Las Vegas sports books had a great first half of the NFL season. That all stopped this week at the halfway point of the NFL season. The betting public, or squares as they are called to sports bettors, went an impressive 12-2 in their week 9 NFL picks. This included hitting their top 9 bets on Sunday in terms of number of tickets written. The betting public took mostly favorites this past week. The exceptions were Tampa Bay and Indianapolis, who were both less than a field goal underdog, and both won their games outright.
The betting public lost just two games. Those picks were the New York Giants and Washington Redskins. Both teams had 60% or less of the tickets on them.
According to Pregame.com’s Sportsbook Spy (click November 4 to see Week 9 Sunday NFL public picks), the top 9 picks made by squares all won. All of these picks were favorites of 4 points or more. All of them had over 70% of the tickets written on them. The public also backed the New Orleans Saints on Monday Night Football and the San Diego Chargers on Thursday Night Football. Both of those teams covered the spread.
While favorites were the right pick this past week, that was not the case for the previous 8 weeks of the NFL season. Underdogs had covered 61% of the games going into this weekend. Underdogs still hold a 58% winning percentage against the spread after this weekend.
It is rare to see sports book managers talk about their losses, but Jimmy Vaccaro of William Hill had this to say when interviewed by the Las Vegas Sun:
It was the worst day I’ve ever seen that involved regular season in the NFL. I’ve seen worse single-day events, like big boxing matches, but it was really bad for the books.
Nobody feels sorry for the sports books, especially after the first 8 weeks of the NFL season have proven to be so profitable for them. Sports book are generally not an extremely profitable part of a Las Vegas casino. Many casinos not owned by Caesars Entertainment, MGM, or Station Casinos lease their sports book space to companies like William Hill or Cantor Gaming. Sports books are more of a draw to attract gamblers to a property, much like a poker room is, and operate off of a margin of around 5%.
Weeks like this often skew the lines the following week in terms of favorites opening up higher than they normally would. Several professional sports bettors are already questioning the double digit division favorites this week in the AFC East and NFC West. The New England Patriots and San Francisco 49er both opened as 11 point favorites over weaker division opponents. Playing double digit divisional favorites can often be losing proposition.
This past weekend was a dream for many NFL sports bettors. Those players should not expect a repeat of that kind of success any time soon.
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