Serena Williams' success provides significant 'liability' to sportsbooks

Yahoo Finance's Josh Schafer discusses seeing Serena live in action and how sportsbooks may take a hit because of her success.

Video transcript

- Well, the journey continues for the GOAT, Serena Williams, who won her second round of the US Open and is now headed to the third round of the tournament. And in a post-game interview, she was asked if she was surprised to be playing at this level. And she just said, I'm just Serena.

Yahoo Finance's Josh Schafer was there last night at Flushing Meadows, joins us now on set. Josh, I mean, just what was the environment--

- I love that comment, by the way.

- Yeah, it was [? nice. ?]

JOSH SCHAFER: I think the comment speaks to what the night was like, right?

- Yeah.

JOSH SCHAFER: It was just Serena. It felt like some old-school Serena at points. I mean, during that second set-- so she ended up winning in three sets, right, which is kind of going the distance in tennis. And in the second set, she faltered a little bit.

But at times, when she hit some of those shots, and the whole place stood up-- there was almost 30,000 people there last night, a US Open record for last night. It was unbelievable.

- It was vintage Serena. It was like '99 in there.

JOSH SCHAFER: Right. And some of the serves, too, when she would serve an ace, and the whole place was standing up. I mean, tennis is one of those sports, it's not common that the entire place is rooting for one person. I was there. Pretty much the entire place--

- Everyone was rooting for her?

JOSH SCHAFER: --maybe five people weren't rooting for Serena Williams. But it felt like everyone was rooting for her. And in the beginning, she started a little slow. And it was almost like this anticipation of, OK, is she going to come? When's it going to come? When's it going to come?

And then she hit a couple good shots, place went nuts. It was-- everyone was there for her. It was pretty awesome.

Some celebrities there-- I know there were some great moments with Tiger Woods and things like that that were a lot of fun to see online. And they were showing them on the jumbotron, too, so it's great.

- You were saying it's vintage Serena, but I like how she also said, for the first time since, like, what, '98, she feels like she's playing without pressure. And that says a lot about how comfortable she looks on the court, even though she hasn't been playing as many matches. Now, obviously, everybody rooting for Serena at the US Open. But if we're talking about the gambling angle, [? you're ?] probably better to bet on her opponent if you want a big payout, right?

- She was the underdog. Well, Serena was.

JOSH SCHAFER: Serena was the underdog now. You'd bet--

- But I'm talking about the third round.

JOSH SCHAFER: Right, right, right, right, yeah, so we're going to see the market kind of shift here. But I think an interesting part to see, too, has been how many people have bet on Serena, Akiko. Because Serena-- and I was talking to a couple different people about this. And one executive at Caesars said, you don't see those kind of odds on Serena Williams. And you don't see this many people vote.

So that's from FanDuel, you can see there. 34% of the money on the overall winner has been put on Serena Williams. She started as a plus 5,000 odds player. So $5 on that bet wins you $250. That's a pretty big win.

For 34% of the money to be on someone with that high of odds is basically unheard of in gambling. Because as people have told me, some of these sportsbook operators, when-- they're like, no one this good ever has those odds. Serena has never had these kind of long odds in her career.

It's very similar to when Tiger comes back into a golf tournament now. Everyone gets excited. People want to bet on him. But realistically, the chances of them winning and doing that again aren't as common.

But she's winning now. The bets are picking up. I think FanDuel said they had roughly 80% of the bets they've taken in the last 12 hours since the match ended have just been on Serena to win.

- To win it all?

JOSH SCHAFER: Right, the tennis bets they've been taking. Everyone is just betting on Serena Williams to win this thing. So the sportsbooks will probably stand to lose a little bit of money if she wins.

- She beat the world number two yesterday. I mean, the number one is still out there. Coco Gauff is definitely rising-- a rising star, so I mean, we'll see, but--

- That would be the way to go out.

- That could be really cool. I mean, we'll have to see. I mean, the magic is still going on for Serena.

Does it go on for you, or are you going to get to go again? She's playing doubles today. And then her third round match is tomorrow.

JOSH SCHAFER: We'll have to see. I'm supposed to be out of town for the long weekend, unfortunately.

- Wow.

JOSH SCHAFER: But you never know, maybe she keeps winning. Finals are going to be next week, guys.

- All right, well, if that's the case, then maybe we'll send you over there. Yahoo Finance's Josh Schafer, thanks so much.