Sportsbooks win Week 1
By Matty Simo
VegasInsider.com
After the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks trounced the Green Bay Packers 36-16 last Thursday to open the 2014 NFL season, there was no way of predicting what would happen next. Public money came in on the Packers, pushing the Seahawks from 5-point favorites to -4.5 at close, and the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook got an early win.
But Sunday’s Week 1 action made the SuperBook and other sportsbooks even bigger winners, with underdogs going 7-6 straight-up and 10-3 against the spread. Wins by the Miami Dolphins (33-20 vs. the New England Patriots), the Atlanta Falcons (37-34 in overtime vs. the New Orleans Saints) and Buffalo Bills (23-20 in OT at the Chicago Bears) as dogs set the tone for a great day, according to Jay Kornegay, the SuperBook’s Vice President of Race & Sports Operations.
“The upsets – not just the covers but the outright wins by some of the underdogs – certainly treated us well,” Kornegay said. “Our bigger decisions of the day were a lot of these short favorites that so many public bettors like to support. The Saints they love, the Patriots. The 49ers got there for them, but by that time the damage had been done.
“It’s always those short favorites that we see, teams that attract a lot of public play. In the morning games, the two biggest short public teams, road favorites, lost and those were two really big decisions for us. It seems like the old days. Home dogs kind of came through for us.”
One home favorite that helped sportsbooks a lot by losing on Sunday was the Bears, who opened at -6.5 and closed at -7. Chicago tends to be a very public team and busted many parlay and teaser cards.
“As far as underdogs winning and covering, I’d have to say the Bears and the defense,” Kornegay said. “The Bills never winning in Chicago and going in there and finally winning with all their struggles at quarterback. Their linebackers are just awful.
“I’d have to say that’s one of the bigger surprises and one of our better decisions. I think that was the last straw that kind of broke the camel’s back for a lot of the bettors out there. It was the teaser killer.”
While the public won some money back on San Francisco’s 28-17 road win against the Dallas Cowboys as 3.5-point favorites, many sportsbooks were able to come right back in the Sunday Night Football game when the Indianapolis Colts (+8.5) rallied back to cover the spread in a 31-24 road loss to the Denver Broncos. However, Kornegay said the SuperBook did not really need the Colts in that one.
“The Bronco game, a lot people thought we did really well,” Konegay sad. “But we actually had a few bigger bets on the Colts. We didn’t mind accepting those thinking that we could have a liability going to the Broncos no matter what happened. Well, we didn’t think that many underdogs were going to cover, which basically eliminated so many parlays. By the time we got to the late game, it was pretty well balanced.”
The biggest line move of Week 1 took place in an NFC South matchup between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers, who sat starting quarterback Cam Newton due to a rib injury. The Bucs opened as 2.5-point home underdogs and closed -4.5 at the SuperBook, with the line jumping from -3 when news broke that Carolina head coach Ron Rivera would likely make Newton inactive.
Johnny Avello, The Wynn’s Executive Director of Race & Sports Operations, had said late last week that the Panthers were still a good team regardless of Newton’s status, so he was not surprised by the result.
“I don’t know if they’re good or Tampa’s just not quite there yet,” Avello said. “Tampa’s probably got a long way to go. MCown’s not going to come in and be the answer and turn that team around in one year. They’ll be alright. They did fight back in the game.”
Like Kornegay, Avello said he was surprised by a few other teams that did disappoint bettors as favorites.
“The Bears losing at home was a surprise, the Patriots losing was a surprise, but I did expect big things from Miami this year,” Avello said. “The other game is probably Kansas City, the way they got beat at home because that’s usually a strong home field.”
The Chiefs looked like the same team that blew a 38-10 lead in a 45-44 loss to the Colts in the playoffs back in January, falling at home to the Tennessee Titans 26-10 as 3-point favorites. They seemed to pick up where they left off last season, just like the Bears, who some thought had fixed their defense.
“It was amazing though how we have these games up for four-and-a- half-months, all the analysis and the data and simulations and everything,” Kornegay said. “And there we are sitting at the end of day one, and a lot of us are scratching our heads. Wow, that’s not what I thought was going to happen in a lot of those games. Not all of them, but a lot of them.” Ironically, Kornegay said one of Sunday’s bigger stunners actually came courtesy of a double-digit favorite that trailed big early and not only came back to win but still managed to cover as well.
“The biggest surprise was probably the Eagles covered despite being down 17-0,” said Kornegay about Philadelphia, the biggest favorite in Week 1 at -10 who scored 34 points unanswered in a 34-17 victory.
Vegas book calls Sunday ‘best opening day we’ve ever had’
By: Micah Roberts
Sportingnews.com
LAS VEGAS - Sports books here couldn’t have asked for a better opening weekend to the NFL season, as the underdogs went 10-3 against the spread and nearly every key result they needed came through against what was a top-heavy group of favored teams supported by the majority of the betting public.
“This was the best opening day we’ve ever had here,” said Golden Nugget sports book director Tony Miller. ”Just about every game we needed came through for us beginning with our biggest, the Falcons, and then the rest just followed suit like the Browns, Dolphins and then the Panthers. It wasn’t a good day for those that bet parlays.”
The Las Vegas sports books that generate the most public parlay action are the local joints around neighborhoods off the strip, such as Coast Resorts, South Point and Station Casinos. These books live and day with parlays, and on Sunday they lived like kings.
Jason McCormick, director of Station Casinos’ 18 books across the valley, said the Falcons beating the Saints 37-34 as 3-point underdogs was their gateway to success. Miami knocking off New England, 33-20 as 4-point underdogs was great too, but the Bills -- straight-up winners as 7-point underdogs at Chicago -- were "key to knocking off teaser and money-line liability for the rest of the day.”
After the 10 a.m. (PT) games posted, there were only three games remaining for the bettors to try and recoup their losses from the morning, and those games didn’t turn out so well for them, either.
The 49ers, in front of a surprisingly large sea of 49er-red at AT&T Stadium, beat Dallas, 28-17, as 3.5-point road favorites. The public was right on that one, but unfortunately, they guessed wrong on the other two.
The public loved the Buccaneers at home against the Panthers, and the sharps loved them even more when Ronde Barber, who was covering the game for Fox Sports, reported that Cam Newton wouldn’t start at QB. Derek Anderson, according to Barber, attended the production meeting, something a backup never does.
Even prior to Barber’s report, sharp money was betting against Newton’s banged up ribs and had pushed the Bucs from -1 to -3 (Panthers opened -2.5 in April) . When the report began to carry some weight and the public got behind it, most books got to as high as -5. But in the end, it was the Panthers’ dominating defense that had Newton and Anderson’s back in a 20-14 road win to ruin Lovie Smith’s Tampa debut.
At this juncture, nearly every book in town was jumping for joy, as there was only one game remaining on the day and most of the serious parlay jeopardy had been eliminated. While most books were still long on Denver, the Broncos would have easily been a 7-figure risk across the state if the earlier games had turned out differently.
The Broncos opened the week as 7.5-point favorites over the Colts and got as high as -9.5 Sunday at the Golden Nugget.
“There was so much public money on Denver, and even when I raised it higher than the market number, I was still getting action on them with limit straight bets and parlays,’ said Miller. “They couldn’t get enough of Denver.”
The Broncos had the game in control, 31-10, with 9:49 left, and it looked to be an easy win for about 75 percent of the bettors with live tickets. But Indianapolis scored two late touchdowns to make it 31-24, giving the relatively few Colts bettors -- who may have already tossed their tickets -- an unexpected back-door cover.
The Denver total opened 56 back in April, but was dealt at 55 to 54 most of the week, closing at 54. That number gave many OVER bettors something to cheer about, but not enough to dampen the mood of sports book across the city, or at least in the neighborhood books.
At some Vegas bet shops, what the public plays matter less, because they’re dealing with a certain clientele that local books never get. Wynn Las Vegas book director John Avello, for example, wasn’t as giddy as his colleagues after the day’s results because of heavy-hitting house players who are given virtually as high limits as they want. On this day, it wasn't even football that Avello was sweating.
“A Broncos cover would have been bad for us, but our biggest decision on the day came from baseball, where we had a guest wager heavy (six figures) on the Tigers to beat the Giants (on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball). Just look at my line on the game, and you can tell the type of situation we're in.”
The Tigers were -107 favorites in the morning, but Avello closed his number at Tigers -136, by far the highest in the state. Detroit won, 6-1, but with all the underdogs covering in the NFL, Avello was able to withstand such a huge blow and show a profit for the day. It just wasn't as big as those houses dealing to the frenzied parlay bettors on the first week of NFL action, who also don't have to deal with free-wheeling millionaires betting baseball games on a whim.