Saints bury books in Week 13
December 4, 2017
By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com
After nine consecutive wins and eight straight covers, the Eagles experienced only their second loss of the season Sunday night at Seattle which in turn helped the Las Vegas sports not lose too much, but still enough to hurt. The books were all on the ropes ready for the public knockout punch with another Eagles cover following a rough first 13 games of Sunday's week 13 action. Most books still lost, but a few were able to escape with a short profit.
"Every scenario for us in the Sunday night game is a loser with the Seahawks and Under being our best scenario," MGM Resorts sports book hub manager Jeff Stoneback said just prior to kickoff of the Seahawks eventual 24-10 win.
The Eagles had lots of live parlays waiting to cash after nearly every popular team covered the spread earlier.
"The Saints and Over were both bad for us, but not as bad as the Packers and Rams," said Station Casinos sports book director Jason McCormick. However, Station books were fortunate to escape with a small win thanks to Seattle, which paid bettors +180 on the money-line.
There was no escaping the Saints' 31-21 home win against the Panthers. Every book took a beating in this battle between the NFC South where the Saints moved from 4-point favorites to -6 by kickoff.
"The Saints were our worst game of the day," said Stoneback. "The Patriots weren't as bad just because it was a morning game. If was in the afternoon it may have been worse than the Saints."
The Saints game was in the afternoon and had results branched in from the nine 10 a.m. PT games waiting to cash, and they did cash a bunch. The most popular two-team parlay of the day was Patriots to the Saints. As for New England, the Westgate's 2-to-1 Super Bowl favorite, all they did on Sunday was win 23-3 at Buffalo (+8) for its eighth straight win and sixth straight cover.
These are the type of teams the public loves to hook up in teasers and parlays and if you look at how the sports books have been faring on a few teams since Week 4, you'll wonder why anyone would bet any other team. The Eagles (8-1 ATS), Rams (7-2 ATS), Vikings (7-2 ATS), Patriots (7-2 ATS) and Saints (6-3 ATS) have combined to go an incredible 35-10 ATS since Oct. 1. The Vikings' 14-9 win at Atlanta had equal action game because the Falcons are still popular, but the public finds other teams to insert.
"The favorites only went 7-6 ATS on the day, but bettors caught most of the favorites they we're betting the most collectively such as the Saints, Patriots, Rams and Jaguars," said Stoneback. "It was just a terrible afternoon. We we're a small loser in the nine morning games, but got whalloped in the afternoon with the Rams and Saints."
Jacksonville's No. 1 defense gained public favor this week as they were 10-point home favorites against the Colts and they'd win 30-10. The Rams (-7) took care of business at Arizona with a 32-16 win to maintain it's lead in the NFC West. They get a visit from a Philly squad this week coming off a loss and a couple long west coast flights. It'll be interesting see how they bounce back and if the Rams are really serious about getting that bye in the playoffs.
Bettors knew how to stay clear of betting against the Browns this week catching +13.5 at Los Angeles against the Chargers. Cleveland lost 19-10 to cover making them 3-9 ATS and pulling them out of the bettors' gutter. After Denver's awful 35-9 loss at Miami, the Broncos (2-9-1 ATS) are now the worst cover team in the NFL. Way to go Mr. Elway, Super Bowl to toilet bowl in record time.
Anyway, the inflated point spread on the Chargers kept bettors away from picking against the Browns again.
The Giants also did the amazing to get a backdoor field goal to cut the Raiders (-9.5) lead to 24-17 with under two minutes to go. It's one of the few games to go the books way because the public absolutely hates Geno Smith. There was one game the books also thought they had that turned on them in the last seconds.
"The Titans (-7) ended up being a loser for us thanks to that play," said Stoneback of Derrick Henry's 75-yard TD run with under a minute to go to go from a 17-13 ATS loser to a 24-13 ATS win. The Texans did the same thing the Giants did by kicking a field goal when down by 10 with hopes of recovering the onside kick. Henry rolled through a sweep and just kept plowing all the way down field. It was cheered heavily by the sports book crowds.
Week 13 finished up with favorites going 7-7 ATS with five underdogs winning outright and eight of them staying Under the total. Congrats on a great week people, Merry Christmas!