The St. Louis Blues' Cinderella playoff run has beaten the odds and created major liability for sportsbooks heading into the Stanley Cup Final. Patrick Everson talks to Jeff Stoneback of MGM sportsbooks and Nick Bogdanovic of William Hill about how the Blues have Vegas sweating and bettors singing "Gloria."
On a mid-November night, six weeks into the 2018-19 NHL season, the St. Louis Blues traveled to Las Vegas to face the Golden Knights. The Blues were in the Central Division basement with 15 points, and the defending Western Conference champion Knights weren’t much better at second-to-last in the Pacific Division with 17 points.**video
Other than it being Friday night on the Strip, at an always-sold-out T-Mobile Arena, it seemed like any other early-season NHL game, with both teams still trying to find their form. However, at MGM Resorts sportsbooks, it marked the beginning of what’s become a stunning situation that looms large heading into Monday’s opening of the Stanley Cup Final between St. Louis and Boston.
The Blues entered that Nov. 16 game as +134 underdogs and fell behind 1-0 six minutes in. Then they reeled off four unanswered goals in a modestly surprising 4-1 victory, thrilling St. Louis fans who traveled out in force for the contest. Those fans, in turn, opened up their wallets on the then-40/1 shot to win the Stanley Cup.
“Early in the season, we always get a spike on visiting teams in the Stanley Cup futures book,” MGM sportsbooks’ director of trading Jeff Stoneback told Covers. “That day, we obviously had a lot of out-of-town visiting fans come to the game. So we did take a large number of bets on the Blues for that game. The Blues beat the Knights, and those fans then came in and bet the Stanley Cup futures.”
Still, it seemed innocuous enough, especially since six weeks later, on Jan. 2, the Blues were NHL cellar dwellers, last among all 31 teams with 34 points. MGM books had St. Louis at 150/1, while William Hill US had the Blues at their longest odds of the year, 300/1 to hoist Lord Stanley’s chalice.
“That was the high-water mark there, the first of the year, because they were dead last,” William Hill director of trading Nick Bogdanovich said.
Little did Stoneback or Bogdanovich know that as the NHL calendar steamed toward June, the Blues would still be alive – and with that life, significant liability for the books.
Some bettors got on board at those huge numbers throughout much of January, while St. Louis actually made modest improvements, standing 25th in the league – but still second-to-last in the Central – with 45 points on Jan. 22.
A day later, Jan. 23, was when things really began to take shape. The Blues routed host Anaheim 5-1, then followed with three more road wins, including an impressive 1-0 overtime shutout of league-leading Tampa Bay. Rookie goaltender Jordan Binnington yielded just five goals in those four games. Bettors were getting more intrigued.
The Blues then swept a home-and-home with perennial Western Conference contender Nashville, followed by five more wins – including three on the road – to run their hot streak to 11-0. St. Louis capped the run with a 3-2 home overtime victory against Toronto to stand third in its division and fourth in the Western Conference.
“Give the people credit. They bet it really early, before the run started. So hats off to the bettors for that one,” Bogdanovich said. “Then they were on the Blues early during that run, so I give them credit for that, too. And the number dropped, and they just kept betting it and betting it.”
Meanwhile, Stoneback was seeing the same situation unfold at MGM books, as the Blues’ Stanley Cup price tightened all the way to 8/1.
“We took some big bets when they were on a double-digit winning streak, so we’ve got a lot of liability on St. Louis,” he said.
How much is a lot? Well, think back to a year ago, during the Golden Knights’ inaugural season, when many Vegas sportsbooks were lamenting the monster losses they would incur if the hometown team won the championship. The Knights created a heavy sweat, reaching the Stanley Cup Final before losing to Washington in six games. MGM books are sweating it again this year.
“St. Louis is horrible. All the talk last year of Vegas winning the Cup, how much everybody was gonna lose, we’re gonna lose close to that if St. Louis wins the Cup,” Stoneback said. “We are very close to the liability we had on the Knights. The Blues came from so far down, and people just kept taking a shot.”
In postseason play, the Blues dropped Winnipeg in six games, outlasted Dallas in a seven-game series, then beat San Jose in six games in the Western Conference final. St. Louis is now a +135 underdog to win the championship series, with MGM harboring mid-six-figure liability on the Blues and William Hill US in a similar spot – which is actually a better position than last year, when Bogdanovich’s risk room dodged approximately $1.5 million in Golden Knights liability.
“It’s like a third of that,” Bogdanovich said of St. Louis’ liability. “The Blues were reasonably priced for the playoffs, it was around 20/1. But there was so much liability to them already. Bettors are still on the Blues on a game-by-game basis. On the futures, all the damage was done at those high numbers.
“It’s a phenomenal move, from last place to the championship series.”
Patrick Everson is a Las Vegas-based senior writer for Covers. Follow him on Twitter: @Covers_Vegas.
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