Books win big on Sunday
By Micah Roberts
Week 13 in the NFL was a big winner the Las Vegas Sportsbooks, the best of the season. It’s very rare when the Books beat both the Sharps and Public in the same weekend, but that’s what happened Sunday. They did well in straight bets, parlays, and teasers across the board.
The favorites went 4-10, basically eliminating any substantial liability heading into the Monday night game. Of all the games that moved, from last Monday’s openers to kickoff on Sunday, only three of the moves got there signifying that the big money didn’t win.
Of the ten underdogs that covered, six of them won straight up -- two of them against teams that have combined to win five Super Bowls in the last decade.
The Pittsburgh Steelers, a 15 ½-point favorite by kickoff, got beat straight up by the Oakland Raiders. The New England Patriots, a 5-point road favorite at Miami, lost straight up as well. Those two games alone wiped out a huge chunk of the days parlays and teasers eliminating much of the days risk.
Two of the moves that got there this week were the Broncos, who opened as 4 ½-point favorites closing at 5 ½, and the Redskins who were getting 9 ½ points on the opener and closed at 8 ½.
The Broncos pounded the Chiefs at Arrowhead, something that no one has ever been able to say. The Redskins looked as though were going to join the upset party that Oakland and Miami started, but fell short late, eventually losing 33-30 in overtime.
The busiest game of the day for action was the late game where the home underdog Cardinals won outright over the Vikings. Many books treated the game with extreme caution due to Kurt Warner’s status, but it didn’t stop the public.
The combination of it being a marquee match-up with Brett Favre and the one-loss Vikings along with being the late get-back game for the public generated great two-way action creating a four-way win for the most books.
For once, the Books were able to sit back, relax, and watch a Sunday night game without having to sweat out a side.
Other teams helping the Sports Books win big this week included the Jaguars, Lions, and Browns.
The Rams had action against them as the Bears moved from the opener of 8 to 8 ½ points. Early in the fourth quarter, Rams kicker Josh Brown booted a 50-yard field goal making the score Bears 17-9 which is where it ended, ultimately hooking all bettors who tried to bet against the lowly Rams.
It wasn’t too long ago when we were writing about how the sportsbooks couldn’t make the lines high enough for teams like the Browns, Raiders, Rams, and Lions. They were easy bet against teams that the public pounded on every week in their parlays.
But just as the Directors and linesmakers across the city said back then, it will cycle around. The tide has turned. These are professional football teams and they are finally playing as their true rating has them. Pro football is as tough as ever. Collectively, the old ugly four went 4-0 against the number last week.
Fiesta Bowl
Even though the Fiesta Bowl BCS match-up of TCU-Boise State will turn out to be one of the better games, I don’t like how the college football machine basically frowned upon each team by putting them together. It’s as if to say, “Okay, you both made a BCS bowl from your non-BCS conferences, so go play it, and leave us alone.”
The Fiesta Bowl did a great job by getting both undefeated teams because they know it will garner lots of attention. Being able to say they are one of the only two Bowl games that have two undefeated teams is nice, but I would have rather seen an opportunity to have four undefeated teams at seasons end to help the cause in getting a playoff system going.
I would have also liked to have seen Boise State or TCU get the chance to play Florida. If either team would have beat a power like Florida, who was ranked No. 1 nearly all season, it would have really been a boost to their conference’s profile.
As it stands now, everyone wipes their hands clean of what had been a mounting thorn in the side of college football and their perfect BCS system.
TCU was suggested by Las Vegas Sports Consultants as a 4-point favorite over Boise State, but the boys over at the Las Vegas Hilton Super Book thought it was much too light so they added four more points opening the game at 8.
Only the BCS games are posted as of Sunday night. Expect to see all the board games pop up everywhere in the next few days.