Public Wins Big!
By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com
Everyone loves leftover Turkey for sandwiches after Thanksgiving and sometimes lasagna even tastes better the next day, but in the sport book business, leftovers are about as sour a taste as there is during a football season.
On Sunday, sports book directors across Las Vegas had a refrigerator full of leftovers from Saturday. Bettors had shredded the books with most of the top-10 ranked college football teams covering, sending the books to their worst day on the football season, both college and pro.
However, the impact of those games just doesn’t end on Saturday when the final game is posted. Large parlays were just simmering for a few hours waiting for a few public favorites Sunday to cash in six, seven, eight, and even 10-team parlays.
"It’s a little rough right now," LVH Super Book vice-president Jay Kornegay said late Sunday afternoon after the first 10 games had posted. "We had a lot of liability left over in parlays from Saturday that carried over into today."
"We felt like we were in a hole before the day even started."
That hole would get even bigger for the books as the day went on. The books needed the Panthers, Rams, Redskins, and Buccaneers to cover during the first eight games of the early session to wipe out a large portion of all the Saturday leftovers, but were only able to get the Redskins in. So not only were they losing the final legs of parlays that started Saturday, but they were also getting pummeled on game day wagers as well.
Kornegay didn’t have some of the parlay card exposure at his book like some of local properties did, but enough damage was done off the board at his book to make the public’s presence felt.
There were a few a few reports elsewhere of 10-team parlays at 800-to-1 odds cashing with seven to eight games in the bag from Saturday’s popular games that rolled into the Saints, Packers, and Texans on Sunday.
The favorites went 6-2 against-the-spread early on and it was the way that some of games ended that had the books knowing that Sunday wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
“The Cowboys game was disappointing,” Kornegay said. “A two-point win would have been good for us, but the late field goal kind of went in line with the rest of the day.”
The biggest blow came when the Saints beat the Buccaneers 35-28 as 1.5-point favorites, even though there was some sharp money on the Bucs. The Saints game was the last of the eight early games to be posted and was a massive loss after all the parlays had been calculated.
There were only two afternoon games which could have been a recipe for disaster because of so few options for bettors to choose from, but both went the books way with the Jets covering -- but losing 29-26 -- at New England, and the Jaguars covering six points at Oakland in a 26-23 loss.
The good news for the sports books was that the Jets wiped away every existing teaser on the day and also killed a huge lingering pot of parlays that were waiting for the Patriots to win by 11 to cash. The bad news is that the day would get worse.
"We needed the Bengals tonight," Kornegay said just before kickoff of the Sunday night game. "If they don’t cover, I don’t even want to look at the Monday night risk on the Bears-Lions game where all four scenarios (favorite-over, favorite-under, dog-over, dog-under) are going to be losers."
The Steelers won, 24-17 and capped the day as a big winner for the public. But this weekend still isn’t over, because of the Monday night game when anything leftover from Saturday and Sunday will be paid out. With huge parlay payout odds ready to pop, there isn’t much a sports book can do other than prepare their bosses for another losing day so they’re not startled on Tuesday morning.
Chalk one up for the public for a job well done. Their big day was inevitable as things always cycle around, but it was starting to look bleak. However, they stayed the course and were finally rewarded with a big day. You can quite while your ahead, but public has a long ways to go this season before that happens.
Grand Slam of Golf
The LVH is offering odds on the PGA Grand Slam of Golf which will be played Tuesday and Wednesday in Bermuda. The contestants are all the winners of this year's Grand Slam events. Bubba Watson, Keegan Bradley, and Webb Simpson are all 5-to-2 co-favorites, while the Padraig Harrington is 3-to-1.
LVH Games of the Year
I love how the crew at the LVH has been updating their college games of the year all season. We saw Alabama as high as 8.5 last week for their November 3 game at LSU and this week they are 6.5. Oregon is still -2.5 for their November 3 road game at USC and are also 17-point favorites for their games against Cal and Stanford.
On November 24, we have a bunch of huge games with Ohio State -4.5 at home against Michigan, while Florida State is 3.5-point home favorites against Florida and USC is -6 at home against Notre Dame.