Books Have a Great Sunday
By Micah Roberts
Sunday couldn’t have started out any better for the sportsbooks when six of the first seven games saw the underdog cover with three of them winning outright. It only took nine weeks for some of these bad teams to come around, a little longer than the books would have liked, but it’s better late than never.
The previously winless Buccaneers were victorious over the Packers as 10-point dogs and ended up winning 38-28, knocking out a slew of risk on the day for the books.
”The Green Bay game was the key to our whole day,” said Coast Resorts Director of Race and Sports Bob Scucci. “That was the one game that had the most one sided parlay and teaser action of the day.”
Big favorites like the Patriots and Colts both got wins, but fell short of covering the spread further eliminating outstanding future risk for the day.
“We did well with the Patriots game, but not as much as you might think with the Colts,” said Scucci. “We had wise guy money on the Texans as well as public action weighted to that side because of how well Houston has played lately. News of the injured Colts secondary also contributed to swaying the public opinion in the belief that the Texans offense could expose them.”
By the time the early games rolled around it was almost as the entire days risk had been wiped clean with a restart button hit on the late games as the players tried to get back all the money they lost early.
Despite there being little liability remaining with the parlays and teasers, the win wasn’t as good as last week because the Sharps did well.
“We did really well in all parlay and teaser categories, but didn’t fare well on the straight bets,” said Scucci. “The Wise guys were on games like the Cardinals, Texans, and Bengals, as opposed to last week when did well in just about every category.”
The Saints have been one of the favorite public teams all season, but it’s apparent that even the public can smell a bad line. The Saints were bet down by the Sharps from a 14-point favorite all the way down to 11.5 by kickoff, but the normal public ratio on the Saints dropped considerably from weeks past.
“I think it’s a matter of most people seeing what happened last week with the inflated line in the Falcons game with the Saints and also watching the ground attack of the Panthers control the game at Arizona,” said Scucci. “This week was the lowest ratio of wagers on the Saints side out of any of their games this season. It was a pretty evenly balanced between the two.”
It should be noted that not all is perfect for the remainder of the season. Yes, the Lions, Chiefs, and Bucs played well, but the betting shops did have the benefit of having the three lost souls of the Raiders, Rams, and Browns off on a bye which ultimately forced the public to choose other games on the wagering menu rather than the easy, “I’ll take a five-game parlay with whoever those guys are playing against.”
It should also be noted that the books did a great job in going against their own, and recommended, numbers in inflating their spreads to ease against the crush of play on certain teams.
In the case of the Patriots against a good Miami team, the true number was around nine, but not above 10. The game was opened Patriots 10.5 and moved up to 11 and landed 10 meaning the Books most of the chips in that one and put a notion of doubt in a few players minds about laying the big spreads.
It’s likely after we see the three bad teams that had byes this week play competitively and cover a few themselves that we’ll see the spreads cycle back around to the true numbers before the Sharps take advantage as they did this week with the Colts line.
All it takes for many of the regular players is to see a few wins on the ATS (against the spread) stat line of a team to make them consider playing some of these bad teams. Losing in weeks prior betting against them also helps change a philosophy.
Bad Beats
The Giants had good action from the public and sharps against the Chargers because of the perception that the G-men couldn’t lose four straight games, along with the difficulty of a west coast team traveling to play on the east coast. The line opened New York -4.5 and closed at -5.5.
With just over two minutes to, the Giants kicked a field goal putting them ahead 20-14 and more importantly, covering the spread. Phillip Rivers and San Diego drove right down the field using almost all the clock and scored a touchdown in the final seconds giving the Chargers the upset win and provoking lots of expletives from the sportsbooks crowds.
We can’t call what happened late in the Lions-Seahawks a bad beat because no one bet the Lions. It was a good-beat, but unfortunately many of the public’s late parlays were wiped out by what had just happened with the Giants game minutes before.
Some may have taken solace in the fact that the Giants lost because their tickets were ruined anyway by the Lions covering. The 11-point dog Lions were down 20-25 with less than a minute to play and driving down field looking to go for the game-winning score, and that’s when pick-six happened.
The Seahawks answered the prayers of several bettors around the world by intercepting a Matt Stafford pass and taking it 61 yards for the score making it 32-20 with only a few second left. This time around it was the Boss-Bookies with expletives who were looking to close out a great afternoon of winning football for the house.
Dog Day Afternoon
It was another winner for the books, despite numbers not so good on straight bets. Only two favorites covered among the first 11 games, and five of the underdogs won outright.
If given the choice, the books probably would choose a ratio of five favorites and six dogs just to keep even with the Sharps who generally take the points rather than lay. That type of mix also has enough upsets to make it tougher for the parlay combinations to hit which keep the shops ahead of the public. An extreme one way or the other doesn’t turn out so well for the house.
College Football a Winner once Again
The College Football weekend went very well once again for the books highlighted by a good mix of upsets by top ranked teams and Sharp moves in big games that didn't get there. Sports Books usually don't see the Sharps betting the high profile games, but they they were betting LSU and Penn State, the biggest games of the day. After the Hawaii game had been posted, it was another winner for the house making the consensus win record on the year about an average of 9-1 through 10 weeks.