As a general rule each week, public bettors tend to back favorites -- both on the spread and in moneyline parlays -- and the sportsbooks, in turn, cheer for the underdogs to cover or even win outright. When large spreads come around, it can be divisive to bettors, forcing them to choose between a blowout victory or a more competitive game, no matter how large the skill gap between the teams.
This week, the Cincinnati Bengals were catching around two touchdowns at Lambeau Field against the Green Bay Packers. For most of the week, the Bengals were 14.5-point underdogs, but they took a somewhat surprising amount of action, with BetMGM reporting 75% of wagers and 72% of handle behind the Bengals on Sunday morning.
ESPN BET had a small majority of its spread handle for the game backing Cincinnati, but then dropped the line to 13.5 on Sunday morning. That could have led to some buyback, as Green Bay finished with a small majority of the handle leading into the opening kickoff.
It's not entirely clear why the public was on Cincy early in the week, but it could be the Joe Flacco effect. The Bengals traded for Flacco earlier in the week, and the veteran quarterback led the Cleveland Browns to a victory over the Pack as 7.5-point underdogs in Week 3, the second-largest outright upset of the year.
Caesars Sportsbook head of football Joey Feazel believes the change at QB could have attracted big-money bettors, though he notes that many of the public wagers were still backing Green Bay to cover the big number.
"We did see an uptick in wagers on the Bengals money line, which I think could be attributed to Flacco taking control of this offense over Jake Browning," Feazel said over email. "On the spread side of things, we saw the public mostly on the Packers and the sharps on the Bengals +14.5 and +14. With the total being that low, sharps would rarely be laying the points in that situation."
While the Packers led the game wire-to-wire, the Bengals drove down the field and scored a touchdown with four minutes to go for a final score of 27-18, giving Green Bay the win and Cincinnati the cover.
The reaction from sportsbooks varied based on the action that came in: As Feazel implied, the Packers' public support meant a good result for the book, while the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas felt the pain from support on the Bengals, as with BetMGM.
"Packers game really hurt us," John Murray, vice president of Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas, told ESPN. "That final score was about as bad as it could get for us between teasers to Packers, straight bets on Bengals, and the game somehow going over the total."
Many entrants in survivor contests were likely sweating a little whenever the Bengals got close to evening the score. The Packers were by far the most selected team in the $1,000 entry Circa Survivor contest, racking up 54.4% of the entries this week.
NFL odds & ends
Tampa Bay quarterback Baker Mayfield began the season at 30-1 to win MVP. He's now the second choice at +400, behind only Buffalo's Josh Allen (+155).
The Carolina Panthers, which beat the favored Dallas Cowboys 30-27 on Sunday, have covered the spread in their last eight games as a home underdog.
The Browns have failed to cover the spread in eight straight road games after their 23-9 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday.
The Tennessee Titans, which lost 20-10 to the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, fell to 4-19 against the spread under coach Brian Callahan. It's the worst ATS record by any coach in the Super Bowl era with a minimum of five games.
Caesars Sportsbook said the largest bet it took this week was $312,000 on the New York Giants +7.5 against the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday. The Giants pulled the upset, cashing the bet for the customer.
Five entries failed to submit their pick by the deadline in Circa Survivor, the NFL survivor pool with a $1,000 buy-in and $18.7 million prize pool.
College football odds & ends
Penn State entered the season ranked No. 2, had the third-best title odds (+650), behind only Ohio State and Texas, and was a -350 favorite to make the College Football Playoff at ESPN BET. As of last Monday, more money had been bet on the Nittany Lions to win the national championship than had been wagered on Ohio State at BetMGM.
It appears Penn State will come up short. The Nittany Lions have lost three in a row, their quarterback Drew Allar is out for the season and they fired coach James Franklin on Sunday. They also made dubious history by becoming the first team to lose back-to-back games as favorite of 20+ since the 1978 FBS-FCS split.
The Nittany Lions lost to Northwestern as 21-point favorites on Saturday, a week after they were upset by UCLA as 25-point favorites. Penn State has been on the losing end of the two biggest upsets of the season.
The point spread on the Red River Rivalry between Oklahoma and Texas saw up and down line movement all week. Texas opened as around a 3-point favorite, but the line started to move toward the underdog Sooners as news surfaced that quarterback John Mateer could play.
Mateer had surgery on a broken thumb in mid-September, but somewhat unexpectedly returned in time for the Texas game. On Friday, Oklahoma became the favorite, but the line flipped again ahead of Saturday's kickoff.
"The line swung back to Texas being favored, mostly because people started questioning how effective Mateer could really be just two weeks removed from surgery," Feazel of Caesars Sportsbook said. " So, a lot of the movement was tied to Mateer, but there was also some sharper Texas money that came in late once the market started to overreact a bit."
Mateer started, but Texas cruised to a 23-6 win.
Miami QB Carson Beck moved into the role of Heisman Trophy favorite at +360 at ESPN BET. Alabama QB Ty Simpson is the second choice at +370, followed by Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza (+550).
