Stanford finish costs Books
By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com
Las Vegas sports books had their best college football Saturday of the year, which was led by major upsets and bettors changing their wagering philosophies a bit. The favorites went 29-11-1 with 13 underdogs winning outright, including five double-digit dogs winning outright.
Going into the late games, the books had the ability to have perhaps the best Saturday ever. All they needed was a decision of some kind in the Stanford-USC game, any decision one way or another, just not a push. When the game went into overtime, a decision seemed to be in the bag with Stanford being an eight-point favorite.
The most a college team can win by in overtime is seven, unless it goes into triple-overtime where each team has to go for a two-point attempt after a touchdown. Wouldn’t you know it, Stanford was up by 8 in the third overtime period and forced USC into a turnover. Game over, Stanford wins by 8!.
It may not sound like a big deal. You may be thinking that it’s just a refund and it didn’t cost the books any money, but it’s the timing of the game that made it a major negative on the day.
“The Stanford game ending in 8 was the worst possible outcome for us, said Station Casinos sports book director Jason McCormick. “Any number but eight would have been good for us, but between getting middled a little bit and having so many of the live parlays on the day finishing off with either side of that game getting refunded, it wasn’t good.”
Station Casinos opened Stanford -8, but were up and down during the week with 8 not being a key number to hold strong to like 3's or 7's.
“We went down to -7½, back to -8, all the way up to -9 at one point before eventually settling on -8 as the closing number. I still can’t believe an overtime game, a game where the spread was 8, would actually land on 8.”
As bad as the Stanford decision was for the books, they got it over it real quick once they reflected on how well they did with every other game.
The betting public seems to react drastically to what they just saw last and bet accordingly. A perfect example happened last week with how quickly they turned on Oklahoma following their loss to Texas Tech last week, while also jumping on the Red Raider wagon.
“The public jumped off the Oklahoma train after they lost and got on board Kansas State’s after all their covers this year, despite riding the Sooners strong all season,” said South Point sports book Director Bert Osborne. “It was kind of surprising to see a majority swing like that with a power-house college team, a team they have been laying the points with all year.“
Texas Tech must have still been in a daze from upsetting Oklahoma last week as they fell at home to Iowa State 41-7 as a 15-point favorite, much to the disdain of bettor's parlays all over town.
If Kansas State and Tech weren’t enough to kill off almost everyone’s parlay, the sports books got reinforcements with Clemson (-3½), Wisconsin (-7), Oregon (-35), Arkansas (-9½) and Texas A&M (-10½) all either losing or not covering the spread.
After doing well in the late national TV games, the books got the added bonus of beating the last ‘get-back’ games. The 7:00 pm (PT) games are typically games the favorites are bet upon by bettors trying to expand their winnings from the day or, as was the case Saturday, get back their losses by chasing.
Arizona was still fresh on everyone’s mind from thrashing UCLA last Thursday while also witnessing Washington get bounced by Stanford. The Huskies opened as six-point favorites, but were bet down to -4. The small money followed the large money on this one and surprisingly bet the dog. Washington took control in the second half to win 42-31.
The other late ’get-back’ game was San Diego State laying -18 ½-points to Wyoming. Not many had tickets on Wyoming, nor the winning side on money-line as it became the upset on the day with Wyoming wining 30-27.
You have to think the sports books have the public right where they want them right now. Instead of going to windows full of confidence laying the big numbers and routinely cashing in big-parlays, they’ll be more apt to second guess their choices which immediately slants the edge to the books even more.