Las Vegas Bowl Odds
By Eric Uribe,
Ever heard of the Las Vegas Bowl? There’s a chance you haven’t. It is among the newest bowl games in college football, having debuted in 1992. But you better believe you’ll be hearing more about Las Vegas Bowl odds in the years to come. It isn’t part of the college football playoff, so it doesn’t help determine who plays in the National Championship, but NCAA football odds are hot property for each and every bowl game.
The Las Vegas Bowl will take place at the end of the year on Saturday, December 27, 2024, at the Allegiant Stadium scheduled for 7:30 pm EST.
There’s no reason to expect that the Las Vegas Bowl will be any different. It is being played in the sports-gambling capital of the United States, and the NCAA is so confident in its future success that they’ve moved its location, scheduling it to be played in the 65,000-seat Allegiant Stadium.
Because this bowl game is so new, it’s imperative that even the most seasoned college football bettors get the skinny on what it means, what’s at stake, when’s the best time to wager on it, and whether it can be included into any existing bowl-game betting strategies. And as luck would have it, we’re about to tackle all of this right now!
Best Las Vegas Bowl Betting Sites
The relative newness of the Las Vegas Bowl shouldn’t impact how you find an online sportsbook fit to take your bets on it. Every site will be offering odds when the time comes. As we said, it’s expected to be that big.
However, don’t get caught in the trap of just using any old sportsbook. There are differences to the experience. Some are better are processing transactions quickly. Others are great at publishing lines swiftly and updating them in real-time. Some offer a ton of different wager types, many of which you won’t have access to elsewhere. Customer service departments will vary in how useful they are.
We know that juggling all these different factors can make for a difficult decision, in addition to being time-consuming. So, we’ve eliminated the leg work for you. Below you’ll find a list of sportsbooks that are not only great destinations for Las Vegas Bowl spreads, but for all your college football betting:
College Football Las Vegas Bowl Odds
Odds for the Las Vegas Bowl are constructed the same way they are for other college football bowl games: They aren’t available that far in advance.
Though we know this event will include two teams pulled from the Pac-12, SEC, or Big 10, all of those squads are first trying to land themselves in the college football playoff or one of the other six major bowl games. Making any other appearance, including in the Las Vegas Bowl, amounts to a consolation prize—although it still certainly matters.
That means preseason and midseason lines are off the table. If you want to play the big-picture game, you’ll have to focus on college football playoff futures or, more lucratively, National Championship futures.
But make no bones about it: Once the Las Vegas Bowl odds are up for every team, we will have them ready to go for you. The odds were last updated on September 3, 2024:
Las Vegas Bowl Odds
By contrast, if the season ends up getting delayed for every team, you’ll invariably see once-upon-a-time contending schools drop out of bowl-game consideration because they’ve had an exodus of key talent. Some marquee players have already declared themselves out for the season, opting instead to focus on and train for the 2023 NFL draft. That’ll only happen more often if the schedule is pushed back until the spring when said NFL draft usually takes place.
Sportsbooks are all in the lurch as a result. They’ve pulled all their future odds, right down to win-total projections for all teams, including those eligible to partake in the Las Vegas Bowl. It is on college football gamblers to monitor the NCAA’s plans and then makes sure they’re working with the most up to date odds once they’re re-released. This is an unprecedented set of circumstances in which misinformed decision-making can lead to very, very bad beats if you’re not vigilant enough.
What’s at Stake in the Las Vegas Bowl?
The betting popularity on the Las Vegas Bowl has waxed and waned over its short life span, in no small part because it isn't among the matchups that make up the college football playoff or help determine who heads to the National Championship. Those stakes are reserved for the following high profile matchups, on a rolling basis that allows each of these six main events to join the college football playoff once every three years:
More cachet is ascribed to the aforementioned New Year's Six even when they're among the four that don't count as a semifinal showdown in any given year. They have more history behind them; winning them is considered just a notch below making and securing a National Championship.
The Las Vegas Bowl exists on the second tier of title-level tilts. Its primary partners in crime are:
On balance, yes, the Las Vegas Bowl barely cracks the list of the top 10 most important bowl games each season. That's not a bad thing. It still ferries a level of exclusivity, and the challenges aren't coming from a no-name conference. Top-25-ranked schools are still making cameos in this tilt. We're those on the same level as Boise State, Washington, Oregon, and Fresno State—programs that enter each season hope to at least make one of the New Year's Six bowls, if not actually join the college football playoff.
If the importance assigned to the Las Vegas Bowl by the kind of schools it invites doesn't convince you, then the prize money should. The victorious college nets a $2.9 million payout, making one of the most glitzy pots of gold available.
Betting Strategies for the Las Vegas Bowl
While not all betting strategies work for every single gambler, our advice is universally applicable: Treat the Las Vegas Bowl like you would a New Year's Six bowl game—or even the National Championship.
This means a few different things. First off, you'll want to submit your game-outcome wagers as soon as possible. The lines on important college football games always move noticeably at least once following their initial release. This isn't a phenomenon; it's merely oddsmakers accounting to heavy amounts of action on one team or bet type—usually the spread or over/under.
Las Vegas Bowl's Props
Beyond that, the Las Vegas Bowl is a license to explore the prop-betting market. Where many regular-season college football games may not have any props or only offer the basics, this is a bowl game that'll feature a heaping pile of off-beat options.
Some potential examples include: How many touchdowns will the quarterback from UCLA throw for? Which wide receiver from UNLV and Nevada will make the first catch of the game? Will the running back from BYU have a single run that tops 20 yards? 30 yards? 40 yards? Will the defence come up with a score, be it safety or touchdown, for Arizona State?
Most sportsbooks will even offer what amounts to a massive over/under expansion. You'll still be able to wager on the combined score hitting or missing a certain threshold. But you are also able to apply this logic to other areas of the game like the number of field goals made; the number of interceptions and fumbles forced; the number of penalty yards amassed; the number of throws by both participating quarterbacks; the number of tackles made for a loss; and so on.
Live betting is also something you'll want to explore for the Las Vegas Bowl. West Coast games always do a nice job of augmenting their real-time selections. When it's a bowl game on the West Coast? Forget about it. You won't just have the ability to invest in mid-game outcomes. They'll be live props, too.
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