Sportsbooks In Vegas Crush The Public In Week 1 Of The NFL Season

NFL

Casinos in Vegas have sportsbooks because they make money. Sportsbooks did great business in the first week of the NFL season. Underdogs were 10-3 against the spread (!) and 7-6 straight up in the first week of the NFL season.

Underdogs winning almost always favors the casino. While there are more educated sports bettors they still make up the minority of sports bettors.

From Linemakers:

“This was the best opening day we’ve ever had here,” said Golden Nugget sports book director Tony Miller. ”Just about every game we needed came through for us beginning with our biggest, the Falcons, and then the rest just followed suit like the Browns, Dolphins and then the Panthers. It wasn’t a good day for those that bet parlays.”

Note, it’s never a good day for parlay bettors. Casinos win over 35% of parlay wagers.

From Vegas Insider:

Wins by the Miami Dolphins (33-20 vs. the New England Patriots), the Atlanta Falcons (37-34 in overtime vs. the New Orleans Saints) and Buffalo Bills (23-20 in OT at the Chicago Bears) as dogs set the tone for a great day, according to Jay Kornegay, the (Westgate) SuperBook’s Vice President of Race & Sports Operations.

From Covers:

Carolina was the biggest win for us, beating the Bucs,” Jeff Stoneback, sportsbook manager at the MGM Mirage, tells Covers. “That, then the Bills and the Bears tied for second. A short third was the Falcons beating the Saints.”

This sounds like a big win for the sportsbook operators but it could have been bigger. The Jacksonville Jaguars jumped out to a 17 point lead against the Philadelphia Eagles, who were favored by 10 or 10.5 only to lose by 17. Thankfully I teased this game to 17.5.

The first week of the NFL season was fun to watch and fun to bet. There was too much early game action for me to consider heading out to a sportsbook to watch. I had a single wager on the Tennessee Titans, a 7 team tease and my first two daily fantasy football games (more on this later) to track. I couldn’t handle tracking this much action in a public setting.

On to the next one…