Almost the upset of the season
As the American football season winds down, so, too does the most wonderful time of the year for sportsbooks. I always enjoy hearing about the interesting bookmaker situations and games for a given weekend, and since it’s still a little slow on the news front after the holidays, I thought we’d take a look at some of the latest.
In the NFL, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were one of the largest favorites of the season, with the line going from -11 to -14.5 over the hapless New York Jets. Despite that massive line, almost nobody bet on the Jets. According to ESPN.com, 95% of the point spread money was on the Buccaneers on BetRivers and FanDuel, over 90% at BetMGM and WynnBET.
The moneyline, too, was almost entirely on Tampa Bay, even though bettors would barely make any money on it. At PointsBet, the Tampa Bay moneyline was the most common leg of parlays over the weekend.
The sportsbooks came this close to completely cleaning up on the game. Somehow, the Jets dominated most of the game, but the Buccaneers made a second half comeback and took the lead on a 33-yard touchdown pass to cap off of a 97-yard drive with just 15 seconds left. The Jets had been up by three points before that drive and went for it on fourth-and-2 from the Buccaneers’ three-yard line, but failed. Had they converted, they would’ve won, as Tampa Bay had no more timeouts.
Even with the Buccs’ win, the sportsbooks did really well on the game, since Tampa didn’t come close to covering.
“We had a solid day,” John Murray, executive director of the SuperBook, told ESPN. “It could’ve been one of our best Sundays of the season if the Jets hold on for the outright victory.”
Wild New Year’s bowl games
In the college game, there was a slew of big bowl games over New Year’s weekend, a couple of which were among the most exciting games of the season. Ed Salmons vice president of risk management for the SuperBook, said that the bulk of the money in the Fiesta Bowl was on Oklahoma State, a one-point favorite over Notre Dame. Notre Dame ruled the first half, but Oklahoma State came roaring back to win, 37-35. That was a bad time for the sportsbooks.
But the Rose Bowl was even wilder. Utah went up 14-0 on Ohio State in the first quarter and after an insane second quarter, was still leading by two touchdowns at halftime, 35-21. OSU came back to take a touchdown lead with a few minutes left, Utah tied it under the two-minute mark, and then Ohio State won it on a last-second field goal.
It wasn’t so much the final outcome of the game that was good for the Superbook, but rather the heaps of in-game wagers. “Ohio State in-game yesterday was our biggest in-game win we’ve had. It literally saved the day yesterday,” Salmons told ESPN.com.
The highlights of the game were record-setting performances by Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud and wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Stroud threw for a school record 573 yards and six touchdowns, which were also both Rose Bowl records. Smith-Njigba went for an insane 347 receiving yards, a record for any bowl game ever. His 15 receptions were a school record.
There is one more bowl game coming up the National Championship game between Georgia and Alabama. Alabama destroyed Georgia in the SEC Championship game, but Georgia began the week as a 3-point favorite. The Bulldogs started as 1.5-point favorites after their convincing victory over Michigan and Alabama’s unimpressive win over Cincinnati, but sharps have put money on Georgia, forcing the line to move up. Caesars has taken two $110,000 bets on Georgia.