Books bounce back
By Micah Roberts
The Las Vegas sports books saw their two-week losing streak come to an end as they enjoyed some success with either a break even or small win on Saturday before finally getting some breaks Sunday with the NFL. However, most sports book directors got the scare of their career on Saturday when jeopardy from all the top ranked college football favorites came into one of the final games posted of the day, Oklahoma at Kansas.
It makes it much easier for bettors to do well when the teams the average bettors knows like LSU, Alabama, Boise State, Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Clemson, Virginia Tech and Oregon all cover on a given weekend like they did last week. The last game -- for the biggest Saturday pay-day ever -- was Oklahoma laying 35.
“Our entire day hinged on the Oklahoma game where we were staring at a seven-figure loss had they covered,“ said MGM Resorts Vice President of race and sports Jay Rood. “Kansas saved the day for us.”
Reports from around the city were similar. Based on a sampling of those reports, it’s a fair assessment that Nevada sports books were looking at close to $5 million in losses collectively had Oklahoma scored just one more touchdown in their 47-17 win.
“We just haven’t been able to beat the top-5 teams this season,” said Rood. The bettors keep betting them no matter how high we make the line and they keep covering.”
Even though the favorites only went 23-26 with 17 underdogs winning outright, it was those key teams that everyone knows and love who play on television every week that did the damage going 9-1 against the spread.
“The big game that really hurt us and elevated the risk to where it got so high with Oklahoma was the Clemson game,“ said Rood talking about Clemson‘s 56-45 comeback win. "They were losing outright late in the game to Maryland, but still managed to cover the spread (-7½).”
After having such a scare Saturday and being beat up so bad recently by the public in the NFL, the sports books were hoping for a few games to break their way Sunday and they got it.
“It was a nice Sunday for us compared to the last two weeks, said Rood. “The Bengals covering was our best game of the morning. We got a lot of large money on the Colts Saturday night and Sunday morning before kickoff.”
The public was split on parlays with the Bengals with many finding reason to believe in the Colts. But the Sharps were all over the Colts as they pushed the game from Bengals minus-7 to 4½ and it took a late fumble return by the Bengals to make them a loser.
“The day ultimately came down to the big parlay teams not getting there collectively this week,“ said Rood. “Only the Packers got there early while the Patriots, Lions, Steelers and Saints didn’t cover.”
The game of the day was arguably a tie with the 49ers (+5) showing some strength on each side of the line as they simply out-powered the Lions 25-19 giving Detroit their first loss of the season. The other game saw the Patriots (-6 ½) come from behind to beat Dallas 20-16. The Cowboys have now played in 11 straight games where the margin of victory has been four points or less.
“Our best decision of the day was Tampa Bay winning outright (26-20). We had a run of Saints money pushing the game up from 4 to 6½ by kickoff, but it wasn‘t just that (the sharp plays), it was the final game of the afternoon with all kinds of parlay liability on it.”
Favorites ended up going 7-5 ATS for the day and when it’s those five high profile teams that don’t cover, it’s almost always a good day for the house. The only two outright winners, San Francisco (+200) and Tampa Bay (+250) paid out well for those who had the foresight to take them on the money-line.
I don't think it was as much of a bounce back as it was a week that stopped the bleeding.
What was won back was minor and everyone I've talked to is still hurting. They are spot on about the Oklahoma game though. That goes the other way and you would be seeing some new names giving these interviews each week.