If you prefer backing favorites or fading cellar dwellers, your NFL betting strategy is working.
It goes without saying, that a lot of public-adored favorites covering the number in pro football is the last thing a bookmaker wants. But recently, they have been nearly blinded by the chalk swirling around the sportsbook. The favorite is 21-9 against the spread in the past two weeks.
Last weekend provided one of the worst clumps of NFL results for the books in recent memory. On Sunday, five popular favorites took the money, with the Indianapolis Colts, New England Patriots, New York Giants, New Orleans Saints and Pittsburgh Steelers covering the spread.
To make matters worse, the league’s most frequently bet-against teams, the Oakland Raiders and Detroit Lions, failed to sniff the money. Perhaps the only saving grace came from the Cleveland Browns, who covered the 6-point spread against the Cincinnati Bengals in their 23-20 overtime loss.
But the Browns covering hardly provided a consolation for the books. The topper was the Monday night Brett Favre Bowl in which the favored Minnesota Vikings covered the 4-point spread in their 30-23 win over the Green Bay Packers. This one was like a three-punch combination to the oddsmakers’ gut. The chalk covered, the total went over and both sides covered the teaser odds. Most parlays and teasers hinging on this game were headed to the cashier’s cage.
In search of an accurate assessment of the damage recent NFL results have delivered to the books, Cover.com found that the lasting impact of the pain largely depends on both the location and the clientele of the sportsbooks.
For example, Terry Cox of the Peppermill Resort Casino runs a locals-friendly sportsbook on the outskirts of downtown Reno. He said watching a slew of public NFL bettors experience a winning doesn’t hurt business.
“The public is doing well. We’ve had to cash our share of tickets in the first four weeks, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Cox said. “With the economy down, and everything else down, sports betting is up. The way we see it is, let them go ahead and think it’s easy.”
While Cox can count on return business from novice and recreational bettors to help off-set a bad week, others aren’t so fortunate.
In the heart of the Las Vegas Strip, Jeff Stoneback, sportsbook manager for the MGM Mirage, watched in agony as throes of tourists wearing Favre’s No. 4 jerseys and sipping cheap beers celebrated wildly as the Vikings polished off a public bettor’s dream weekend.
“It hurts the book more so at our properties than at one that has locals as part of the clientele,” Stoneback said. “We get people who come in for the weekend, then they fly home and it’s a whole new crowd. They take their money home with them, and are not here next week to give it back to us.”
Stoneback acknowledged that suffering an occasional losing weekend is simply part of the variation that comes with making a living in the gambling business. That doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it.
“In the long run, we are going to have weeks in which we just get crushed, and there’s no avoiding that,” he said. “Anybody who does any sort of gambling, whether it’s sports, horses, cards or dice … if they lose all the time, they are not going to do it anymore.
“If we beat them every single week, there would be a lot less people betting. Obviously, it’s our goal to beat them every week, but we know that it can’t happen.”
In the meantime, the spreads for the favorites will grow – six games this weekend opened with lines of at least a touchdown, and three opened at double figures – and oddsmakers will hope that the NFL pendulum swings back in their favor.
When it does, oddsmakers such as Stoneback will be handing the cash to the wise guys instead of the tourists, but they will be content to make the transition.
“Most of the time, when the professionals have a winning day, we have a winning day,” Stoneback said. “When the public loses, we usually end up on the right side.”