Rovell: Bettor Loses $660K on Clemson, Public Wins Big on LSU
Chris Graythen/Getty Images. Pictured: Joe Burrow
It was clear from the get go that most sportsbooks would need Clemson to cover against LSU in the National Championship. Once the Bayou Bengals asserted themselves as the nation's dominant team, bettors were hooked.
They ate the chalk against Georgia in the SEC Championship, they laid the wood against Oklahoma in the College Football Playoff Semifinal and they certainly were not going to stop for the National Championship against Clemson.
Nowhere else was that more true than at the MGM Sportsbook at the Beau Rivage Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. Jason Scott, vice president of trading at ROAR Digital/BetMGM, told us before the game that they saw 85% LSU money, including a $400,000 bet on LSU -5.
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That was one of several six-figure bets came in on LSU throughout the week. William Hill took two monster bets on Monday afternoon — one for $275,000 and the other for $250,000 — on LSU -5. Last week, CG Technology took two bets from the same punter — one on LSU -5.5 and the other on -6 — for a total of $200,000. And there were plenty more.
The biggest loser of the day was a regular casino player at MGM who played $660,000 through three separate bets on Clemson. The deep-pocketed bettor lost $220,000 on Clemson first-half (+3.5), Clemson +5 and Clemson +180.
That bettor had plenty of company, including a bettor in Indiana who lost $100,000 on Clemson +170 at the Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City, Indiana.
While LSU was certainly the more public side, our market-wide data reported 60% of the spread bets were on Ed Orgeron's Tigers, plenty of late, sharp money backed Clemson over the last few days.
"It's a good thing we had such a flood of Clemson money the last 48 hours," John Murray, the director of race and sports at the Westgate SuperBook, said. "A few days ago we were stuck on a huge number on LSU."
Still, most sportsbooks were hoping that Clemson would have covered.
"[It was a] decent loser," said Nick Bogdanovic of William Hill.
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