Books Get Demolished

justin22g

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Favorites crush Books
October 27, 2009
By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider


Nevada Sports bettors got a major stimulus package on Sunday, and the giving party to the program was the sportsbooks. If you didn?t win betting pro football last week, it?s likely you didn?t bet.

Sunday was the toughest of all seven weeks this season for Nevada Sports Books and quite possibly -- after all the figures are in -- will rank as one of the worst ever. All the big favorites covered, all the big public games covered, and every lucky break, bounce, tip, and calls went to the bettor.

When the favorites go 8-2-1 in the first 11 games, it?s never a good equation for the books because the public always bets the favorites. In the only three games that didn?t cover, no one cared as the Bills and Texans games were two of the least bet games of the week, both in wagers and ticket counts. Plus, the Bears closed as one-point road favorites but a lot of books had the Bengals listed at pick 'em just before kickoff.

No matter what side they had in the Texans (-3) 23-20 win over the 49ers, straight bets were returned, and parlays were just reduced because of the tie, which in most cases can be worse because it keeps every parlay bet on that game alive going into the others. A push on a day like Sunday would have gladly been traded for any decision on the game just to cut the larger picture risk.

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The straights bets aren?t what hurt the books Sunday. A book can make up the difference of losing a couple straight bets from -110 juice and volume from all other wagers on all typical Sunday What a book can?t make up is the parlays when every side goes the public way. When the betting masses hit payouts of 6/1, 11/1, 20/1, 40/1, and higher, the book can?t make it up over the course of a day, and in Sunday?s case, maybe an entire month.

During the week there weren?t that many line movements on the sides, but the one that the Sharps and Public both agreed on was the Steelers. Generally when the Sharps do well, so do the books and the Public lose.

The Steelers were bet from an opener of -4 to -6. The course of the game seemed to indicate the Vikings may be able to stay close or pull off an upset as it was 13-10 Steelers heading into the fourth quarter, but then that?s when the crazy stuff happened.

After the Steelers returned a fumble for a TD that looked to be the cover, crowds at the sportsbooks roared as the Steelers were back up by 10. Before the bettors could stop high-fiving each other with approval, the Vikings? Percy Harvin ran the ensuing kickoff back for TD.

Just as the public was beginning to rip up their morning game 5-teamers, Brett Favre was intercepted and the Steelers took it 77 yards for a TD, bumping the final margin to 10 much to delight of everyone, except those behind the counter.

That 10-point (27-17) winning margin by the Steelers was the second lowest of the early Sunday games. Of those 11 games, only one game was won by less than 10 points and that was the aforementioned Houston push, which helped no one.

There were only two games that were double-digit favorites and they were covering before half-time. All the dreggs of the NFL resurfaced again a week after believing that maybe the tide had turned. The leaders of the pack were the Raiders, Buccaneers, Browns, Chiefs, and Rams, all of whom didn?t cover, again, and were bet against as a group.

As crazy as the Steelers game ended, nothing compares to what happened in the Saints-Dolphins game. The six-point underdog Dolphins jumped out a 24-3 lead and there was a sigh of relief from some of the books after getting pounded in the six early games. The biggest risk of the day for the books, after the early results were posted, was the Saints -- a favorite wager of the public who had gone 5-0 against the spread this season.

Following half-time, the Saints systematically broke down a tired, weak Dolphins team in the second half outscoring them 36-10. The books would have even settled for a push at one juncture, getting at least some luck when the Saints missed an extra point and ultimately kept the game as a possible push with the Saints ahead by 6. Early game pushes like the Texans game are no good, but at that juncture of the day it?s much better paying off a parlay of 20/1 than 40/1.

With 1:53 remaining in the game, the final nail in the coffin was hammered into the sportsbooks day when the Saints intercepted a Dolphins pass for a touchdown making the score 46-34. There was a tense moment at the end when Miami had a chance to get the back-door cover, but the final drive stalled at the Saints 5-yard line.

With the Saints posting up another 40-something on the board, it was the fourth time in the six games they have covered and scored that many points. Is there any wonder why the public has this team included in every one their betting options?

At the end of the day, there was some relief when the late game had the 7-point favored Giants losing (17-24) outright to the Cardinals giving the G-men their second straight loss.

Another bonus to the overall bottom line, which could mask the severity of the day, was the books posting the futures of pro baseball?s American League winners. The N.Y. Yankees win helped the strip properties much more than the local properties because of the overall tourist traffic throughout the year. When one of the favorites wins on futures, it?s always a good hold for the books.

Next week there are six games favored over a touchdown with the high being the Raiders getting 16 at San Diego. After this week, if there was ever a time to attempt to make a case for the dogs, there is surely to be value with several of them in the extreme over-reaction to the lines we see.
 

Old School

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Bad NFL teams turn sports books into losers

Bad NFL teams turn sports books into losers

Bad NFL teams turn sports books into losers

wetzel.png
By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports Oct 27, 2:36 pm EDT



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With head shakes and hushed tones, they?re calling Sunday the worst day in memory at Las Vegas sports books.
NFL blowout after blowout caused the house to take a bath up and down the famed strip. Estimates have NFL gamblers across the city walking away with millions in cumulative winnings on Sunday alone.
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Sports book execs empathized with the Browns' Robaire Smith on Sunday.
(Jason Miller/US Presswire)

?It was the worst weekend I?ve ever seen,? said Jay Kornegay, executive director of the sports book at the Las Vegas Hilton and a 22-year veteran of the business. ?I?ve heard from across the world and everybody got really beaten up by the NFL.?
This is NFL season where parity has gone to die. The adage ?On Any Given Sunday? has become a punch line with each successive 30-point blow out.
The league is full of terrible teams ? St. Louis Rams (0-7), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-7), Tennessee Titans (0-6), Kansas City Chiefs (1-6), Cleveland Browns (1-6) and Detroit Lions (1-5) with the two-win Washington Redskins, Seattle Seahawks, Oakland Raiders and Carolina Panthers not too far behind.
The result has been a remarkable string of lopsided games in a sport where close contests have driven interest ? and betting action ? for decades.
?The NFL is a concern for us because there are so many non-competitive teams,? Kornegay said. ?We can?t get the line high enough. History says, don?t make the line too high and overreact. Then all these poor teams don?t cover this weekend.?
No one is going to shed any tears for Vegas. This is one of the great gambling trends of all time, karma for all those bad beats through the years.
More From Dan Wetzel
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For the house, it has been a terrible season punctuated by a calamitous Sunday. The issue isn?t just that some bad teams are getting blown out. It?s that none is stepping up and making a game of it, limiting the casino?s losses.
The individual gamblers are having a field day.
?We?ve had bad teams in the NFL before, but usually one or two step up and cover,? Kornegay said.
He paused and issued a gallows humor laugh.



?I feel like we?re in a knife fight and we?re losing.? <HR align=center width="20%" SIZE=1>
A brief explanation for non-gamblers: In an effort to attract action on an otherwise lopsided game (say, Indianapolis Colts at St. Louis on Sunday), a sports book will offer extra points to the underdog, in this case the winless Rams. Without a spread, everyone would bet the Colts and the house would get massacred.
The Golden Nugget sports book, for instance, opened with St. Louis getting 12.5 points (the half to help with ties). That way, if you bet the Rams and the actual game ended 21-10 Indy, you?d win the bet with a score of 22.5-21 St. Louis.
A betting line is fluid though and will correct itself as money pours in for the favorite or underdog. Despite the Rams getting all those points, at home no less, the money kept going to Indy. The line reacted by moving all the way to 14 points at kickoff.
The goal of a sports book is two fold. One is to have enough big spreads that when a few of the underdogs inevitably cover, the house offsets the losses. The second is to have an equal amount of money on each side of the game to limit exposure.
In this case, the money didn?t even out though. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported that in some sports books, 90 percent of the action was on the Colts. The bettors had good reason: Undefeated Indy won 42-6, covering with ease.
The question for the sports books is how big of a spread can you dare to throw out to the bettors. Traditionally double-digit underdogs are relatively rare. Most NFL games are decided by a touchdown or less and often a field goal or less.
Right now gamblers see as many of 10 clubs that are capable of getting drilled each week. The sports books are having an impossible time finding anyone to bet on a St. Louis or Oakland.
The Rams can be competitive against other lousy clubs. However, in three games against winning teams (Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings and Indy) they?ve lost by an average of 27.7 points. When the Rams host Super Bowl contender New Orleans in a few weeks, who would dare bet on them?
What spread number could possibly make it interesting?
The books have thrown up some massive numbers in college football, where especially in non-conference play the talent differential creates huge blowouts. Currently, national championship contender LSU is a 36-point favorite going into Saturday?s game against lowly Tulane.
You?ll never see that in pro football though. Kornegay said the highest spread he?s ever seen came in 1976, when the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers were 24-point favorites against a Tampa Bay team that would go winless (Pittsburgh covered, winning 42-0).
In 2007, the powerhouse New England Patriots were often 20-plus favorites. That was just one team though. This is a league-wide epidemic not of great teams, but terrible ones.
Especially beneficial to gamblers are parlay bets where they can string together antes on three, four, five or more games to improve their odds. The chances they all come through is small, which is why they?re offered. A five-team parlay will generally net you at least a 20-1 payout.
Last weekend you could?ve teased favorites New England, Indy, Green Bay, the San Diego Chargers and New York Jets and not even worried. The closest game against the spread was the Patriots (minus-15.5 against Tampa Bay) cruising to a 35-7 victory.
As bad as it is for the casinos, it has to be worse with your friendly, neighborhood, illegal bookie. A Las Vegas casinos gambling operation can take sustained hits and survive. A local bookie, even one tied to organized crime, doesn?t have backing of that magnitude.
Geography also can play a huge roll in gambling trends ? how many people in Indiana actually bet against the Colts? The limited number of gamblers can make for crushing defeats (or victories).



?I think there are a lot of new post office boxes out there this week,? Kornegay said. ?Bookies may have just up and gone. Call them and get, ?This number is no longer active.? ? <HR align=center width="20%" SIZE=1>
The sports book executives are getting smacked right now, but even with this unusual season of horrible football teams, confidence remains high. :director: There?s a reason they keep building bigger and bigger hotels in Nevada.:D
While a lot of people are flush with winnings right now, they rarely walk. In addition, a fresh group of weekend gamblers keep arriving at McCarron International Airport. Nothing stays the same.
?The beauty of sports betting is that people have some kind of insight into the game,? Kornegay said. ?Now that everyone is predicting it correctly, we?re going to have a lot of experts out there.
?They?re going to reload.?
The casinos won?t even consider taking a NFL game off the board ? as they sometimes do with college mismatches. The spreads will get more and more tantalizing. The house will use its trained professionals to attempt to figure out how to even the money out. And the bad teams can?t keep getting crushed, can they?
?We?ll continue to adjust the lines; we just have to hope some of the poor teams step up and stay within a couple of touchdowns,? Kornegay said.
This sounds like a calm, calculated and historically solid plan. Except, have you watched the Rams and Bucs and Lions and ? ?
Dan Wetzel is Yahoo! Sports' national columnist. Click here to follow him on Twitter. Send Dan a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
 

yyz

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On the course!
?The beauty of sports betting is that people have some kind of insight into the game,? Kornegay said. ?Now that everyone is predicting it correctly, we?re going to have a lot of experts out there.
?They?re going to reload.?

.....and that's why they don't have to worry, and the same sad faces will be bitching next week about how they "can never win".
 

justin22g

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?The beauty of sports betting is that people have some kind of insight into the game,? Kornegay said. ?Now that everyone is predicting it correctly, we?re going to have a lot of experts out there.
?They?re going to reload.?

.....and that's why they don't have to worry, and the same sad faces will be bitching next week about how they "can never win".



:mj07: :mj07: sounds like me!
 
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