I had
planned on giving you all a preview of upcoming Bowl action in this
column but upon further review that looked like it was going to be a
really short and boring column. I normally start working on the column
on Saturdays and this past Saturday was an odd day in that there were
three NFL games. What was even more odd was that all three games
featured home underdogs and that the betting action was all on the
road favorites. Now I had an interesting premise for a column…
Before
I get to the power of the home dog, let me give what brief recap of
Bowl betting there has been. Action has been limited on the
post-Christmas Bowl games so far and there have been only a couple of
major line moves. Nebraska has moved from –4 to –7 (based on action
and some injuries to Mississippi) for the Independence Bowl and Notre
Dame has been bet from +1 to Pick for the Gator Bowl. Other than that,
all the spreads are the same or within a half point of our opening
numbers. The early Bowl games last week were a split for books. We did
well when North Texas upset Cincinnati in the New Orleans Bowl on
Tuesday but gave the profits back on Wednesday when Marshall thumped
Louisville in the GMAC bowl.
After
both home dogs covered in Saturday’s day games I decided to spend a
couple of hours Saturday night digging through our line histories for
this NFL season (it was more exciting than watching the Cowboys play)
to see how home dogs have performed in 2002. I found the results very
interesting.
Through
Week 16 there have been 86 games (out of 240) where the home team was
the Underdog. This is not remarkable at all. However, we booked more
action on the Road Favorite in 82 of them! That means bettors have
gone against the home dog in an incredible 95% of these situations.
That is remarkable. (For the record, the four games that saw more
action on the home dog were all in the first half of the season and
were a split with both the bettors and the books winning two).
Now to
the real meat-and-potatoes, the win/loss records. The 86 home dogs
were a decent 39-47 straight up (SU), including some big upsets such
as Houston over Dallas Week 1 and the Bengals over the Saints
yesterday, and lots of others in between. Betting these 86 home dogs
blindly on the moneyline would have returned better than 16% this
year, a decent profit by any standard. Against the spread (ATS), the
home dogs went 49-35-2 this season for a 58.3% winning average. I
don’t know about you but I haven’t hit 58.3% on all my plays this year
so this looks like a good trend to explore. Betting every one of these
games would have produced a return of 12.5%, much better than my
retirement plan over the last 12 months!
Before
we can say any trend is a really a trend and not just a fluke we need
to be able to explain it. Why would home dogs cover more than half of
the time? A team playing in front of their home fans should always be
extremely motivated, but we take that into account when we set the
line so that can’t be the key. Well, there are a few possible reasons.
One is a feeling of disrespect. When you see a reporter interview a
player and ask a question like “You guys are 6-point underdogs. Do you
really have a chance on Sunday?” the player is likely to get fired up.
Players may not be betting on games but they know when bookmakers and
the betting public are not giving them their due and they love to
prove people wrong. Another is a lack of pressure. Pressure does funny
things to people. Some thrive on it (Joe Montana) and others get
buried by it (any FSU kicker against Miami). When a team is not
expected to win, sometimes they are able to enjoy the game and play
their very best. A third possibility is that the road favorite is
simply over confident. Expecting to win sometimes means teams and/or
players do not practice as hard as they need to. Did the Saints really
think they would lose to the Bengals yesterday? Absolutely not.
However, history tells us that dogs in general do not cover 58% of the
time so these last three factors cannot be the only reason. Perhaps
the combination of the four factors produces a slight edge but
probably the most important factor may simply be that the betting
public likes betting the road favorites so much that the spreads move
an extra point in favor of the home dog and this accounts for the
higher win percentage.
Okay,
we now have some basis for why this could be a trend. Now we need to
try and decide if winning 49 of 84 games (remember 2 games were a push
for bettors) is statistically significant. Without boring you with the
math, let me just skip to the answer; no it is not. This is really
just 7 games above the .500 mark and could be explained by random
variation. It is close enough to being significant that I will be
looking through previous years’ data to see if a trend really exists.
Perhaps if the Cowboys are on TV again next weekend I will have the
time.
Now,
here is the Book Manager’s dilemma. If players are betting the road
favorite 95% of the time, perhaps books should shade their lines more
in that direction to balance action better. However, if road dogs are
hitting 58% why not shade that direction? That is something to think
about anyways. I have one more little tidbit to share before I move
on. Small home dogs (spreads of less than 2.5) were an impressive 14-6
SU and ATS. This sample size is way too small to say if it is
significant but it bares watching in the future.
Before
signing off to go finish my Christmas shopping (yes I know what day it
is), here is Kent’s Line Move of the Week. Kent is BoDog’s top
bookmaker and each week he discusses a game of note with us from his
unique perspective. This week his thoughts are on the Miami/Minnesota
game.
“The
game opened Miami –3 and we took some decent Miami money so after
getting Dolphins action at –3 (-125) and still we decided to test the
waters at –3.5. This slowed the torrent but did not stop it. Moving
off 3 gives me nightmares, literally! The fear of getting middled or
sided is one every book manager deals with every day. However, there
is the occasional game where the dreaded move from –3 to –3.5 doesn’t
produce the dog action you expect, such as the case was on this game.
Had the Dolphins won by 3 (and that was certainly a very likely
possibility with the game tied 17-17 late in the fourth quarter) the
players laying 3.5 would have lost and we would have pushed the action
at 3. Yes, teasers would have paid both ways but we still could have
had a side in the House’s favor on a game that opened and landed 3 and
that is not a common occurrence!”
My
thanks to Kent as always and my best to all of you this week. Have a
very Merry Christmas. Drive safe and good luck on all your plays.
I
always welcome comments, questions and suggestions via email at
rob@bodog.com
Rob Gillespie
Operations Manager
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