Pats, Boys hurt Books

Pats, Boys hurt Books
By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com

For the fourth consecutive week the Las Vegas sports books found themselves at the mercy of the Patriots and losing big to the game which set up a do or die Sunday night game where in most cases they needed the Eagles to win outright at Dallas to save the day.

In both cases the bettors came out as the winners and when throwing in Oakland's 30-24 overtime win at Tampa Bay, it was a rough three-team parlay paying 6/1 odds (Bet $100 to win $600) the books couldn't recover from.

Prior to the Sunday night kickoff, CG Technology VP of risk management Jason Simbal said they were "break-even on the day" but that any combination was a "six-figure loss except for a straight-up Eagles win."

The only late positive for Simbal's seven books was the Cubs winning Game 5 of the World Series, 3-2, over the Indians to force a Game 6 Tuesday night. But it didn't erase the big Cowboys win, who were five-point favorites and won 29-23 in overtime after trailing 23-13 in the fourth-quarter.

It was almost the same story for Jay Rood's 10 MGM Resorts sports books across the strip.

"We're up small right now," Rood said before the Cowboys game, "If Dallas comes through with a cover, we'll a lose a litte on the day."

The favorites ended up going 7-4 against-the spread with only two underdogs winning outright. The 'over' went 8-3 on the day, with two of them aided by the three overtime games.

The big game that got the bettors' party started Sunday was the Patriots 41-25 win at Buffalo as six-point favorites. It was the root game to almost everyone's parlay and teaser. The Bills beat the Patriots, 16-0, in Week 4, without Tom Brady playing, but since Brady has come back from his season opening four-game suspension he's covered all four starts and the Patriots are now 7-1 ATS.

So what are the books going to do to moving forward to neutralize the Patriots who they're already increasing well over the true point spread?

"The Patriots have a bye this week, so maybe that will slow some of the momentum," said Westgate SuperBook VP Jay Kornegay. "They keep covering the number and bettors love that, and I can see why they load up them every week. They're the best team in football."

In Week 10, the Patriots get a visit from the Seahawks, but despite the quality of the opponent, you can expect the Patriots number to be inflated.

"We'll make more adjustments on them," said Kornegay. "We're used to runs like this with the popular teams bettors like and what we have to do to counter that popularity."

That adjustment is likely to be an even higher luxury tax placed on the point-spread. Instead of Patriots -5 for that game, you may see Patriots -7.

CG Technology opened spreads on every game in April and the Patriots were only -2 at the time.

Yes, the Patriots are very good. But so are the Raiders late in games. Are you kidding me with David Carr. Between his situational running and calm nature nature late in games, he reminds me of John Elway. Can't wait till they make Las Vegas home.

And how about Dak Prescott, who struggled for the first three quarters, but came up huge when it counted. Prescott will start next week at Cleveland and then who knows after that. Tony Romo is waiting to take over his team, but it just seems like a bad move momentum-wise after six straight wins and, most of all for bettors, six straight covers.