Golden Nights Cash for Guests, Baseball Playoffs, Plus More Sports News

STN Sports Books were ready for the gold rush! Not only were guests flocking to the windows and STN Sports App to bet the Golden Knights on Tuesday, they did the same thing a few days earlier with the 49ers. The result was the same: a bad night for the Book!

With all that in mind, let’s quickly look back at the past week in sports and peek at what’s ahead on the STN Sports App and at the Station Casinos Race and Sports Books…

Gridiron

Talk about a San Francisco treat! Guests feasted on the Sports Book when the 49ers obliterated the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night. “Everything was kind of live going to the 49ers and it was arguably one of our worst decisions of the year,” Chuck Esposito, Station Casinos’ Race and Sports Book Director. Brock Purdy’s squad closed as 3.5-point favorites, and those 49ers backers — which was almost all of you — didn’t even have to sweat it out, as San Francisco won 42-10.

 

Esposito said, “There was some sharp action that showed on the Cowboys at +4, even a little maybe at +3.5, but the public was all over the 49ers.” About 70% of the tickets on that game were tied to the Niners. “It was just that everything was rolling over into the 49ers,” the Station oddsmakers said. “You had all three of the big afternoon favorites win, and that kind of caused the liability going into the Sunday night game.” The Niners looked almost as fresh as the new Durango Casino & Resort guest rooms.

Just a few weeks ago, the Super Bowl prop bet (available on the STN Sports App) was a pick ‘em. However, due to San Francisco’s dominance, the number has flipped to the NFC’s February 11 representative being a slight favorite. “They’re definitely in it to win it. They’re a really good team right now. We flipped the AFC/NFC Super Bowl prop to the NFC as the favorite, and that’s clearly a product of the 49ers,” Esposito said. San Francisco didn’t even get this much love on Full House.

Really, Sunday’s NFL slate couldn’t have been more up and down than an elevator. The house dominated guests in the first half of the day with wins by the Jags, Steelers and Saints. In the afternoon, the script flipped like Pink at an Allegiant Stadium concert with nearly all the favorites winning, which is usually good for guests. “We were able to salvage a win Monday with the game staying under and the Raiders winning,” Esposito said. “We were actually Raiders fans on Monday. We saw more money on the Packers than we did on the Raiders, which is rare.”

 

VGK Defense Begins

Since 2000 in the NHL, the league’s defending champion has an under .500 record on the evening they raise the championship banner. On Tuesday, the Vegas Golden Knights bucked the trend with a 4-1 win against the Kraken… a win that crushed the Book. “Any time the Knights cover the puck line, it’s not good for us,” Esposito said. While STN Books have our hometown Knights as favorites to hoist another Stanley Cup, that number has to do with the local bias — after all, we are a locals casino.

“Vegas is really good still. You have to No. 1 in that league stay healthy and, no question, you’ve got to have a lot of talent,” Esposito said. “There’s a lot of youth in the Western Conference, and I think Colorado and Vegas for me are the two best teams right now on paper.” Over in the Eastern Conference, things are a little more wide open with the Hurricanes, Devils, Maple Leafs and Bruins all expected to be contenders. “I think the team to really look out for is the Devils,” Esposito said. “If I’m looking for a sleeper team right now, for me it’s the New Jersey Devils.”

Still, on Tuesday night, it was all about the the VGK and its jackpot banner release. Maybe, just maybe, the Stanley Cup will go all Sheryl Crow and have no plans of leaving Las Vegas.

 

Monster Saturday 

Like Travis Kelce right now, everything went the Book’s way on Saturday. “Southern Cal not covering, Colorado not covering Arizona, Oklahoma winning outright, Notre Dame losing, Miami losing — There were just so many late games that went our way,” Esposito said. “It was by far our best Saturday of the year. It was a pretty good day throughout the course of the day, but we had a really strong late game outcome for our side of the counter.”

 

Baseball Playoffs

Major League Baseball was a tale of the haves and have nots all season, and guests just pounded the good teams and faded the teams. Unlike the SpaceX flights, it wasn’t exactly rocket science. The playoffs are a different animal altogether, as every team is good.

“Having so many of the ‘dogs win in the first round and sweep was really good for us. The end of the regular season was not good. There wasn’t a lot of parody in the league,” Esposito said. “Getting Texas to win two on the road, getting the Twins to win, getting Philly to win, getting all these teams to win on the road was good stuff for us.” The Rangers — who possess the most liability to the Book, but it’s “nothing crazy” — is an interesting case, as they had the worst road record of all the playoff teams. Yet, they went to Tampa and easily took two games. They then went to Baltimore and took two there, as well.

“To win four games on the road really was good for our side of the counter,” Esposito said. Throughout four of the first five games of the playoffs, the Rangers pitching staff only gave up five runs combined — they were throwing more strikes than the auto industry.

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