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By Dan Behringer, LVSportsBiz.com Betting Writer
Make no mistake, for sports bettors, it’s Super Bowl Saturation this weekend.
The hype. The angles. The game itself (believe it or not, a regulation game with a kickoff at 3:30 p.m. Sunday that will decided by a coin flip and regulation 15-minute quarters).
Bets on the side. Bets on the total. Bets on the props. Ah yes, so many props.
“The props are more popular than ever. We expect 70 percent of (the) Super Bowl handle to be on the props,” noted a post at Vegas Insider, quoting Jay Kornegay, who oversees operations of The SuperBook as vice president of race and sports for Westgate Las Vegas. “It’s true entertainment for the recreational bettor.”
Every tout has an opinion, and every bartender and dealer has an angle. There will be a summary in the Las Vegas Review-Journal of respected writers and handicappers offering their predictions. You know, just in case, you’ve been unable to form one of your own after metric tons of information on the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles and “breaking news” updates on the game and players from ESPN.
If that’s still not enough, Odds Shark’s computer projection has it Eagles 26.6-Chiefs 22.8. Which would be a cover and under the total. Covers.com doesn’t offer a prediction but does note 66 percent of the betting interest is on the Eagles.
And then by 7:30 p.m. on Sunday evening, barring overtime, the crowds in the race and sports books will thin out, and it will all be over. For another year anyway.
So the betting side, after being hammered for nearly two weeks after the final Conference Championship Game stands at Eagles -1.5 or -2. The total is at 50.5 or 51. And the props go on and on and on, several pages stapled together at most race and sports books. Or available at your favorite website or app. Pick your favorite. Or ask the person next to you who will almost assuredly have an opinion.
Elsewhere:
— Hot Knights: The Vegas Golden Knights paid bettors twice coming out of the All-Streak, first with a 5-1 over the Nashville Predators on Tuesday, followed by another 5-1 win over the Minnesota Wild on Thursday. Both times the VGK were short favorites or around even money.
“We played really good in the last two games,” center Nicolas Roy told reporters after the win over the Wild.
Foley’s Finest will next host Anaheim at noon on Sunday, and you can almost certainly bet the era of cheap prices is over. While there is no official line, we’ll make the Golden Boys around a -190 favorite over the last-place Ducks with the total at 6.
— Mo for Rebels? The Runnin’ Rebels rebounded from their loss to Fresno State with a 69-59 win (and cover of -3) over Wyoming. That victory was their fourth in the last five games.
As the UNLV Rebel website noted, UNLV shot 47.4 percent after halftime after shooting a mere 25 percent in the first half. The Runnin’ Rebels made 22 of 25 — 88 percent — from the free-throw line in the second half.
But the road suddenly gets tougher: They next face San Diego State, ranked No. 25, on Saturday on their home court, Viejas Arena. No line yet on that game.
Tipoff is at 1 p.m.
— UFC 284: Islam Makhachev (23-1-0) faces Alex Volkanovski (25-1-0) in the featured light heavyweight bout at UFC 284 at Saturday. The event originates from the RAC Arena in Perth, Australia.
While they have similar records, Makhachev has an 11-fight win streak and is generally around -350 with Volkanovski +280 on the buyback. At Covers, under 4.5 rounds is -161, and over is +120.
CBS Sports calls it “the perfect contrast in styles between the grappling-based Makhachev and the sublime striking skills of Volkanovski.”
Fight time is 7 p.m.
Close cover: If you bet the Milwaukee Bucks at Los Angeles Lakers game on Thursday night, hope you enjoyed the sweat. The Bucks opened at -6, but the line went all the way to -8 or -8.5 for the TNT-televised game.
The Lakers led at halftime, 58-50, but that of course was meaningless — unless you had a first-half bet. With LeBron James resting a sore foot and ankle and watching in a double-breasted suit, the Bucks began chipping away and led at the end of the third-quarter, 88-81. After the typical last-minute flurry, the Bucks prevailed by the narrowest of point-spread margins, 115-106.
And that, as the cliché goes, is why they call it gambling.