Jimmy Vaccaro admits he might feel like he should be somewhere other than Trafford, Pennsylvania, on Sunday. Maybe a sportsbook. Maybe Las Vegas. He’d spent about a half-century worth of Super Bowl game days setting odds and writing tickets behind a counter, most recently the South Point, before retiring in August and moving back to his small hometown southeast of Pittsburgh.
“A little bit,” Vaccaro told InGame. “But you know what? I could have still been there, but I turned 80 years old only three or four months ago. Everything comes to an end. So yeah, maybe a little tug on the heart here, but that’ll go away.
“I’ll watch the game by myself,” he added. “I won’t go to any party. That’s for sure.”
InGame asked Vaccaro for his favorite game-day story, and the gregarious storyteller quickly obliged: Jan. 21, 1979, when the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Dallas Cowboys, 35-31, in Super Bowl XIII. Vaccaro, then working at the Royal Inn for Michael Gaughan, delivered a big loss, some good and bad news, and a story that’s lasted for decades.
Recounts Vaccaro:
“[Gaughan] is on a vacation, in the Sea of Cortez, and he’s not in town for the Super Bowl. So he just kept calling, trying to get me. And it took me five hours to do all the tickets. Remember, those days, no computers, just handwritten. I had to write every ticket to find out exactly how much we did, whether we win or lose.
“That was the infamous game with the Cowboys and the Steelers, where opened 2.5, went to 5.5 and it came 4. So everybody knew we were going to get our ass kicked. It was a bonanza for the wise guys. When Michael heard about it, he said, ‘What’d we do?’
“I said, ‘Michael, I’ll be doing tickets for hours.’ He said, ‘OK, call back in two hours.’
“Michael got me later and said, ‘OK, what is it? What happened?’
“I said, ‘We lost $185,000,’ which for us was a huge amount at the time, because we were so small. ‘That’s the bad news.’
“He said, ‘Well, give me the good news.’
“I said, ‘OK, here’s the good news: We only lost $185,000.'”
Jeff Edelstein’s Super Bowl party props
Forget Seahawks vs. Patriots. The real action is happening at your Super Bowl party. Here are the props that matter.
- Number of beers I will drink: Over/Under 3.5 — Three lagers is my standard. Feel pretty good, a little buzzy, wake up fine the next morning. Once we go over 3.5? The sky’s the limit. Pot committed, basically. (This prop will go off the board if I decide to go with 16-ounce IPAs.)
- Number of times someone has to explain how a box pool works: Over/Under 1 — This is not brain surgery. It’s not even surgery. It’s the gambling equivalent of putting a Band-Aid on a boo-boo. Yet every year, someone needs a full tutorial.
- Pepperoni slices vs. plain slices left over: Pepperoni -3 over plain — Pepperoni wins every time. When you’re going for that fourth slice, you’re going pepperoni. Why not.
- Number of people who say, “I’m just here for the commercials”: Over/Under 2.5 — They’ll announce it loudly. They watch their phones during the actual game. They get mad when people talk during ads.
- Minutes into the game before someone asks, “What’s the score?”: Under 8.5 — Someone will walk in late, grab a plate, and immediately ask what’s happening, like they don’t have a phone in their pocket.
- Buffalo wings vs. boneless wings consumed: Buffalo -7 over boneless — Boneless wings are for children and cowards. Real wings win in a landslide. Fight me.
- Number of times someone complains about the halftime show: Over/Under 4.5 — This year, it really depends on the political makeup of your Super Bowl party, which answers the question, once and for all, “Has politics completely ruined our lives?”
- Percentage of people still watching by the fourth quarter: Under 65% — We could even prediction market this thing and trade as the game goes on. If it’s a blowout, half the room will be gone by then. If it’s close, people will stick around.
- Number of dips that go completely untouched: Over/Under 1.5 — Someone always brings a dip nobody asked for. It’s somehow both chunky and creamy. It has an orange hue. You could swear it’s swelling as the game goes on. You’re all very welcome for that visual.
- Minutes after the game ends before everyone leaves: Under 12.5 — Game’s over, people are out the door. Nobody lingers. It’s not rude, it’s just efficient. It’s a school night, for crying out loud.
Quoth the USA: ‘Go Hawks’
A Seton Hall Sports Poll released on Thursday revealed that 27% of Americans surveyed support Seattle in Super Bowl LX, while just 15% yearn for a Patriots win.
Among self-described avid sports fans, the Seahawks polled at 47%, New England at 20%.
“This may be a new generation of post-Tom Brady-era fans who are surprised that the Patriots are returning to the Super Bowl and miss the regular appearance of the Chiefs and [Patrick] Mahomes,” Charles Grantham, director of the Center for Sport Management and the Seton Hall Sports Poll at the Seton Hall Stillman School of Business, said in a release. “The return of the winners of six Super Bowls may also drive people to the Seahawks. Although the Patriots are a great story, [Bill] Belichick and Brady are the first things people outside New England think. The real issue is whether fans outside of the home markets will join and stay with Super Bowl LX.”
Notable bets, bettable stuff
At BetMGM:
• $725,000 on Patriots moneyline (+195)
• $325,000 on Patriots +4.5 (-105)
At Fanatics:
- Fanatics Sportsbook will have more than 600 prop bet markets for the Super Bowl
- Moneyline: Seattle had generated 57% of the bets through Thursday
- Spread: Seattle had generated 65% of the bets on Seahawks -4.5 through Thursday
- Most popular players for props:
- Jaxon Smith-Njigba
- Kenneth Walker III
- Drake Maye
- Most popular prop market: correct score
- Most popular prop selection: Seahawks 27, Patriots 24
At PrizePicks:
Jenner success underscores trend
Fanatics Betting & Gaming CEO Matt King credits influencer Kendall Jenner for a spike in downloads heading into Super Bowl Sunday. Though he didn’t reveal the extent of the spike, he said the volume has made the cost of the Jenner ad campaign worthwhile.
Jenner’s broad social media appeal has undoubtedly helped, but, according to Wondr Nation President and CEO Anika Howard, Fanatics appears to have harnessed a demographic that was already increasingly interested in pop culture/sports synergy.
“I think that is really what Fanatics is tapping into with Kendall Jenner,” Howard, whose gambling/entertainment company focuses on emerging technology and trends, told InGame. “Those current social relationships are fueling people to kind of want to stay connected, want to be a part of that. And I think you’re going to see more and more of those.”
While 18- to 34-year-old males remain the coveted sports betting user demographic, Howard sees increased interest in sportsbook and prediction market apps that bring more than sports into the equation. The Super Bowl, with markets centering on halftime shows, word mentions, and Gatorade colors, has become a nexus.
“With women, there’s a much larger opportunity there and companies are starting to see and tap into that. I feel like that is the biggest underserved market right now,” Howard explained. “When you look at these cultural moments, the Super Bowl being a big cultural moment, there are these shared participatory experiences, and when you’re blending things that index high for women — which are a lot of the pop culture events — you’re tying that in. You’re seeing more and more over the last five years. That audience has been growing probably at a higher percentage than others.”
