THE SCOOP
The game itself is in East Rutherford, N.J., and both team hotels are in Jersey City, but other than that this week is all about the Big Apple.
And New Jersey ain’t happy about that. East Rutherford mayor James Cassella said the Super Bowl is being covered like “a New York event.” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said, “I passed ‘miffed’ a while ago. I mean this is ridiculous.”
And then there’s this point of view:
“To me, I know everyone is excited about it being in New York, but it should be in Miami every year,” former Dolphins quarterback and NBC analyst Dan Marino said. “You work so hard to get in that position and then for weather to be a factor, that’s tough.”
PROUD FANS
The New York Post caught up with Demaryius Thomas’ mother, who shares a prison cell with her mother. Both are inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, Fla. His mother assures everyone how proud she is of her son, the former Georgia Tech receiver who has blossomed under the tutelage of quarterback Peyton Manning.
Thomas’ mother, Katina Smith, will wear a prison-issued gray T-shirt when she watches her son and his Broncos try to win the Super Bowl.
“We did make pom-poms out of newspaper,” Smith told the Post in a telephone interview.
She will watch the Super Bowl with her mother, Minnie Thomas, her cellmate for the past 14 years, since they were arrested on federal charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and cocaine base. Thomas faced 40 years to life, Smith 20 years.
Smith is scheduled to be released on Christmas Day 2016, Demaryius’ 29th birthday, but she holds out hope it could be earlier.
ODDS ARE
Las Vegas oddsmakers almost always will come out ahead on the Super Bowl. They have a $5.5 million average win margin over the past 10 Super Bowls and they have won 21 of the past 23 outright.
Their biggest win came in 2005, when the underdog Eagles, covering against the Patriots, earned Nevada books $15.4 million. Their biggest loss came in 2008, when the Giants upset the Patriots, costing the books $2.5 million.
Bets totaled an unprecedented $99 million on the Super Bowl last year, and the Nevada gambling industry expects to break the record Sunday. Nevada sports books collected record amounts of football wagers during the tail end of 2013.
Casinos used to see sports books as a low-profit perk that kept customers from going next door.
“It’s not just an amenity anymore. It’s not just icing on the cake, it’s part of the meal,” said Jay Kornegay, who runs the LVH sports book.
Professional gamblers and oddsmakers attribute the rise in wagering to the increase in televised games.
Proposition wagers, in which gamblers bet on elements of the game aside from the final score, account for as much as 60 percent of Super Bowl bets in Nevada.
BY THE NUMBERS
10 Touchdown receptions for Wes Walker, a career high, while catching 73 passes for 778 yards, the lowest statistical output since 2006 when he was with the Miami Dolphins.
