Public backing San Antonio
By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com
Spurs a Thorn in the Books Side!
When a team wins 17 straight games like the San Antonio Spurs have, it creates a lot of attention with bettors which makes most of the games one sided for the sports books. Unlike pro baseball or pro hockey, where most of the action is on the money-line, basketball deals with a point-spread.
And when you have a line involved, the wins and losses usually evens things out a bit more as the win streak becomes littered with inflated spreads that become almost impossible to cover. Unfortunately for the sports books, that hasn’t happened with the Spurs, no matter how they have adjusted their rating.
The Spurs are a covering machine with a well-rested 10-man rotation that rarely looks tired or makes takes bad shots. During their 17-game winning streak they have gone 15-2 against-the-spread.
For the casual bettor, San Antonio has been an automatic play in their two and three-team parlays with little decisions needed to be made. You simply take the Spurs and hope your other teams come through.
“We’ve been hurt by the Spurs during the playoffs, not just from the smaller money on parlays, but also from high end house players that have also been riding them,” said MGM Resorts race and sports director Jay Rood.
“We’re actually fortunate that some of the other popular teams haven’t been as easy to figure out because we’re still holding close to what we historically do in May for the NBA.”
Had it not been for the Spurs, the books would be doing extremely well in the playoffs. Bettors came into the playoffs high on teams like the Heat, got burned by them a few games and then jumped ship altogether by the time they arrived in Indianapolis for Game 3 and bet the Pacers.
“They (public) we’re betting against the Heat and taking the Spurs Sunday,” said Rood. “The parlay risk to those two sides was enormous.”
San Antonio completed its second playoff sweep on Sunday by defeating the Los Angeles Clippers, 102-99. However, they failed to cover as 7 ½-point road favorites.
Needless to say, Sunday was a very good day for the house.
Although the Clippers were Rood’s least favorite team to win the NBA Championship because of large future exposure, the next worst decision for him is the Spurs who he currently has listed at EVEN money.
Prior to the season, a couple offshore outfits had San Antonio listed as high as a 25/1 price to win this year’s championship. When you consider the franchise won the last season (1999) that was shortened due to a lockout, perhaps the Spurs will keep this streak going.
In case you forget, San Antonio went 15-2 during that postseason run, which included back-to-back sweeps in the Western Conference semifinals and finals. The Spurs stopped the Knicks in five games of the NBA Finals.
Below are the latest futures from the LVH Super Book:
ODDS TO WIN 2011-2012 NBA CHAMPIONSHIP
SPURS 5/4
THUNDER 13/5
HEAT 2/1
CELTICS 18/1
PACERS 20/1
76ERS 40/1
LAKERS 100/1
ODDS TO WIN 2011-2012 NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE
HEAT 5/8
CELTICS 7/2
PACERS 9/2
76ERS 10/1
ODDS TO WIN 2011-2012 NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE
SPURS 1/2
THUNDER 7/5
LAKERS 50/1