Las Vegas Sports Books Lose Weeks 13 and 15
Week 13 of the NFL regular season was a good spot for sportsbooks to end a streak of losses, but instead they broke even or lost for the sixth time in the last seven weeks. Sportsbooks can and do lose money contrary to what the general public perceives to be a fixed system.
Favorites were 10 wins and 4 losses on the week against the number. The past few weeks have been very good to bettors. Usually the NFL is a reliable source of income for the sportsbooks because the point spread is close to the final result most of the time — maybe 70%.
The NFL regular season of four months is balanced with dogs and favorites evenly matched around 50/50. Week 14 started good for sportsbooks to win. They began Thursday with a big win, as Dallas at -3 was not able to cover in their 17-15 victory over Minnesota.
Cleveland was on a bye week and the other two bad teams namely San Francisco and Chicago were playing each other. The Patriots had a big spread of -13 that made many regular public bettors stay away from that game. Teasers were not bet as much as there were not many spreads that attracted the teaser bettor.
Bettors went with other teams that covered and were ahead of the books going into Sunday night. The Green Bay win and Denver win helped the public, with both having a few big parlays linked to them. Oakland continued to win and the public continues to support them. The Raiders were down 15 points during the third quarter only to rally with 29 unanswered points to win 38-24 over the Bills.
The Carolina-Seattle game on Sunday night caused the loss for the books as Seattle at -8 covered easily. The books needed Carolina to cover to save their day. Seattle went on to win 40-7 and give the public the win for Week 13.
Week 15 of the NFL season finished with the sportsbooks losing as the public used covers by some of its favorites and parlays to keep cashing at the windows.
New England clinched its record breaking eighth consecutive AFC East title while Oakland clinched its first appearance in the playoffs since 2002. These two teams helped the public beat the sportsbooks with another loss.
In seven of the past nine weeks, even most of the online books either have lost or just broke even making this the biggest ever losing NFL season for the books.
Most sportsbooks lost the late games after winning the early games. The biggest two losses for the sportsbooks were New England and Atlanta. Atlanta beat up San Francisco 41-13 at home to cover a -13.5 line and the total cashed the over 51. The parlays that included this game hurt the sportsbooks.
The Patriots at -3 defeated Denver on the road 16-3. The public bettors made the right decision knowing Denver had offensive problems and could not get into the end zone.
Oakland is one of the NFL’s most popular teams for bettors and they continued to cover for bettors in Week 14. Many sportsbooks had Oakland on almost 85% of their tickets which is a big risk for the sportsbooks. The Raiders came through for the public in their 19-16 win over the San Diego Chargers.
The sportsbooks hope to recoup some losses during the playoffs. But they know they need to get the betting public evenly divided on their numbers for each playoff game. They can only pad the line a little if they perceive how the public will bet. They are gambling just like the bettor but hope their information is better than the general betting public.
