Bettors crush Books in Week 1
By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com
Las Vegas sports books escaped a losing day on Thursday with the back-door push on the Patriots along with the game staying UNDER the total, but there was no escaping Sunday as bettors came strong and hard with the their favorite teams, which of course were the favored sides that happened to go 9-4 against the spread on Sunday.
"It was a great Sunday for the players," said Station Casinos sports book director Jason McCormick. "The Rams and Bills were our only winners out of the 12 early games."
Every book came into the weekend knowing they were going to have to knock down four keys teams: the Colts (-2.5 at Buffalo), Seahawks (-4 at St. Louis), Packers (-7 at Chicago) and Dolphins (-4 at Washington).
The books got half the games in they needed, which on a regular weekend would be outstanding and destroy lots of parlay liability. Unfortunately for them, all the other favorites that mattered covered in Week 1.
There was almost no interest in the battle of No. 1 & 2 draft picks at Tampa Bay squaring off where the Bucs were 3-point home favorites, but lost 42-14 to the Titans. This was one of the underdogs that covered, but nobody cared about it.
"It was a real good day for the public," said South Point sports book director Bert Osborne. "They're having a festive time on this opening day."
Natural instinct has the public generally siding with the favorites. Wise guys usually take the underdogs and more times than not, it's the books rooting for the same side as the wise guys because the public parlay risk is so great.
The perfect example of a game with bitter sweet results for the house was the Bills impressive 27-14 win over the Colts in Rex Ryan's Buffalo debut. This game has stood out since the first line was posted in April because the public absolutely loved it. They love the Colts to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, so winning at Buffalo in September with quarterback Andrew Luck seemed like easy money, and "they're only laying -2.5."
The sports books had to watch the risk grow on this game for the past six months, but on Sunday morning wise guy action came in on the Bills and the number dropped all the way to pick 'em. The books were happy to be balanced before the decision came in, but all the winnings essentially passed through the books and went straight into the wise guys wallets.
"We had zero win on the parlays today," said Osborne, "and we lost on the straight bets and teasers."
With so many favorites coming in, there was lots of live parlay risk going into the Sunday night game where the Cowboys were 7-point home favorites with the total at 52. Osborne said he had a four-way loser, with each side and total, and that the risk was morphing into something massive for the Monday night game no matter who won Sunday night.
The Cowboys won 27-26, which went OVER the total and happened to be the worse result for Osborne and his South Point book. The UNDER would have been less harmful. The Vikings-Eagles favorite combination on Monday night is going to be brutal for the house, but make several bettors very happy if it comes through.
The last games posted of the week are always the riskiest for the house because of every live parlay waiting to cash with the results.
For example: A bettor has five teams already cashed as he or she ran the gauntlet from Thursday through Sunday at 5-0 so far and now they have the Eagles on Monday night to get paid 40/1 odds on a six-teamer. That's the story with a lot of people and the books have no way to even out a game when paying out multiple tickets with payout odds at 6/1 and higher. They can shave off a couple hundred thousand in risk, but for the most part, they don't give away the house and just root the underdog in.
As you can imagine, with almost everyone winning on the day, there were quite a few opening day smiles in the sports books.
"It was awesome," said McCormick of the scene at his Red Rock sport book. "It was the busiest non-Super Bowl day ever. Everything went incredibly smooth. All the guests got their bets in without long waits in line and the new video wall stole the show displaying all the games in style."
I'll be checking out that wall next week in a “Football/Spa Stay-Cation.”
Congrats to all you winners out there. Job well done!
With all that extra cash floating around, the sports books can expect an extra boost in handle for Week 2.