Rivers sportsbook manager Brooke Nix excited, prepared for big NFL season

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Brooke Nix, the sportsbook manager at Rivers Casino & Resort, stands in the sportsbook's lounge in front of two ticket writers.

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Sportsbook manager Brooke Nix can’t help but feel the excitement fall brings to the Rivers Casino & Resort.

Since the NFL is the leading driver of sports wagering, Nix doesn’t need pumpkins to add spice to her life. The volume of wagering increased right after the league’s preseason began.

“Oh my gosh, even with the mobile betting, a lot of people have come in to watch the preseason,” Nix said. “I’ve seen a lot of faces of people I haven’t seen since last year because they’re strictly football bettors.”

Interviewed Thursday before the Buffalo Bills game that night, Nix said the majority of bets the sportsbook would take before kickoff would be on the Bills. Likewise, the New York Giants and New York Jets fans will make their wagers.

“It’s very biased to New York on all events and sports,” Nix said.

According to statistics from the American Gaming Association in a sample of over 2,200 American adults, nationally, the Bills and Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the most popular pick to win the Super Bowl, each with 9 percent.

Nix noted that the sportsbook offers about 500 individual bets per NFL game.

“You have the regular money line, over/under and point spread, but the others depend on what you want to bet on,” Nix said. “The betting line comes out seven to 10 days before, some prop bets come out on the Tuesday before, the main player props come out two days before the game and the defensive player bets one day before.”

Nix said October is traditionally the biggest month for sportsbooks, as bettors become more sophisticated and comfortable with how NFL teams are playing. That also will be the time when their thoughts turn to the NHL and NBA.

“The amount [bet] will definitely be higher, and they’ll be parlaying it. People really love parlays in this area,” Nix said.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic taking its chunk out of all sportsbooks, Nix – who thinks she may be the only female sportsbook manager in the state – is proud of the fact that Rivers’ sportsbook has outperformed all other upstate commercial sportsbooks, such as del Lago in Waterloo, Tioga Downs and Resorts World in the Catskills, since opening in July 2019.

Rivers’ kiosks are available 24 hours a day/seven days a week, but it also has ticket writers to take bets from 11 a.m.-midnight. On the days of international NFL games [Oct. 2, 9, 30 and Nov. 13], they will begin taking bets at 9 a.m.

“Our ticket writers are so patient,” Nix said, “and are always willing to help somebody place their bets.”

Nix said the sportsbook’s lounge has proved popular, as it will have every NFL game on its 53-foot-by-9-foot LED video wall and 22 86-inch televisions.