Books dominate Week 3
By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com
Sorry bettors, I hate to say it because I'm always rooting for you, but y'all had no chance in Week 3 of NFL action. The burial started early with a 6:30 am PT start time in London when the Jaguars (+3) won 44-7 over the Ravens and it continued on through the morning as underdogs would go 9-1 ATS with seven of them winning outright. It was one of the largest Sunday regular season wins the Las Vegas sports books have ever seen.
"If the Redskins get there for us it will be on of the top-three regular season days I've ever seen," said MGM Resorts race and sports VP Jay Rood. "I had only one red mark on sheet for the day which I rarely ever see."
The game Rood's books lost on in the early games was surprisingly the Saints (+6) at Carolina. That's it. Almost everything the majority of betters keyed on Sunday ended up a loser. And the books also got some larger favorites to lose outright.
"We almost had a 13-point favorite go down," said Westgate SuperBook VP Jay Kornegay of the Patriots come-from-behind, 36-33 win against the Texans. "It was a really solid weekend. We got the 5-6-and-7-point favorite to lose outright, something we desperately needed but didn't get last week. Parity in the NFL is big for us. Last week we had teams hold true to form, week 1 was a mixed bag of results and so was week 3."
The biggest bet game of the day at William Hill's 108 sports books across the state was Denver (-3.5) at Buffalo taking 16 percent of Sunday's action. Denver had 82 percent of the tickets written on them after abusing Dallas the week before, but it was Denver's first road game and the Bills held serve with a 26-16 win.
"The day got started well for us when the Broncos lost at Buffalo," said Stratosphere oddsmaker Hugh Citron. "That was the big game for us, and you could just feel the air let out of the room when Buffalo got the win."
Next up on William Hill's list of risk was the Raiders visiting Washington with 11 percent of the wagers, and of course the popular Raiders had 91 percent of the tickets written on them. Washington jumped out to a 21-0 lead and won 27-10. They yardage favoring Washington, 472-128, shows how one sided the game really was.
"We needed the Redskins for a big decision,' said Station Casinos sports book director Jason McCormick. "The Bears win was big big killing money-line parlays and teasers. The Bills were also a huge win. Falcons was our worst game, but overall it was a big day and if Redskins get the upset it'll be a monster day."
Who knows what a monster day is, but let's just call it at least seven figures for each of the major sports book chains. The books almost got the clean sweep of favorites failing to cover early when the Lions appeared to pull out the last second win, but an official review negated a Lions TD and Atlanta (-3) held on for a 30-26 win.
The Steelers' 23-17 overtime loss at Chicago (+7) was also a shocker just because Pittsburgh was pegged as a team to dethrone the Patriots in the AFC. They looked lost and sluggish throughout the game while the Bears were playing with some serious intensity. William Hill had 79 percent of all tickets written on the game taking the Steelers.
"The Steelers loss was huge and set the tone for us because it knocked out teasers and big money-line parlays," said Rood. "Those guys that beat us up last week with the big money-line parlays took it on the chin this week."
Sunday's big win for the house was continuation from a solid Saturday of college football action.
"We had a nice two days back-to-back which has been a rarity lately," Rood said. "We didn't have a lot of winning Saturday's last season, so to have one followed up by a great Sunday was nice to see."
Just like Sunday's key games for the house that knocked out parlays, Saturday had one as well.
"The game that stood out the most just because of setting the tone on the day was Oklahoma State (-11) losing to TCU," said Rood. "We had some late sharp play on TCU, but overall, it had a huge impact just because of parlay risk extending throughout the day."