NFL, CFB Weekend Recap: ‘Bettors Were Praying For A Day Like This’

Through eight weeks of the NFL season, the public betting masses got a few punches in, but never really wobbled the bookmakers.

In NFL Week 9 odds, though, the masses landed a near-unanimous decision. That’ll happen when almost every favorite wins.

“This has been the biggest day of the year for the bettors. The public consistently landed the stronger punches,” Caesars Sports head of trading Joey Feazel said Sunday night, even before the Bears capped the festival of favorites by edging the Buccaneers.

Oddsmakers from Las Vegas and across the country chimed in to recap the weekend that was in NFL and college football betting.

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The Bengals set the tone for a favorite-laden Sunday and, therefore, a public-laden Sunday. Cincinnati was a 3.5-point favorite and rolled over Atlanta 34-17 in Madrid, Spain.

Favorites then went on to win all six games in the 1 p.m. ET window. And even though only four covered, the fact that they all won led to significant liability building up on moneyline parlays.

“Bettors started the day with a fiesta in Madrid. They carried that momentum into an early slate friendly to favorites … keeping plenty of popular moneyline tickets alive,” Feazel said.

Then three out of four favorites won and covered in Sunday’s late window of games.

“The results continued to cooperate,” Feazel said. “The underdogs were nonexistent all day, with the one exception being the Packers, (whom) the public also backed.”

Indeed, Green Bay smacked New England 45-27 as a trendy 3-point road underdog. The Bears then finished it off with a thrilling 27-24 victory over the Bucs, winning on a final-second field goal.

And again, although Chicago didn’t cover as a 6.5-point home favorite, it didn’t matter. Bears moneyline — to just win the game, by any margin — converted a boatload of parlay tickets into winners.

Longtime Vegas oddsmaker Vinny Magliulo, from his perch at South Point sportsbook, said as much before Bucs-Bears kicked off.

“When you have the kind of day the public had, we need the Bucs outright,” Magliulo said.

And the book didn’t get them.

The Bears added to the public’s success with a win over the Bucs (Getty Images).

While almost no decisions fell in favor of bookmakers in NFL Week 9 odds, some landed harder than others.

BetMGM trading manager Adair Horne pointed to a destructive early slate. Bettors beat up the book on five games in particular:

• Lions (-6.5) 19, Dolphins 9
• Chiefs (-9.5) 35, Jets 12
• Giants (-3) 19, Eagles 11
• Rams (-4.5) 20, Commanders 13
• Broncos (-3) 26, Panthers 21

And while the Bucs covering on Sunday night was good for BetMGM to a degree, it hardly mattered, thanks to the moneyline parlays that cashed out on Chicago’s victory.

“Today was a great day if you were a bettor, and a terrible day if you were a bookmaker,” Horne said.

Plus, keep in mind that the frenzy began on Thursday night, when the Jaguars — 9.5-point road favorites vs. the Ravens — rolled to a 33-10 victory.

“Favorites won 13 out of 14 games, and 10 out of the 13 favorites that won covered the spread,” Horne said. “The bettors were praying for a day like this, and it finally arrived.

“It was by far our worst NFL week of the year and probably the last two years.”

And the public masses might not be finished. Late Sunday night, Horne noted that the always-popular Bills visit the Vikings on Monday night, with Buffalo a 3-point favorite.

“I’m already seeing a large amount of winning parlay tickets across social media. And I would guess that plenty more will be relying on the Bills to finish the job Monday,” Horne said.

One area where oddsmakers got a little relief Sunday was with a spate of Unders in the early games. The aforementioned Lions-Dolphins, Giants-Eagles and Rams-Commanders games all fell far short of their totals, and Jets-Chiefs only got to 47, a half-point shy of the 47.5 closing total.

“The Unders were the book’s life raft during the early window,” Feazel said. “Popular favorites kept getting home, but the lower-scoring results in Miami, Philadelphia, Washington and Kansas City prevented the early slate from drifting too far in the bettors’ direction.

“The sides belonged to the public, while the totals kept the book afloat.”

But it didn’t last. The Over hit in three of the four late-window games, and Bucs-Bears finished with 51 points for another Over, on a total of 47.5.

Those results just compounded sportsbooks’ season-worst result from Sunday’s run of favorites.

“The public climbed aboard the Favorite Express early, and it ran almost perfectly on schedule,” Feazel said. “Bettors enjoyed about as smooth a ride as they could have hoped for, while the book is now waiting for an underdog to pull the emergency brake.”

The last chance for that is Monday night. However, even a Vikings outright win won’t do much to dampen a huge NFL weekend for the public.

Josh Allen’s Bills have a chance to add to the books’ misery on Monday (Getty Images).

College football Week 10 odds were much more of a back-and-forth exchange of money between the public and the sportsbooks, on a monster Saturday slate that featured seven top-25 matchups.

“Overall, it was a fairly average Saturday. Just a small win in our favor,” BetMGM’s Horne said.”A few games went our way, but a lot of smaller games didn’t.”

Miami vs. Notre Dame fell right on the number at BetMGM, with the Fighting Irish – 7-point home favorites — winning 31-24. But that result favored the book, because there were a boatload of bets on Miami moneyline, backing the Hurricanes to pull off the outright upset.

Other key results that fell in BetMGM’s favor:

• Alabama (+6.5) 31, LSU 13
• Oregon (+8) 41, Ohio State 28
• UCLA (-3.5) 34, Minnesota 20

The Golden Gophers were a trendy home underdog on Saturday. But the Bruins remain the surprise of the season, at a perfect 9-0 straight up and against the spread.

The public masses did well to Texas’ 34-20 win as a 2.5-point favorite at Missouri and Iowa’s 24-10 win as a 3-point favorite at Northwestern, among other games.

“Overall, bettors won on a lot more games than the book did this week,” Horne said, noting BetMGM was just fortunate to win the larger decisions.