Eagles cement losing day for Vegas sportsbooks

Roughly 90 minutes before the Sunday prime-time kickoff between the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys, Jeff Stoneback, assistant manager for MGM race and sports, looked at the computer screen and needed some help.

"It's not good, because I need a calculator," Stoneback said with a chuckle, as he tried to figure out how much more money had been wagered on the Eagles than on the underdog Cowboys. "There's almost 13 times more money on the Eagles."

Around Las Vegas, other sportsbooks were sitting in a similar predicament and would suffer the same fate as MGM when the Eagles hammered the Cowboys 37-9.

Sunday was a players' day.

Favorites, including the heavily-bet Eagles and New England Patriots, went 8-3-1 against the spread Sunday, resulting in a losing day for Las Vegas sportsbooks.

The Patriots easily covered the spread in a 33-8 win over the Oakland Raiders, another big win for the betting public. But the Eagles' drubbing of the Cowboys was the most costly for the books.

"Everyone and their cousin are betting the Eagles today," a manager for Caesars Palace sportsbooks told ESPN. "This is the first time we've needed the Cowboys in a prime-time game in quite a while."

By the time the game kicked off, 80 percent of the money wagered at William Hill's sportsbooks was on the Eagles, including a $126,000 bet on Philadelphia -3.5 placed Wednesday.

MGM also reported taking multiple six-figure bets on the Eagles earlier in the week. Philadelphia closed as high as a 6.5-point favorite.

With the win, Philadelphia improved to 9-1 straight-up and 8-2 against the spread. Las Vegas sportsbook operator CG Technology said the Eagles' win produced one of its 10 worst single-game losses of the season.

While most sportsbooks reported ending up in the red on Sunday, it could have been worse.

"The [New York] Giants beating the [Kansas City] Chiefs saved our day," Stoneback said.