Oddsmakers say Alabama is historically great and point spreads in their games have been inflated.
Ed Salmons, head oddsmaker at the Westgate SuperBook, rates this year’s Alabama team a full five points higher than last year’s championship team … which holds the highest mark in his 15 years of computing power ratings.
“There’s really no way to stop these guys now,” Salmons told ESPN.
The Crimson Time covered their first three games by a combined 58 points, the largest margin in the country. Consequently, the house has started charging a “Tide tax” on Alabama to offset the interest it draws at the betting window.
“Alabama’s point spread is inflated every week by four or five points. It’s not really the true number,” Golden Nugget sportsbook director Tony Miller told ESPN. “That’s why we’re not getting any sharp action. It’s all public accumulation (from straight wagers, teasers and parlays).”
The Buffalo Bills 27-6 win at Minnesota pulled off the biggest upset in the NFL in 23 years.
The Bills, who were winless entering Sunday’s game in Minnesota, closed as consensus 17-point underdogs to the previously unbeaten Vikings. They are the 15th underdog of 17 or more points to win a game in the Super Bowl era and the largest underdog to pull off an upset since the Washington Redskins knocked off the Dallas Cowboys 24-17 as 17.5-point underdogs on Dec. 3, 1995.
There had been 24 favorites of 17 or more points since that game; each of them prevailed. The Bills ended that streak, storming out to a 27-0 halftime lead behind rookie quarterback Josh Allen and an opportunistic defense. Allen gave the Bills a 7-0 lead five minutes into the game with a 10-yard touchdown run. It was the first lead of the season for Buffalo.
The U.S. House of Representatives held a sports betting hearing yesterday.
Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (D-WI): “I think the one thing that all of you agree on, is that for Congress to do nothing is the worst possible alternative.
So this means we have some work to do. And I’m looking forward to working with you to try to come up with something both short-term and something more permanent to deal with this issue. Because I’m afraid if we don’t, there are going to be some people that get hurt — and hurt very badly.”
A lawsuit is postponing legal sports betting in south New Jersey.
Months after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for legal bets on professional and college sporting events, owners of the only destination state legislators deemed eligible for a sports betting parlor south of Trenton and outside of Atlantic City are locked in a court scrum.
In one corner is Cherry Hill Towne Center Partners, a Piscataway-based real estate developer that owns all but 10 of the 600-acre former Garden State Racetrack property. In the other corner is GS Park Racing, a partnership of gaming companies, including Greenwood Racing, a co-owner of Freehold Raceway and the Parx Casino and Philadelphia Park horserace track in suburban Philadelphia.
The developers are suing the gaming company in federal court to invalidate a deed covenant that gave it exclusive rights to operate betting facilities on the former racetrack property. The lawsuit claims the gaming company has intentionally not opened an off-track betting parlor here because it feared it would compete with its other gaming properties.
Sports leagues haven’t taken any major actions against sports betting.
The major professional sports leagues and the NCAA have jumped into their first full seasons with expanded legal sports betting by taking a largely wait-and-see approach, leaving teams, players, trainers and officials on their own to figure out how best to navigate an evolving landscape in which their inside information is as valuable as ever.
A professional sports bettor spoke out on why he isn’t a fan of legalized sports betting.
The worst part of it is that the day-to-day variance isn’t my main concern anymore. What really keeps me up at night is the fear of losing my edge. I’ve been asked many times what my biggest fears are for the future of sports betting, and my answer is always the same: change.
Nevada was a bubble, and it was nearly impossible for a U.S. citizen to make a living betting sports (at least legally) unless he or she lived here. But with legalized sports betting now in five states (and counting), that change is here.
And I’m not happy about it.
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