Maybe the house doesn't always win. When they lose, it's usually driven by location.
Nevada sports books won a record $22.1 million on Super Bowl LIX. Pennsylvania sports books did not.
Via David Purdum of ESPN.com, Pennsylvania sports books suffered a net loss of $6.5 million on Super Bowl LIX. With a record $101.5 million bet on the game — a 20.4 percent bump over the prior high from two years earlier — a high percentage were placed on the Eagles.
For ESPN Bet's Pennsylvania operation, 73 percent of the bets and 79 percent of the handle landed on the Eagles.
If running back Saquon Barkley had scored a touchdown in the game, it would have been worse. He was one of the top picks in the anytime-touchdown market.
The problem for Pennsylvania is that plenty of gamblers bet with their hearts, and won. When my dad made book in the 1970s just an hour from Pittsburgh, the customers always loaded up on the Steelers. And so he hated the local team, especially since they developed a bad habit of covering the spread.
In contrast, he loved the Cowboys. That was the team the locals loved to hate, and their bets reflected it.
It's no surprise, then, that (per Purdum) New York sports books posted a record $62.8 million win for the Super Bowl. (The number includes futures bets on the NFL champion.) Most Giants fans surely couldn't bring themselves to bet the Eagles, and the house thrived for it when the Eagles won easily.
That's the one thing I'll never forget about growing up in a bookie's household. The question was never, "Who are you rooting for?" The question always was, "Who do you need?"
