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Edited on Thu Jan-28-10 07:19 PM by Awsi Dooger
Find another $100,000 and take the +8.5. That would be a 20/1 potential bonanza if the game fell between Colts by 5 and Colts by 8. You would win $200,000, or lose $10,000 if the result was anything besides Colts by 5-8.
The last part separates gamblers from petrified wimps. You have to risk the loss to enable the chance for greatest profit.
It's actually $110,000 to win $100,000. Your total outlay would be $220,000. In the Super Bowl you might find some joints willing to deal 5 cent juice and not 10 cents, but it's rare and normally reserved for the second week, once the line is settled.
A 4 point move would be unprecedented in the Super Bowl. Anything above 1 is almost unheard of. The biggest sportsbook bloodbath was a 1 point move. The Steelers went from -3.5 to -4.5 in 1978. When the game fell 4, 35-31, only an idiot lost the wager.
You could try to sell the tickets. I can't say that I've seen that in high volume. It's not uncommon in Las Vegas for a guy to shop his ticket on a future bet if he's stuck for cash. Inevitably that turns into advantage buyer, no seller.
Another option would be shopping the pointspread props. In fact, that sounds like the likely course, assuming you didn't want to take the $10,000 risk. Virtually every sportsbook puts up adjusted lines in either direction. For example, you can give points with the Saints and take a price. Or you can give 10 points or more with the Colts and take a price. Every number has a corresponding rate, based on relationship to the original spread. You could look for a joint using Colts -4.5 (or similar), and take the Saints end of that prop. It might look something like this, if the line had bumped to -8.5:
* Saints +4.5 +145 * Colts -4.5 -165
That's a rough estimate, but close enough. It means you could play $100,000 on the Saints to win $145,000. That would produce a $35,000 profit if the Saints covered, winning $145,000 while losing your original $110,000. You would break even if the Colts covered. But let's be realistic. You're not a gambler. You want to chuckle a profit based on clever foresight. The solution would be to wager less than $100,000 on the Saints, something in the $86,000 range, which would equate to equal profit of about $14,000 regardless of which side covers. I'd figure it out to exactly 50/50 if this were actually happening.
Regarding the tax aspect, the gaming rules changed about 9 years ago. Prior to that anything done in chips or betting tickets was fine, no paperwork. You were only IRS reported if you transacted more than $10,000 cash in a 24 hour period in a single casino. But that changed dramatically when the books were being hammered by organized groups of middlers and value players. The take had gone down more than 1.5%, which is disastrous considering the allotted space for a sportsbook. Consequently the rule was altered to IRS report anyone who went above $10,000 in any form, buying or cashing.
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