and is usually great for us, just not this year.”
Since the opening Thursday, favorites are 34-25-1 ATS in the NCAA tournament. The chalk covered in three of the four Elite Eight games, with all four of the weekend’s games going over the total.
When favorites and the over start cashing, so do parlays, and that’s what hurt the LVH.
“We want Cinderellas, but it’s been pretty chalk,” Kornegay said. “You look at the ticket count, and it looks like we’ve got even action, but then you start looking at how many parlays cashed.”
The betting crowd at the MGM Mirage sportsbook also was fired up about Sunday’s results, sportsbook manager Jeff Stoneback said.
“Anytime you get the favorites coupled with the over, it’s not good for us,” Stoneback said. “For example, it looked like the Baylor-Kentucky game was going to go under. But then they had a flurry at the end that had the crowd in here going crazy. You can always tell how we’re doing just by the way the crowd is reacting.”
Futures ReportKornegay and his staff were spot on last April when they posted odds on who’d win this year’s NCAA tournament. Kentucky, Louisville, Ohio State and Kansas were among the top 10 favorites.
At the LVH, Kentucky got as high as 7/1 to win the title. Ohio State and Kansas got as high as 12/1, and Louisville got up to 40/1.
Kornegay took a “good handful of bets” on Louisville at 40/1, but nothing too big.
“We’re in pretty good shape [on futures],” said Kornegay. “We had some exposure on some trendy teams like Baylor, Florida State and Vandy, but there aren’t any bombs out there.”
Odds/Ends- Ticket count at the MGM Mirage on the opening Thursday of the NCAA tournament was up 40 percent, according to Stoneback.
- Kentucky is two wins away from becoming only the third team since at least 1998 to win the national title with a losing record against the spread. The Wildcats are 15-21-1 ATS. Louisville is 22-13-1 ATS; Ohio State 20-13, and Kansas 18-17-1 against the spread.
- Kentucky coach John Calipari commented to reporters about the difference a raised floor like the one at Superdome this weekend makes for shooters. “That makes it hard,” Calipari said. “So a team that doesn't shoot a whole lot of threes has an advantage."