Shaky Weekend for Books
By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com
The Las Vegas sports books got their Thanksgiving wish on Thursday with all three NFL games going UNDER the posted total, but proceeded to endear a rough ensuing three days with the public having their way.
In years past, winning four of the possible six decisions on Thanksgiving has been a gateway to success for the rest of the weekend. But this year, it was key college football games all going the bettors' way and with it came carryover risk linking each day with more liability producing big payouts.
When looking on paper, it didn’t look too bad when seeing that college favorites went 30-23-1 against-the-spread while the pro’s went 8-7, but when digging deeper into who the public took, it’s easy to see how the losses accumulated.
“We did well Thursday winning all three pro games,“ said Las Vegas Hilton Super Book vice president Jay Kornegay, “but, we then we gave some back Friday, then a lot more on Saturday and then it came down to couple key games on Sunday that didn’t go our way.“
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The popular combination on Friday had Houston (-3½), Nebraska (-9) and LSU (-13), even though sharp money was on Arkansas which pushed the line down to -11. After giving the Razorbacks a 14-0 head start, LSU proceeded to outscore them 41-3 which then started a chain reaction of events for bettors going into Saturday.
Saturday didn’t start out too bad with Ohio State covering against Michigan. But it was some of the key games that started coming up golden for the players like the gift back-door touchdown N.C. State got as 13-point favorites to beat Maryland, 56-41. Alabama (-20½) rolled over Auburn like every other top SEC team has this season. Virginia Tech (-5) crushed Virginia, 38-0 to win the commonwealth trophy.
The tidal wave of risk kept building throughout the day as more of these key teams kept covering like Wisconsin (-15) again at home for the seventh time this season. Baylor (-12½) covered against Texas Tech even without Robert Griffin III and the Gators laid down again in a poor season to Florida State.
And then the dreaded night games came where virtually every game posted went the favorite’s way, or more importantly, who the public collectively bet.
Almost every one in town had a ticket with Stanford (-6½) over Notre Dame and USC (-14½) over UCLA. In both cases, bettors never had to sweat and the sports books had to hope for miracles of any kind during the 3 hours. Those miracles never did come, but bettors, they did get one of their own to put the books down further.
UNLV was a 15-point underdog to San Diego State and had a 14-7 lead at halftime. No one bet on UNLV as they have been one the better bet-against teams in college football. The Rebels inspired play in the first half was left in the locker room as San Diego State came back to win and cover 31-14 with 14 fourth-quarter points.
The San Diego State cover helped one lucky lady at the Carson Valley Inn up north cash in a 10-team, $100 parlay paying out $80,000.
The one saving grace for the sports books on Saturday was that Oklahoma (-27½) didn’t cover against Iowa State. That game would have unleashed a massive loss on the day.
When Sunday rolled around, every one of the games had an unusually amount of risk attached to the games with live parlays waiting to hit on any one of the decisions posted. It was definitely a different type of day with three days of games forming a powder keg of disaster heading in Sunday.
The sports books found themselves needing the Colts, Jaguars, Vikings, and Eagles for their biggest decisions on the day and lost them all. Tim Tebow and the Broncos helped the books eliminate some of the risk as did the Chiefs covering the late game, but it still was a bad day for the house.
It’s safe to say that the majority of bettors in Las Vegas had a very good and profitable Thanksgiving weekend.
The NBA is back
Lucky’s sports books wasted no time in getting back to business lost by putting up the Christmas Day NBA lines the day an agreement was made between the owners and players. Most sports books estimated losses between 10 and 20% of their overall handle had the NBA season been lost, but losing only November and December games isn’t as big of an impact as it would have been with January through June.
The league will play 66 games this season instead of the normal 82 games because of the lockout. Christmas day offers three outstanding matchups that should go a long way in a goodwill effort to the fans.
Celtics -2 at New York
Heat +4 at Dallas
Bulls +5 at LA Lakers
Huge UNLV Win
While the sports books were getting killed in college football, the UNLV basketball team did their best to help out by beating No. 1 North Carolina, 90-80 Saturday night. Not many bettors believed in the Rebels and bet Carolina from a 7-point favorite up to -9. The few lucky bettors that had UNLV on the money-line got paid plus-330.
Reports from everywhere were that the game was bet like a major college football game and that it was their best decision of the day in all sports.