Jeff Haney explains news bettors can use: Results of the Sun’s new survey of house edges in Super Bowl future books

Saturday, Sept. 8, 2007 | 6:58 a.m.

When a football bettor asks what the odds are that his team will win the Super Bowl this season, there's no easy answer.

Take the Tennessee Titans, a long shot this year by almost any standard.

Yet the odds on the Titans vary considerably even among the prominent sports books in Las Vegas.

You can bet the Titans at 100-1 at the Las Vegas Hilton or 90-1 at the Venetian ... but a measly 10-1 at Leroy's sports books.

The cavernous gap in prospective payouts underscores the importance of shopping around before risking money at the betting window, but also some significant differences in how much of a fair shake bettors can expect when playing "futures" around town. (Futures, or future-book betting, refers to the set of odds on some upcoming event, usually a championship game such as the Super Bowl.)

As we have periodically in the past several years, the Sun conducted an analysis examining the "theoretical hold percentage" - or house edge - in the Super Bowl futures of 14 major Las Vegas sports books.

The Venetian, with a house edge of 24.3 percent, and the Las Vegas Hilton (27.6 percent) came out on top, meaning Super Bowl futures bettors are likely to find the most attractive odds at those books.

The Wynn Las Vegas (34.9 percent) and the Palms (36.4 percent) also deal competitive prices in their Super Bowl future books.

Leroy's checked in with a theoretical hold rate of 54.7 percent, a house edge so high it makes Caveman Keno look like a deeply dealt single-deck blackjack game with the early surrender option by comparison.

The other books in the survey offer futures with mediocre house edges in the 40s, percentage-wise. (See accompanying chart.)

House edge expresses, as a percentage, the amount of money a sports book is expected to keep after paying out winning wagers. The lower the number, then, the more favorable it is for gamblers.

It is an effective tool because it provides a big-picture look at how attractive - or how dismal - a casino's future book appears to gamblers. A sports book can have very low odds on a particular team but make up for it by raising the odds on other teams. An abnormally high house edge, however, indicates generally poor odds across the board.

The odds on the Super Bowl favorite New England Patriots, for example, are only 9-5 at the Palms - about the lowest in town and far less attractive than the 7-2 on New England at the Wynn. But oddsmakers at the Palms made sure to give bettors a square deal by raising the odds on a lot of other teams, and the Palms finished well in the survey.

Leroy's performed poorly in the survey partly because its oddsmakers lowered Super Bowl odds on more than a half-dozen teams since early summer but failed to compensate by raising prices on any other teams.

(Odds information was compiled this week but before Thursday's Saints-Colts game. As always, odds are subject to change.)

Oddly enough, despite egregious transgressions such as the Titans at 10-1, Las Vegas future-book prices have actually improved slightly since the Sun's survey taken just before the 2004 NFL season (Las Vegas Sun, Sept. 1, 2004). Six of the 14 sports books had theoretical holds of greater than 50 percent in the 2004 survey and only one, the Venetian, was below 30 percent.

Shop around before risking money on your team. Look everywhere. Just be aware you're most likely to find the best value at the joints with lower house edges.

Accountability corner

(In which accurate predictions made in past columns are righteously praised, and the ugly details of inaccurate predictions are rehashed.)

A couple of opening-week college football picks went up in smoke (or is it down in flames?), and several readers let the handicappers in question have it via some scathing e-mails to me.

Their reaction illustrates the hazards of publicly releasing your sports betting picks - before the games are played, obviously. You look smart when you're right, but the public won't let you forget about it when you're wrong.

At a preseason football betting symposium at Red Rock Resort, handicapper Lee Sterling recommended a play on USC as a big favorite of 43 to 47 points against Idaho, forecasting a final score of 60-something to 3. As it turned out, Famous Potatoes comfortably covered the point spread in a 38-10 loss.

At the same conference, handicapper Marc Lawrence predicted a BCS title game matchup of LSU against (you guessed it) Michigan. Appalachian State's celebrated upset of the Wolverines all but ensured it won't happen.

The odds on Michigan to win the national championship were adjusted this week from 6-1 to 100-1 by oddsmakers at Las Vegas Sports Consultants.