The final week of the NFL regular season brings unusual lines and betting scenarios, and is often a risky period for the books. SBR.tv’s Peter Loshak chatted about the betting action in football from last week with the Head Lines Manager at BetPhoenix.
Books in general had a relatively poor week in the NFL last week, with a lot of popular teasers covering as well as a lot of the games with one-sided action winding up losers for the books and winners for bettors.
Indianapolis/Buffalo was the best example of this, as both sharps and the public loaded up on the Bills as a 9-point favorite, a line that would have been unthinkable if the game had “mattered”, and the Bills of course came away with an easy cover. The Jets and their easy cover as a 10-point fave over Cincinnati was probably a similar situation for most books, but BetPhoenix dodged a bullet on that one as they had high volume and a few sharp accounts on the Bengals to even things out.
Carolina/New Orleans was a big loser for Phoenix though, and Denver/KC was cited by their lines manager as the worst game of the week for them, with the Chiefs getting a lot of action on teasers as well as on the spread from big sharp accounts.
Houston/New England was a bad game as well, not because the final score landed in the middle of the week-long line movement, but because the Texans were the highest-volume teaser play of the week.
Loshak and Luke discussed a few other games as well in their call, as well as some of the quirky totals that saw one-sided action on the unders.
The bowl games from last week worked out a lot better for the books and especially for BetPhoenix, as they enjoyed a number of big winners. Temple/UCLA and LSU/Penn St were singled out as particularly good, as was Ohio St/Oregon. Phoenix took a lot of action on the Ducks and needed the Buckeyes to cover, and their outright win was a great result for Phoenix.
Cincinnati/Florida was a big loser though, with the public loving the Gators and even a majority of the sharp action favoring them as well.
The BCS Championship game on Thursday is shaping up to be a great game for betting, and Phoenix expects a lot of action and line movement on the game. At the time of the interview, however, they hadn’t taken much notable sharp action.