Sports book Industry Report - Jets help Vegas books to winning day
By: The Linemakers
Sportingnews.com
Last week, Las Vegas bettors collectively had their best Sunday of the season against the sports books with just about all of their favorite teams winning and covering the spread. In their follow-up attempt to keep the hot streak rolling yesterday, they gave a lot of their winnings back as a few of those same teams from the week before not only failed to cover, but lost outright.
"The Jets winning worked out well for us," MGM Resorts vice-president of race and Sports Jay Rood said about the 26-20 upset over the Saints. "That was our big win of the day where it wiped out a lot our parlay liability and also lots of teasers."
The Jets have now won and covered four straight following a loss this season while the Saints failed to cover for the third time in four road games. The game staying UNDER 46.5 total points also helped out the books because betting OVER in Saints games is always a public favorite.
"We also did well with the Browns, Vikings and Buccaneers" Rood said, "but it wasn't as big of a win on the day as you might think, because the wise-guys did very well."
Usually when the public has a bad day like Sunday, the sharp money tends to fare very well as they're generally on the opposite side or the side the books need. In Week 9, sharp money was on the Eagles, Browns, Jets, Vikings, and also the same side on one game with the public.
"The Panthers game was our worst decision of the day just because the sharps and public were on the same side," said Rood.
Carolina had come in to their home game against the Falcons riding a three-game win and cover streak, winning by an average score of 32-12 in those contests, which also sent all of them OVER the total, another popular betting trend with the public that endears them to a certain team. The Panthers were bet up by respected money from a 7.5-point favorite up to -9 by kickoff, and they would win almost by the same exact score they have averaged over their last three, this time 34-10.
Sharp money also bet the Browns down from +3 (-120) to +2 for their home game against the Ravens, and their 24-18 win was one of three outright underdog winners on the day. The Eagles were bet down from an opener of +2.5 to pick 'em by kickoff at Oakland, and rolled to a 49-20 victory behind a record-setting passing performance by Nick Foles, who tossed seven touchdown passes and had a perfect QB rating.
The Cowboys were as high as 11-point favorites at one juncture during the week, but large Vikings money pushed the game down to -9. Minnesota was actually a few seconds short of pulling off the upset, but the Cowboys won 27-23 behind a late Tony Romo TD toss. It was only the Cowboys' second non-cover of the season. Jay Rood's sports books beat most of the public on the game, but he was hoping for more with a Vikings win.
"If the Vikings could have held on to win that game, it would have been huge for us because it would have beaten a large portion of the teasers and money-line parlays," said Rood.
Because of the Cowboys' spread around -9, they became the biggest teaser play of the day. Teams favored in the 7- to 10-point range always get the most teaser action because bettors like to crossover key numbers, and being able to lay 7-points fewer and have to win by only a field goal is attractive. And it gets even more attractive for the public when it's a team like the Cowboys that had covered seven of eight games on the year.
The large number on the Seahawks (-16.5) at home against the Buccaneers didn't get a ton of action, but it was still one of the more lopsided bet games of the day with an estimated 72 percent of all wagers on the game laying the points. The reason the actual volume didn't stack up with the others is because many bettors are skeptical of what they're seeing with Seattle right now. On Sunday, they got themselves in a 21-0 hole to winless Tampa Bay, but managed to pull out a 27-24 win. The Seahawks have now only covered once in their last five games and are sliding fast down The Linemakers' NFL ratings, where only a few weeks ago they were rated No. 1, ahead of Denver.
By the time the Sunday night game came around, the Colts had closed as a 1-point favorite at Houston and most of the large parlay had been wiped away. Last week, the Packers crushed the Vikings at Minnesota, resulting in a death blow for the books because of everything lingering from the early games where the public had great success. On Sunday, several books needed an opposite side, which is unusual, but also very telling about the lack of leftovers remaining from earlier in the day.
The Colts scored 15 points in the fourth quarter to win 27-24, but there was definitely some life in the Texans with Case Keenum slinging the ball well in his second start.