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With all due respect, I disagree with this statement.

How could this work?  Sharp money comes in at the MGM in Vegas on niners, and then sharp money comes in at Pinnacle on Ravens?

Until how this works - I am a believer in "money moves the line".  Period.  Especially on something like a super bowl.  This isnt a college hoops total in the MAC.

The lights in Las Vegas sports books should stay on for the foreseeable future.

The approximately 184 sports books throughout Nevada made enough money on Super Bowl XLVII to at least pay their electrical bills. But they didn’t make enough to shell out for a Beyonce halftime show.

The Baltimore Ravens' 34-31 victory over the San Francisco 49ers in New Orleans, which will be remembered for the 34-minute delay in the third quarter after a power outage at the Superdome, wasn’t the best result for Las Vegas. It wasn’t the worst, either.

“We’re a small winner,” reported Jimmy Vaccaro, the spokesman for William Hill sports books. “We ended up with some Ravens moneyline late, so that took some of our steam out. But we did OK.”

Books made money on the Super Bowl for the sixth straight year, making a profit on the most bet-on game in sports each year for the 20th time in the last 22 seasons.

Sports book directors weren’t raving about the result as Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco — who went over the three most popular proposition wagers posted by sports books with 287 passing yards, 22 completions and three touchdowns — accepted his MVP trophy underneath a swarm of falling confetti. They were, however, rather positive about the handle.

The record $94.5 million wagered on the 2006 Super Bowl, when the Pittsburgh Steelers covered the 3-point spread in a 21-10 over the Seattle Seahawks, is within reach.

“If everyone did what we did, then I would expect we’d break the record,” MGM Resorts sports book director Jay Rood said. “We fared pretty well, but it’s difficult to say how everyone else did. There’s a strong possibility that some of the local places could have seen more Ravens money.”

Most places in town saw Ravens action when they opened as a 5-point underdog two weeks ago, which plummeted the 49ers down to as low as 3.5-point favorites. But Niners action came out in full force in the last three days, driving the spread back up to as high as minus-4.5.

Bettors on the other side weren’t shy about taking the Ravens +165 (risking $1 to win $1.65) on the moneyline. Strong opinions abound on both sides, hence why Rood said MGM took several six-figure bets starting Friday afternoon until Sunday’s kickoff.

“I was really surprised,” he said. “We probably had a few more of them on the 49ers, but the Ravens got some support too. I think that’s what dictated our result.”

The prop bets were no help to MGM or several other books. San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick, the most bet-on player in Super Bowl history, went over both his passing and rushing yards props by 70 and 12, respectively.

What hurt the worst was the Ravens intentional safety at the end of the game and Jacoby Jones 108-yard kickoff return to start the third quarter. Bettors pile on the “yes” for whether there will be a safety, which most sports books offer at +800, and defensive or special teams touchdown, available at +200, every year.

“The props were a very small winner,” Vaccaro said. “The Kaepernick kid didn’t help. The safety and touchdown were two of the bigger ones of the day and we lost both of them, but we beat most of the other ones safely.”

The best-case scenario for Las Vegas was if the 49ers won but didn’t cover the spread. Sports books would have raked in millions with that scenario.

Vaccaro and his counterparts around town were salivating when Kaepernick led San Francisco to a first-and-goal series with two minutes left in the game.

“If the 49ers would have scored there to knock out the Ravens moneyline but not cover the point spread,” Vaccaro said, “that would have been the best of the best.”

Instead, Kaepernick threw three straight incompletions after the 49ers picked up a small gain on first down. Las Vegas settled for a slight win.

“The 49ers sneaking in there would have been perfect,” Rood said. “But it didn’t happen. It went kind of like the rest of the season did for us.”

LAS VEGAS (AP)

Sports fans bet a record $98.9 million at Nevada casinos on the Super Bowl, the Nevada Gaming Control Board said Monday.

Unaudited tallies show 183 sports books made $7.2 million on the football action. The San Francisco 49ers started out as a 5-point favorite but the Baltimore Ravens won 34-31.

Odds makers say California fans drove the unprecedented handle, flooding Las Vegas and the Lake Tahoe area with wagers on the hometown team, which hadn't been in the Super Bowl since 1995.

''Northern Nevada gets swamped with 49er money,'' LVH book director Jay Kornegay said.

Bookmakers speculated that the popularity of 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who played his college football at Nevada, drove some of the betting among locals.

The previous record was set in 2006, when gamblers wagered $94.5 million on the Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Book makers said they took a beating this year on proposition bets, including a long-shot on whether there would be a safety. Ravens punter Sam Koch took a safety for the final score with 4 seconds left.

Casinos retained 7.3 percent of the millions wagered, slightly less than the average hold during the past decade, which has fluctuated from lows of negative 2.8 percent to highs of 17 percent.

The 65 points scored in New Orleans easily exceeded the over/under of 49. Gamblers bet the line down 1 1/2 points before the game to give the 49ers a 3 1/2 handicap by kickoff.

Late money poured in for the ''over'' wager and for the 49ers, who have built a reputation as a second-half team, Kornegay said.

Johnny Avello, director of race and sports at Wynn Las Vegas, said the big plays that characterized Sunday's game and made it fun to watch were gloomy news for casinos, which offer a growing list of proposition bets on everything from whether quarterbacks will throw interceptions to whether teams will score in the final two minutes of the first half.

''Everything that could've happened yesterday almost did,'' Avello said. ''All the props - `Will this guy pass by this much?' `Will this guy make this many receptions' - all of those were, `Yes.'''

''The safety was awful,'' he added. ''When we cashed last night, it seemed like everyone had a bet on a safety.''

Casinos paid out at 9-to-1 for the safety. Fans who bet that the 49ers' final score would be on a safety cashed in at 50-to-1.

Sports books also paid out big last year when the New York Giants played the New England Patriots and the first score of the game was a safety. Next year, Avello plans to lower the odds for that outcome.

Nevada sports books have lost only twice on the Super Bowl in the past 20 years, most recently in 2008, when New York beat the Patriots, costing casinos a record $2.6 million.