Golden Knights’ crazy success puts Vegas bookies in weird bind

When Las Vegas oddsmakers were tasked with projecting the Vegas Golden Knights’ inaugural season, no one expected much success. NHL expansion teams typically struggle mightily out of the gate, not to mention that this was Las Vegas, a desert city where temperatures regularly reach triple digits in the summer. Not exactly the recipe for success for an ice hockey franchise.

A year later, the Knights are two wins away from the Stanley Cup finals, entering Friday’s Game 4 against Winnipeg. Which means Vegas sportsbooks are looking at a huge potential liability.

“When [the Golden Knights were] at 300-1, we wrote a ticket for $400, which pays out 120 grand,” said Jay Kornegay, vice president of race and sports operations for Westgate. “I can’t give definitive numbers, but every book is going to lose a healthy six figures if the Knights win the Cup. Some places are whispering seven.”

And yet, morale is soaring in the Vegas bookmaking world. In a city where sports and gambling are inevitably linked, the first professional team is turning hockey betting into the main attraction at the casinos.

Throughout this unprecedented Western Conference finals run, the city has taken to the Golden Knights in a big way. Each game, the Las Vegas Strip (where the T-Mobile Arena is located) is lined with black-and-gold jerseys. Tickets have flown off the market, so much so that the team needed to add an additional thousand season tickets for 2018. It’s clear after one season, the Great Desert Ice Hockey Experiment is a roaring success.

“No one knew how well the NHL would take off here,” said Duane Colucci, a native New Yorker who is race and sports assistant manager at the Rampart Casino. “We know the Raiders will be massively successful. We know if the NBA came, it would be massively successful. But it paid off, and the result is living proof that Vegas is now a sports city.”

“It’s been a love fest between the locals and this team,” Kornegay said.

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With the massive surge in interest, a surge in gambling naturally has followed. According to Colucci, the Rampart has taken more bets on the Golden Knights this season than it did on the entire NHL last year. A sport that has been scarcely wagered on in years past is suddenly seeing record levels of action at the books, rivaling even the NFL.

“We have a massive wagering amount that supersedes even the [New England] Patriots,” Colucci said. “They’re the most popular team to wager on, and they’ve never been more than 25 percent of my weekend action. The Golden Knights, on an average NHL evening where there are 10 games, they’re more than 75 percent of the action.

“The tourists that come in, they’ll say, ‘Let’s bet on Vegas, root for them tonight.’ Old ladies who play bingo, they’ll leave the bingo hall and say, ‘10 bucks on the Knights.’ ”

Most of the books’ heavy losses, should Vegas win it all, will come from a very small number of early bets, made before the public knew just how good the team would be. One can also argue the losses could have been much worse.

A common take on the Knights’ success is that the 2017 expansion draft had far less lenient protections for existing NHL teams. The last expansion draft, in 2000, allowed teams to protect nine forwards, five defensemen and a goalie, with an option to protect a second goalie with fewer position players. In 2017? Seven forwards, three defensemen and a goalie — with no option for a second.

So when the Penguins protected Matt Murray, who brought a Stanley Cup to Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017, the Knights selected Marc-Andre Fleury — who brought a Stanley Cup to Pittsburgh in 2009 (they also got a 2020 second-round pick for taking on Fleury’s salary.) When the Predators were forced to pick through their loaded roster, All-Star James Neal fell through the cracks. Vegas poached Jonathan Marchessault from the Panthers. He tallied two goals in the Knights’ Game 3 win over the Jets.

If the gambling world was paying attention to hockey, more bets might have been placed. But at the start of last year, it was an afterthought. Clearly, things have changed.

Fans are pouring into casinos to watch the games. The Rampart offers merchandise giveaways, food vouchers and opportunities for mid-game wagering each time the Knights play. Westgate shows every Knights game on its 240-foot-wide video screen.

“We want people walking through the door,” Colucci said. “Whether or not they’re betting on the Knights, they’ll play video poker, they’ll grab something to eat.”

So though a Golden Knights Stanley Cup may be a bad day at the office for bookies, in the long term, it won’t be much more than that.

“We’ve had these things happen before,” Kornegay said. “[2016 Premier League champion] Leicester City, they were 2,500-1. The [St. Louis] Rams, when Trent Green went down and Kurt Warner took over, they were 500-1.

“People are saying, ‘Vegas is going to get destroyed if the Knights win, and bookies are concerned.’ The first half might be true, but not the second. The town is rooting for them. You talk to the majority of operators here in town, we’re OK with it. Business will take care of itself.”