Week 15 goes to the Books
By Micah Roberts
After a lengthy tumultuous week of waiting for information on NFL injuries, a team with the flu, and the monstrous East Coast weather front, the Nevada Sportsbooks came out ahead in Week 15. Depending on what part of the city they were located, some books did much better than others thanks to the volume of parlay action.
Many of the properties around the Las Vegas strip who rely on hotel occupancy to help increase their handle and win cited a down week in occupancy as a reason for volume being down while Vegas residential area books cited good earnings from a high hold on parlay action.
Las Vegas Hilton Superbook’s Jay Kornegay cited the time of year as being a possibility in the lighter action.
“It’s the first Sunday before Christmas which is always the slowest week of the football season. We did very good for the week, but if this had been any other week of the season, like week one through eight, it would have been a monster weekend just because of all the upsets,” said Kornegay.
The sportsbooks that did really well on Sunday’s pro football games attribute the favorites going 2-10-1 despite some late Sharp action coming with underdog money that got there. The books that didn’t do so well looked upon the games that saw them lose on straight bets with two big games that they got middled on.
The Patriots opened as a 7.5-point road favorite at Buffalo and closed 6.5 at some places and the game ended with the Patriots allowing a back door touchdown winning 17-10.
The Steelers opened at pick ’em at most books with a big Black and Gold push coming last Monday, which nudged the game to 1.5 and eventually closing at numbers of 2.5 to 3. The Steelers ended up beating the Packers 37-36 in the last second. Even though Pittsburgh money still came in after the initial move, it wasn’t enough to offset the early big action when the Steelers only won by one.
As for the parlays on the day, most of the sportsbooks did very well despite the some late sharp money just because the majority of the public refused to believe ugly teams like the double-digit underdogs could fare well. The Lions, Raiders, and Rams -- who got blasted by a combined score of 129-19 last week -- all covered in exciting finishes with the Raiders actually winning outright at Denver as 14-point underdogs.
Following the Raiders loss to Washington last week, it was discovered that starting quarterback Bruce Gradkowski had torn two different ligaments and the back-up would be starting. When news came out that the starting quarterback would be Charlie Frye from the practice squad, and not former overall No. 1 draft pick JaMracus Russell, the Broncos line jumped from 12.5 to 14.
The irony of the Raider game was that it was Russell, who was bypassed, that led Oakland downfield to their winning final score over Denver.
“It was pretty funny hearing the crowd in the book when Russell came in, Kornegay said, You had the Raiders fans all putting their hands over the heads saying “Oh No” and then you had the Bronco fans cheering as if that was a game clinching moment.”
The Rams made a valiant effort to keep a close game with Houston despite having their Thursday practice cancelled due to several players having the flu. When news found itself to the books, everyone took the game off the board until more details could be found until eventually taking a game that had the Texans as 11-point favorites all the way to 14 when re-opened. The Texans won 16-13.
The Raiders were the biggest underdogs of the day to win, but four of the nine other dogs also won outright. The Falcons beat the Jets from the cold and windy confines of the Meadowlands, the Browns won at Kansas City in a shootout, and the 1-12 Buccaneers won at what used to be a tough place to play at in Seattle.
The Buccaneers were a favorable decision for the books across the board no matter what sector of the world a Sports Book was located.
In the late Sunday finale, the Panthers (+7.5) beat the public favorite of Brett Favre and the Vikings to close out a tough day for most bettors.
This week will be the final week of the fourth quarter and year for Nevada Sports Books who hope to close out strong in what has been a tough season overall thanks to Week 7 -- the worst weekend in Nevada Sports Book history.
The year has also been especially tough for several areas of Hotel-Casino operations seeing sizeable revenue drops.
Overall though, Kornegay has been happy with the results as a whole during the current economic climate.
“We’ve been happy with our year over year handle and win. The one constant in sports betting is that bettors feel good about their chances in what ultimately is a 50-50 proposition. That seems to keep them coming back regardless of their situation. They have all the resources at their hands to have the most informed, educated guess at what is going to happen in the games and I think that is why many Books aren’t seeing as significant a drop in handle as one might expect.”