NFL 39 Point Underdog? It WAS Available Sunday!
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| Triple Threat Sports - 10/22/2007 1:48 AM |
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By Bill Milton, Triple Threat Sports Take the time machine back to about 10:30am Sunday morning. Pretend that somewhere in fantasy land your local "sports accountant," or your offshore book, or if you are in Vegas like me your casino sportsbook, was offering an NFL underdog of +39. How much would you have bet on that dog, and how many friends would you have hit up to borrow money from to play even more on that dog? Well, for those paying attention, that exact scenario presented itself on Sunday, and incredibly most everyone decided to LAY the 39. Preposterous, right? WRONG, read on to find out... New England led Miami 42-7 at the half last week, again proving that they might be the best team many of us will ever see. I work in a Vegas sportsbook, and the the halftime betting patterns are always interesting, but I have never seen anything like today. We thought the halftime line should have been Dolphins -4. The offshores posted New England -3(-130) and we just shook our heads, knowing that had to be an error. So, we waited a while, and the crowd was getting restless. So, seeing every other book in Vegas and offshore was at -3 or even -3.5, we hung a -3.5 to go with the flow. Now, consider the implications of this line. With the Pats up by 35 already they needed TO WIN THE GAME BY 39 POINTS to cover a second half spread of -3.5, thereby in effect making Miami a 39 point underdog for the whole game. I was sitting there afraid of getting pounded with money on the Dolphins, as that was the clear play in my mind. Then an amazing, curious, thing happened. The writers started to take bets, and everyone of them, every one of them came in on the Patriots! We eventually moved the line to New England -4 and the public was still not deterred. Finally, someone came in and bet the Dolphins - he was a runner and he bet it pretty hard - but it still did not even the action out. We were surprised he represented the only "smart money" to come in on this game, and were amazed that our decision was so big on the Patriots. I took a quick "smoke break" (I do not smoke) and walked across the street to get down on the game, and everyone in line in front of me was betting the Patriots as well. It was simply incredible. We were not at all surprised to see New England reserves in the game and not at all stunned to see the Dolphins cover not only the half but almost cover the game as well. I knew right then and there that I had to write an article about this, and I want everyone to take a lesson: Just because a team is, in the words of one customer at our windows today: "kicking their asses in the first half" does not mean they are going to "kick their ass in the second half as well." The public bought in to the New England hype and in reality created a +39 on the Dolphins. I can tell you this from both a handicapper and a bookmaker standpoint that often halftime bets are dangerous, but if you see a situation like this occur again do not hesitate to take all those points. Like I said at the start of the article, if I had offered you the Dolphins +39 on Sunday morning you would have jumped on it, so in the future do not let 30 minutes of play cloud the overall issue! We were 5-3 on Saturday and are now 39-21 (65%) in college football this season. We are off a 4-0 Sunday (Bills, Chiefs, Lions, Steelers/Broncos OVER) and will have a nice winner for Monday Night as well so as we always say...JOIN US!!! |
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