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Open topic: Score one for Vegas

Football guy
Brent Holmes
Brent Holmes

You can’t deny sports betting’s role in the growth of the Super Bowl. Well, you can if you run the NFL

If you want to make NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell instantly squeamish, don’t bother bringing up concussions or deflated footballs or his players treating women like tackling dummies. Just mention these two magic words: Las Vegas. See, the boss of one of America’s most powerful (and clearly bulletproof) corporations views our fine city the same way you and I view ISIS.

Publicly, at least.

In the privacy of his corner office on Park Avenue, there’s little doubt that Goodell pores over his profit statements under neon light provided by his “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” desk lamp while rocking his “I Heart Las Vegas” T-shirt.

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That’s because Goodell is keenly aware that broadcast networks and beer companies wouldn’t be so eager to hand him 10-figure checks if not for the point spreads that Nevada sportsbooks provide … point spreads that serve as the basis for billions of dollars in annual wagers (placed legally in Nevada, illegally everywhere else) … wagers that go a long way toward maintaining the NFL’s status as one of America’s most powerful (and bulletproof) organizations.

So as the league prepares to celebrate the silver anniversary of its Super Bowl on February 7 — which, once again, will be the single biggest betting day on the American sports calendar — we thought it a good time to look back at some of the more memorable Nevada-specific moments from Super Bowls past. Might want to keep that antacid within reach, Commish …

Super Bowl I: To say the American public didn’t exactly embrace the Super Bowl in January 1967 is an understatement. Despite being broadcast on both NBC and CBS, the game between the NFL champion Green Bay Packers and the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs wasn’t a ratings bonanza, and there were more than 30,000 empty seats in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. But you’d better believe there was a betting line on the game: The Packers were a 14-point favorite, easily covering the spread in a 35-10 victory. In the first 21 Super Bowls, from 1967 to 1987, the favorite went 16-5 against the spread. The first underdog winner, though, was a doozy.

Super Bowl III: First, quarterback Joe Namath famously made an outlandish prediction. Then, the soon-to-be Mr. Pantyhose made good on it, leading the New York Jets to a stunning 16-7 victory over the Baltimore Colts — as an 18-point underdog. To this day, it was the biggest upset in Super Bowl history.

Super Bowl X: As important as the point spread is in terms of driving bettors to the window, it rarely matters come game day. In fact, only six times has the big-game winner failed to cover the number. The first such instance occurred in this contest when the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Dallas Cowboys 21-17 as a seven-point favorite. It would prove to be the least significant four-point Steelers win over the Cowboys in a Super Bowl …

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Super Bowl XIII: Next time you think you’ve had a bad day at the office, just picture being behind the sportsbook counter on January 21, 1979. On that day, the Steelers beat the Cowboys again, this time 35-31 — a result that sent oddsmakers to the poorhouse. That’s because the Steelers opened as a 4-point favorite, but when money poured in on the Cowboys, the line slid down to 3 — meaning everyone who bet on Dallas at plus-4 and Pittsburgh minus-3 got paid. Nearly four decades later, January 21, 1979, is still known in these parts as Black Sunday.

Super Bowl XX: From Nevada’s perspective, this one isn’t remembered so much for the Chicago Bears’ 46-10 rout of the New England Patriots as for who scored the Bears’ final touchdown: When 300-pound defensive lineman William “The Refrigerator” Perry plunged over the goal from the 1-yard-line, Las Vegas paid out millions on what is regarded as the first Super Bowl proposition wager. Reportedly, odds on the prop of “Yes, Perry will score a TD” opened as high as 75-to-1.

Super Bowl XXIX: Where Joe Namath and the Jets succeeded in shocking the world in Super Bowl III, Stan Humphries (who?) and the San Diego Chargers failed miserably 28 years later, losing 49-26 to the San Francisco 49ers as an 18 -point underdog — still the biggest point spread in Super Bowl history. But that was only part of the story. Anticipating the game would be a blowout, sportsbook operators tried to lure betting action by greatly expanding their prop-bet menu. That decision proved to be a huge game-changer, as today there are several hundred ways in which to bet the Super Bowl, including — take a deep breath, Mr. Goodell — the opening coin toss.

Super Bowls XXXI and XXXIV: It’s been said that a tie is like kissing your sister. Well, bettors and oddsmakers planted a wet one on each other in these Super Bowls, the only two instances in which the final score landed right on the point spread: The Packers beat the Patriots 35-21 as a 14-point favorite in 1997, and four years later, the Rams held off the Titans 23-16 as a seven-point chalk.

Super Bowl XXXIX: The U.S. economy was humming in January 2005, and it showed come Super Bowl time, when the game between the Patriots and Eagles generated a then-record $90.8 million in wagers in Nevada. It was the first of four straight years in which the $90 million mark was surpassed. Shockingly, the NFL did not report this fact.

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Super Bowl XLVIII: One year after bettors knocked on the $100 million door, they kicked it in with authority, wagering $119,400,822 statewide on the Broncos-Seahawks contest. Nevada casinos held onto 16.5 percent of that money, the state’s second biggest win ever.

Super Bowl XLIX: For the first time in history, a Super Bowl kicked off without a point spread — well, technically speaking, anyway. Last year’s Seahawks-Patriots classic went off as a pick-'em, and once again, the big game was a big hit with bettors, pulling in nearly $116 million in wagers in Nevada — not to mention billions more worldwide.

All to the delight — er, we mean disdain — of Roger Goodell.