The house always wins, even when it doesn't

In the first year of New Jersey's legal betting of the Super Bowl, the house didn't do so well.

New Jersey casinos lost $4.6 million on Super Bowl bets. (By comparison, Nevada gamblers lost $10.8 million to the casinos.) That's great news for New Jersey, right? A great example of regular people sticking it to the big casinos, right?

Well, no.

It turns out that in New Jersey the risk is split between casino operators and the state taxing authority. As a result, New Jersey's state government will take a hit financially as a result of its smarter-than-Vegas betting public, reports David K. Li of NBC News.

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