The point spread on the National Championship Game got popped Sunday.
It happened in Las Vegas and offshore during a three-hour flurry of action on Florida State that caused the line to move two points and prompted speculation that the biggest of bettors was involved.
Cantor Gaming, which operates multiple Vegas sports books and caters to some of the biggest players in town, took an influential bet on the Florida State money line Sunday morning and took another significant play on Florida State -8.5 around 11 a.m. PT. By 5 p.m., Florida State was a 10-point favorite, live odds archives show.
At the same time, a similar move was taking place at the MGM Mirage, which, like Cantor, is known to offer some of the highest limits to select players.
“There, right now, we just took another bet from a sharp on Florida State that made us move to 9.5,” said Jay Rood, MGM Vice President of Race and Sports, in an 11 a.m. PT phone interview Sunday.
Soon after, every Vegas book had made Florida State a double-digit favorite.
Meanwhile, the offshore market also was on the move. BetCris.com is considered to have the most influential clients of the offshore books. BetCris sets and moves the U.S. betting market. In the past five days at BetCris, Florida State has grown from an 8.5-point favorite to now giving 10.5 as of Monday afternoon.
Public Pete isn’t forcing a prominent book like BetCris to move its line through a key number like 10. In fact, multiple industry sources said only one man could cause that kind of move – Vegas mega-pro Billy Walters.
Walters is a reclusive businessman who owns golf courses and car dealerships around the U.S. He’s also the most influential U.S. sports bettor, who says he prefers to bet at Cantor and the MGM Mirage in Vegas. His action—and possibly only his action–can cause the kind of line movement we saw Sunday.
Walters, however, also has been known to place bets to influence the market in a certain direction, before coming back with more money on the other side after the point spread moves. Is this one of those times? Few, other than Walters himself, truly know, but the way the point spread on tonight’s game moves leading up to kickoff will be telling.
‘All of them’
John Avello, executive director at the Wynn sports book, said he’s taken a handful of six-figure bets on the title game. All of them have been on Florida State.
“And quite a few of five-figure bets, too,” Avello said. “It’s like every big player is in here betting Florida State.They all showed up after Oklahoma beat Auburn. All of a sudden, the other day, this game just flew. It all happened in like 10 minutes. It went 8.5 to 10 in a matter of minutes. And I could go to 11.”
The LVH SuperBook, William Hill and MGM were expecting professional money to show up on the Seminoles, mostly because high-level power ratings and computer models used by oddsmakers had Florida State as high as a 13-point favorite.
“The deeper we got into and the models I was looking at, I could see that it was definitely going to go up at some point. The question was when,” said LVH head oddsmaker Ed Salmons.
Nick Bogdanovich, sports book director at William Hill, said the two consultants he uses both made Florida State a much larger favorite than 8 or 9.
“I had a feeling that eventually that it would go up,” said Bogdanovich. “I guess they picked yesterday to do it. We’re sitting at 10 ½, but actually there’s plenty of money on both sides, even though the wise guys moved it up pretty good.”
Bogdanovich said, even though his money is pretty even on the game, that he chose to move his number out of respect.
“When they bet it, you have to respect it,” Bogdanovich. “There’s a reason why there are professionals.
Salmons, a college football specialist, said he personally bet Florida State.
“I laid the 8,” said Salmons. “The computer simulation that we used had it at 16. So we were just waiting to see how low we thought it go, and then we played it.”
Vegas bookmakers are allowed to place wagers on games at other Nevada sports books.
The book, however, is rooting for the Seminoles to win, but not cover, due to liability on the Auburn futures bets. The LVH took 14 “$5 and $10” bets on Auburn to win the national championship at 1,000-to-1 from January to June. The book also took a $500 bet on the Tigers at 200-to-1 in August, creating enough liability on Auburn that it forced the LVH to open the point spread on the National Championship Game below the market. The LVH opened Florida State as a 7.5-point favorite, while the majority of shops began with the Seminoles as 8.5- to 9-point favorites.
“We tried to manage our liability (on Auburn) the best we could,” said Salmons. “Then, at some point, we just started booking the game.”
Salmons said at 11 a.m. PT that there were 30 more bets on Florida State than Auburn, but there was two times more money on the Seminoles.
Bogdanovich estimates that the BCS title game will generate approximately 1/10th the amount of betting action that the Super Bowl does. A record $98.9 million was wagered on the Super Bowl at Nevada sports books last year.
Multiple books said the betting handle on Florida State and Auburn was comparable to last season’s championship game between Alabama and Notre Dame.
Editor’s note: We’ll be updating this story with action reports throughout the day.