Books produce Week 1 win
By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com
The Las Vegas sports books came into the Sunday night game having experienced a decent win on the first week of NFL action, but needed the Patriots with Jimmy Garoppolo quarterbacking to come up big as 9.5-point underdogs at Arizona to keep all their chips. They got their wish in the Patriots 23-21 win as the smallest player on the field, Cardinals kicker Chandler Catanzaro, missed a 47-yard field goal in the final minute.
But the events that happened earlier Sunday morning had more of an effect on the win for the day. When underdogs go 8-5-1 against-the-spread in the first 14 games of the week, it should be a monster win for the house coming into the isolated late game -- not a lot of risk, but that wasn't the case. The books needed the Patriots to save their day, in part because of teaser risk.
"We needed that," said CG Technology VP of risk management Jason Simbal of Catanzaro's missed field goal which also kept the game UNDER 46 (closed 44.5).
Every sports book in the city needed that in a game that many had posted the Cardinals as 1-point favorites in mid-April when Tom Brady was expected to play to the point of kickoff where the some books were as high as -9.5. The spread up until late Saturday night had the Cardinals -6.5. That's a big move and tight end Rob Gronkowski being out wasn't even worth a full point.
The teaser risk on the day saw eight of the 14 games, beginning with Thursday's 21-20 Broncos win, have both sides win. That's an awesome proposition for bettors where they can take the most reliable spreads or odds among all sports where an additional 6-points is offered. There aren't many bettor deals in the casino where there's an option that the house can't win when both sides of options win when results occur. But there was a savior for the house on teasers when a safety was called in the Lions 39-35 win at Indianapolis as time expired.
"The Lions safety at end of the game helped us with the teasers," said MGM Resorts VP of race and sports Jay Rood. "But our pricing with teasers doesn't get us the type of action other places might, so it's never really that big of a risk for us."
The Colts were four-point favorites heading into the week and on Sunday it dropped to -2.5 by kickoff. The Lions were one of five underdogs on the week that won outright.
The wise guys had a few big plays on Sunday morning that had a ripple effect on the final posted results. Because of large wagers from respected money, the line moved and the books found themselves eventually getting sided or middled because of it.
The most one-sided bet game of the week on parlay action was the Packers at whatever number at Jacksonville.
William Hill sports books had 84 percent of their tickets written on the week on the Packers, but the sharps moved in Sunday morning and took a spread from +5.5 down to 3.5. It was a wild turn of events from the game being lopsided on Green Bay to needing the Jaguars to win straight bets. Sharps got the money on the game in a Packers 27-23 win while a large percentage game day bettors got to lay the Pack -3.5 on their parlays.
"I'd say about 40 percent of our overall action comes on game day," said Boyd Gaming sports book director Bob Scucci when explaining how much action comes through at the last minute. That's a big chunk of the pie, and also a big thank you from cheese-head bettors laying -3.5.
That type of situation happened on a few games such as the Giants closing as a 1-point favorite in their 20-19 win at Dallas after being +1 or pick 'em for most of the week (Dallas -3.5 before Tony Romo got hurt).
"It was a pretty good day," Rood said. "We would have done better if Dallas held on to win. That was the only afternoon game that got away from us."
And then there was the Chiefs come-from-behind 33-27 overtime home win after the Chargers jumped out to a 21-3 lead. The wise guys loved +7 and +6.5 over the weekend, while the public liked the Chiefs at any number. So when they laid KC -6 on game day, they got a push and it extended more risk for the books.
"The Chargers outright win would have been huge for us," said Rood who was looking to beat out large money-line parlays tied to the Chiefs.
Seattle helped the books by not covering the 10.5-point spread at home against Miami in their 12-10 win. It also knocked out a bunch of parlays risk and was one of the few games that both sides didn't cover on teasers.
Simbal said his CG Tech books had their biggest parlay risk coming into the week on the Texans, Seahawks, Packers and Cardinals. Two-out-of-four isn't bad, but Houston's 23-14 come-from-behind win was the gateway to parlay and teaser success at most books.
"We would have had a great morning, but we needed the Bears," said Rood.
Rood was also excited about his additional money handled this week due to MGM Resorts first NFL season with mobile phone wagering.
"It (handle) was helped by a big first weekend of mobile wagering," said Rood. "We broke even on the phones, but were happy with the increase in action."
Rood says his regular limits are cut in half for the phones. The percentage of straight bets and wise guy plays are much more increased over the phones than over the counter. Those over the counter parlay card bettors this week is what saved a lot of the books, especially those games with stale numbers left open for wagering, such as the Packers (-4.5) and Cardinals (-6.5).
"The parlay cards were the strength of our day" Scucci said prior to the Cardinals kickoff. "Without them, we'd be losing."
There have been better Week 1 NFL Sundays in years past, but the books got bamboozled a little bit by the sharps following their lead on games even though they had risk with on the other side.
"It was an okay day, but I'm little disappointed based on the results of the games that we didn't do better," Scucci said. "The teasers took away what could have been a great day."