LAS VEGAS — There are a few routines that come with being an oddsmaker for the Westgate SuperBook during football season. Three dozen donuts can be found in the break room, which are provided by a long-time sports bettor each college football Saturday and NFL Sunday.
Another bettor usually comes in person to place wagers on baseball favorites, but they haven't shown up to the ticket counter in a while and it’s probably not because it’s football season. There’s the hotshot WNBA bettor who likes to dabble in NFL bets despite not having as much success in the second sport.
Having a keen eye for trends and habits is a must for an oddsmaker. Taking shots at the Giants’ poor offense while eating donuts is just a fun routine for the oddsmakers inside the Westgate Superbook war room on Sundays.
“Watching the Giants while I work stinks because they stink,” says Arthur DiCesare, the Westgate Superbook risk manager who grew up in the New York area rooting for the G-Men. “But hopefully they go to Jaxson Dart at some point because they did draft a quarterback in the first round.”
DiCesare’s cell phone is constantly lit up with text messages from friends and family members bashing the embarrassing first half the Giants were having against the Commanders, who eventually cruised to a 21–6 win. After back-to-back losing seasons from the Brian Daboll–led Giants, DiCeSare isn’t fazed by negative comments aimed at his beloved team. The Bronx native was more worried about his two giant computer screens not working properly when he arrived at his desk 90 minutes before the Westgate Superbook mobile app opened for the public.
“I had a little anxiety about my computer freezing up,” DiCesare, 42, says. “There’s no IT here at 4:30 in the morning. … I figured it out.”
DiCesare’s station was up and running well before this reporter came in for the early slate of games to get his point of view of what it’s like to be a Las Vegas oddsmaker on the first Sunday of the NFL regular season. DiCesare explained what his six to eight colorful charts signified on his two computer screens, which were below the dozen TVs on the wall.
“As a risk manager, my job is to put up markets, to take bets, to move numbers,” says DiCesare, who’s been in the sports betting business for nine years.
DiCesare shared the sizable wagers that came in throughout the day, including the $10,000 bet that arrived at 9:51 a.m. on the Patriots to cover the -2.5 points at home against the Raiders. That bet, of course, didn’t hit with the Raiders winning 20–13. The bettor at least got value after increasing the line from -108 to -116 for anyone who laid the points on the Patriots minutes before kickoff.
“Moved the juice,” was how DiCesare explained it.
DiCesare provided updates all the way through the wild back-and-forth clash between the Bills and Ravens. That was essentially a pick’em game for most of Sunday.
“Ravens and OVER would be like a $60K-plus loss for us,” DiCesare texted minutes before Derrick Henry coughed up the fumble that sparked the Bills’ improbable 41–40 comeback victory.
“$100K-plus swing for us,” DiCesare later texted. “Incredible.”
The public was well on its way to defeating the sportsbooks and looking smarter than the sharps because the Rams covered the -3 points at home against the Texans and the 49ers covered the -2.5 on the road vs. the Seahawks. Also, the Titans didn’t do their part to wipe out many parlays and teasers before the Broncos pulled away late with a 20–12 victory.
“Colts and Browns [covering] were good results for us in the morning and all those unders helped as well,” texted John Murray, the Director of Sports and Race at the Westgate SuperBook. “But the afternoon games didn’t go our way.”
It would have been a lot worse for the Westgate oddsmakers had the Ravens held on to their 15-point advantage in the fourth quarter.
“That was huge,” Murray texted after the Bills prevailed. “That saved our day.”
DiCesare mentioned that the Cardinals were a liability for the book because many bettors had them in parlays—Arizona ended up covering with the 20–13 victory over New Orleans. The Westgate Superbook received a $10,000 bet on the Saints to cover +6.5 points at home, a wager high enough to drop the line to +5.5, not that many people rushed to bet on the team most likely to end up with the No. 1 pick in next year’s draft.
The sharps were on the Giants at +6 points and even went as far as taking them on the moneyline at +240. The trend of “watch out for the Giants, they have a tough defense” likely only lasted one week this season. DiCesare broke down how far in advance sharp bettors look for value on the Week 1 games.
Back when the NFL schedule was released on May 14, a sharp placed a $3,000 bet on the Raiders at +3.5 points, which turned out to be a wise decision, not only because the Silver and Black covered in New England, but because the line stayed steady at +2.5 points. Another bettor got the Giants at +7 points for a $2,000 bet placed on May 23. Most sportsbooks had Washington at -6 points throughout the week.
As DiCesare translated his charts, he often stopped for a brief second to approve the several parlays that popped up on the screen, many of which ranged between $500 to $1,000 bets.
“These are like lotto tickets for people,” DiCesare says. “They love to parlay NFL games.”
DiCesare usually takes more time examining the bets that have an “S” tag next to the username, meaning a sizable wager from a sharp player. The other two tags are “GP” for general public and “BCU” for board cleaner, which means a bettor looking to get value out of the aforementioned juice. For example, putting money down on a bet that comes with a -108 price as opposed to a -110. Oftentimes, the value of the bet is more important than the team name on the transaction.
The Westgate oddsmakers have to pause whenever the bettor with a four-letter name, who’s younger than most sharps, appears on the monitors. The player is well respected when it comes to betting the NFL. For DiCesare specifically, he occasionally has to stop to hear a colleague compare his ponytail to the trademark look of actor Steven Seagal. There’s also a lot of chair turning to collaborate with the long-time oddsmakers sitting behind him, Ed Salmons and Jeff Sherman.
“You have to lean on those guys,” DiCesare says. “They have a combined 50-plus years of experience in this business.”
At halftime of the early games on Sunday, DiCesare, Salmons and Sherman go over the betting lines to place on the second half for the seven games, not including the Panthers-Jaguars game that had a weather delay. One of the house players placed “10 dimes” ($10,000) on the Dolphins in the second half, laying -3 points against the Colts, who outscored Miami in the final two quarters to cruise to a 33–8 victory.
“You start thinking futures market, like Miami, doesn't look so great, do we have to downgrade them?” DiCesare says. “Do we maybe have to bump up the Colts? There are all sorts of things to think about.”
DiCesare can take solace in knowing the Dolphins had the worst performance of the first Sunday of the NFL season, not the Giants. (A bettor won big with placing five to 10 dimes on Washington at -1 point in the second half.)
“Hey Art, I’m done with the Giants,” a voice can be heard saying after Washington jumped to an early double-digit lead.
It ended up being a not-so-bad day for the Westgate oddsmakers thanks to the Ravens’ fourth-quarter meltdown.
