Now, Brian, Add About 15 Pounds & Get Pressin'

Rey Maualuga, lest you forgot, gained a couple of infamy units back in January when he got jiggy wid ESPN sideline princess Erin Andrews on his way to the locker (unbeknownst to her at the time). America swiftly admonished Maualuga, who later apologized as though he had inadvertantly triggered a third-world genocide.

But the backlash continues.

Posted as a prop bet in the 225 lbs. bench press at this year’s NFL Combine, Maualuga¹ will compare reps with Brian Cushing. Odds for this event opened with Cushing at +170 and Maualuga at -220.

Somebody must have some serious hopes for Cushing’s ability to press since his number has now moved to +140. (Maualuga’s has dropped to -180.)

And We Will Give Thee Every One of Us 1100 Shekels of Silver

The only other lines moves are some generic ones for QB 40 times and vertical jumps. (Not surprisingly the line moves indicate that the betting public favors a QB to run a 40 time faster than 4.53s and jump a vertical higher than 32½ inches. Good luck with that one, Public!)

We’re not recommending any action here. The vig is horrible and the book is play at your own risk. (Sportsbook.com in this case.)² And we have no idea if this line move was motivated by smart money, Erin Andrews,³ someone in the USC locker room, or that Maualuga is cited at 37 bench reps for a personal best while Cushing is listed at 35.⁴ With a difference of only two, maybe someone thought Cushing was a value at +170.

The Combine begins today. Media whoring begins in earnest tomorrow. Cushing and Maualuga will be evaluated on Saturday.

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6.34 Seconds of Panic

Ever since the NFL Network thought it good TV to air Rich Eisen running a 6.34-second 40 time in a pair of wingtips, well, it was only a matter of time before some sports book would start making offers on the combine.

Sportsbook.com is now posting odds on the upcoming NFL Scouting Combine, this Wednesday (18 February) in Indianapolis.

The props are on quantifiable events: the 40-yard dash, number of bench presses and height of vertical jump.  (What?!? No odds on the Cybex test?)

Think some juiced-out wannabe pro linebacker can bench 225 lbs. more than 39½ times?  Believe some prospective wide-out can break a 40 time of 4.32? If you’re willing to pay for a 15¢ line, then it’s all yours to bet. (That is, if you have a balance with Sportsbook.com — which we don’t, and can’t condone.)

These odds do seem fair — meaning there are no glaringly absurd lines, like over-under the number of times Deion will ask a prospect “how he feels”¹ — so there’s a decent chance these might get carried by other books. (The only real mismatch is the fastest 40 time between Missouri’s 5′ 10″, 234 lbs. QB Chase Daniel  [+350] vs. West Virginia’s 6′ 1″, 192 lbs. QB Pat White [-600]. Otherwise they’re evenly paired.)

Both Offensive Linemen are Expected to Complete the 40-yard Dash

The most intriguing wager on this card (and easily the most exciting foot race since the Krispy Kreme Challenge) is the fastest 40 between Alabama’s 6′ 4″ 330 lbs. Andre Smith and Oklahoma’s 6′ 5″ 335 lbs. Duke Robinson.²  Come on gentlemen, there’s light refreshments and an O₂ tank being served at the finish line!

Photo credit: NFL Draft Dog

[NFL Combine Odds Go Live — Covers]

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Nope. No such luck.

So instead, here are two thoughts to keep in storage until the SB XLIV hype machine revs its engine in early 2010.

One: Prop bets are generally priced for suckers. The money-line gaps are 40¢, 60¢, 75¢ or more. (Witness the TV ratings prop: Which market yields greater ratings Arizona +300 or Pennsylvania -500. Is that $2 of vig?)

But around Groundhog’s Day, demand for money-backed NFL prognostications runs high, and supply dwindles quickly.  It’s a sellers’ market, and buyers who want to bet the over-under on the number of Anheuser-Busch beer commercials can’t afford to be choosy.

Maybe it’s a good lesson in accepting when it’s inevitable that you will force action, and to be prepared to minimize it. (Personally, we hit on one prop, and we proceeded to go out and squander it on another. And we’d be quick to take credit for calling the under on that wacky 1st-to-score-jersey-number prop at 38½. But we can’t claim to have spotted a guy demoted to the practice squad back in week 3 as likely first to break the plane. Frankly, not even Mrs. Russell had money on that one.)

Sidebar: Somebody knew something about someone. Early in the week, Gary Russell was listed at Pinnacle as +1916 to score the game’s first TD. By Saturday, Russell’s number had dropped to +1384. That’s more than all other players (moving down) combined. If this kind of move is indicative of the amount of money being wagered on a player, then Russell took in more money (or “sharper” money) then the all of the other listed players (20).  At some books, Russell wasn’t even listed individually.

Two: Tried to find where most of the crazy prop lines originate. Near as we can figure, the “normal” lines comes from the LVSC. Normal in this case refers to the common statistical breakdown bets:  Odds to score a TD; whether Tim Halfback gains more than 33.5 yards rushing from scrimmage; first quarter sides (ARZ +½), and so on…

Then there’s the more “exotic” lines: Madden’s food fetish, Michaels’ gambling innuendos, fade Matt Millen’s pick, TV ratings, commercials, cheerleaders, Jay Leno, thanking God —

Wait a minute:

Which team’s cheerleaders will be shown more often on camera?

Steelers: -175

Cardinals: +135

Who in hell issued these odds? (BoDog gets the initial credit for this one by our estimate.) Whoever set that cheerleader line should be fired because a) they set the cheerleaderless team¹ as 60% favorites, and b) they made it a 20¢ line — that’s like the cheapest on the board!

As the first week of Bowl Hype began, gimmick props were in short supply. Degenerates tapped their feet waiting for something other than the over-under for field goals, or whether the shortest touchdown would be longer than 1½ yards.

By Friday of that week, the BoDog press release began making the rounds. Blogs jumped on wholeheartedly. But the odds weren’t posted on BoDog that Friday. Or Saturday. Or Sunday. Or — well, we’re not actually sure when BoDog actually went live with these numbers, but we did see them by about the middle of the following week at certain questionable offshores.

Speaking of questionable offshores, this is a trend we’ve seen before. Books publicize odds well in advance of posting. In effect, their opening lines get vetted by the public before mistakes like the one above get offered to anyone sharper than a butter knife. And if a few blogs can quickly point out the gaping holes in your card, well imagine what the attention of Esquire can do.  BetUS bent the ear of Esquire to tout props that bordered on downright embarrassing. (Santonio Holmes was a +1500 to be MVP, but only +200 to be arrested leading up to or after the Super Bowl.)

Springsteen’s set list prognostication was laid to rest as early as Thursday when some paper mag called Rolling Stone advertised a line being offered by Sportsbook.com. That caused thousands to apparently sign up to the on-line sports book and begin pounding the crap out of one specific list.²

And finally, did anybody really cash on the Brenda Warner 3½ appearances during the game coverage? Really? You took the over?

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Both ordinal and nominal data will be shown in various stages of undress and in suggestive positions.

After the jump, we drink enough to make a wager on the Super Bowl 1st to score a touchdown prop.

Growing weary of waiting for the price on the Steelers to drop enough for most contrarians to bite,¹ we started looking at touchdowns. Specifically, the props concerning which player will score the first.

That calls for a table:

Key:

T = Team (Visitors=Steelers; Home=Cardinals)

JN = Jersey Number

Y1st = # of 1st TDs in game scored

N1st = # of 1st TDs of team scored (1st TD scored by team, but not the first TD scored in that game)

Tot = Total touchdowns (2008-09)

Odds = Pinnacle odds of 1st player to score

Adj1 = Pinnacle odds converted to percentage

Adj2 = Pinnacle odds converted to % with field/no TD eliminated

Real = Percentile based on actual TDs scored

RealAdj = Percentile adjusted for PIT-ARZ TD scored-allowed ratio

(Whew.)

We’ve spent the better part of the week with these odds.  At first we wanted to place an Under bet on the jersey # of the first player to score a touchdown.  It’s posted at BetUS and Sportsbook.com, but we couldn’t find it elsewhere.  Even at -115, the under seemed to have an edge of up to 60%, largely thanks to Hightower and Fitzgerald’s high touchdown numbers. (And that their jersey numbers are 34 & 11, not usual for wideouts.)  We would’ve blown a whole unit, but can’t find a suitable suitor.

That said, both Tim Hightower and Larry Fitzgerald are the standouts for being undervalued against their numbers.  (Whereas Willie Parker seems to be overvalued.)

While we’d like to get into further explanation, we’re about three drinks in and have a football game to play in an hour.  And so we just tossed two half units on each.

Enjoy the game…

Why, the chippy and smash-mouth Arizona Cardinals, of course…

(We’re kinda freaked out by the answer too.)

We were trying to convince ourselves that betting No (-185) on the prop “Will both teams score a field goal of 33+ yards” was a good deal. Already hampered by small sample sizes (2008 only), it’s a better idea to look at when (and why) the teams opted not to kick.

After the jump: Find out how the Steelers stunk it up on 4th down in 2008. Learn which kind of knife Todd Haley most enjoys driving into people’s hearts. And discover whether or not we talk ourselves into dropping a whole unit on this stupid prop once we discover Pinnacle’s offering it for -179.  (Hint: Oh yeah!)

Talk about small sample sizes: Arizona is listed as having 17 fourth-down attempts this regular and post season.  The Steelers, 14. And if you scratch at the surface of those 31 plays, things fall apart pretty quick.

For the Cardinals:

• 8 of those 4th downs occurred in the four games in which they were trailing by 21 (or more).¹
• One was a knee to run out the clock at the end of their week one victory.

That leaves 8 plays in which they could have kicked, but chose instead to extend the drive. In 7 of those instances they had the lead, often going for it even before the fourth quarter.  Look at their failed 4th-1 on the St. Louis 1 yard line on their opening drive (week 9). Or (week 10) down 8 against the 49ers, midway through the 3rd, they go for a 4th-1 from the opposing 5. And during their clinic on the Bills (week 5) they pushed to go on fourth and short twice in the 4th quarter.

Their 5-2 conversion rate here is meaningless (for our purposes, anyway). What’s important is that they had both the lead and an 85%+ chance of making the kick in all but two of those plays. And if  you need any more evidence of Haley’s propensity to prevent Neil Rackers from putting foot to ball, go back to week 8 (vs. Carolina) and look at his decision to fake a field goal on 4th and 14 (!) at the end of the first half (already up a touchdown) — eschewing a 38-yard attempt.

The Steelers have an even smaller number to examine (14). In our mind’s eye, we see the Steelers as the team mostly likely to shove it down your throat on 4th and 1 anywhere past their own 40, right? Mike Tomlin just shoots that glare onto the field and, like the Cowher before him, the team goes no huddle and runs a pass to Heath Miller in the flat or a run up the middle by Mewelde Moore for the first down. That’s what happens, isn’t it?

Not really.  Of their 14 tries:

• 3 were actually botched punt snaps (including the classic Harrison safety against the Giants).
• Another one of those tries doesn’t really actually exist.²
• Five (5) of them were called in end-of-game desperation situations (1-4 on those).
• Another (week 2) was an attempt to kill the game clock a few more seconds.
• And one more was a punt fake (vs. SD in the Divisionals).

That leaves only 3 attempts made on 4th down with the intent to “keep the drive alive” (weeks 2, 11 & 12). All of them came late in the 1st/early in the second quarter; they were tied or trailing by a score; each was 4th and 1 to go.

And while the lack of Pittsburgh attempts on fourth down isn’t encouraging towards making that prop bet,³ it’s worth noting that the Steelers are exactly average in the league for field goals attempted and made. (And Arizona slightly below that.)

Ok, we’ve seen enough.  And now that Pinny’s dropped it to -174 we feel obliged to put 1.8 on it.

That way when Jeff Reed’s game-winning, record-breaking⁴ 56-yard field goal wins the game as time expires, it will make these 1000+ words on the subject that much tastier.

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1. People who write about gaming and gambling from a non-hyperbolic angle and aren’t conniving for your money.

2. People who write about gaming and gambling and don’t preface everything with some lame-ass disclaimer like, “Well, it’s not like I gamble, because that’s illegal — but IF I were in a Vegas casino…”

Will Brinson fits both of those categories. He writes for Fanhouse. And when it’s time to cover the gambling angle, Will is there without apology.

So, with Super Bowl props coming out, Will started the week with much the same enthusiasm as a derrickhand who makes isolation pay on a four-day weekend at a big-city brothel.

I freaking love the bet this Sportsbook is offering: “Will both teams make a 33-yard or longer field goal?” And, I, astutely, say, hells to the yes. We’re talking about, again, two defenses that are better than people think. Add in Jeff Reed — bleached blond hair or not — and Neil Rackers, and it seems pretty obvious that we should get at least one chip shot-plus from each team. And the real bonus? Yes it’s +145. It’s called free money, folks, and that’s why they pay me to write at you.

(You mean people get paid for doing this? Really?)

At first, we were all on board with this prop find. Moreover, the bet actually exists.

Jeff Reed's Pectorals Alone Could Kick for 33 or More, No?

So let’s take a look:

+145 means you win $1.45 for every $1.00 you bet.¹ This means the wager will be profitable if your pick is correct 40.82% of the time.

Jeff Reed (PIT) averaged 1.9 field goal attempts per game this season. In 12 of 18 games, 67%, he kicked an FG 33 yards or more.

Neil Rackers (ARZ) averaged 1.8 FGA per game in 2008. In 10 of 19 games, 53%, at least one of his kicks exceeded the 33 mark. So…

67% x 53% = 35%

Almost 6% less than that 40.82% needed to be profitable. Not especially good value…

How about looking at it from the defensive side:

Pittsburgh allowed a field goal of 33 or longer in half (50%) of their games this season. Arizona gave up the same in 11 of theirs (11/19=58%) .

50% x 58% = 29%

Worse…

We tend to think of kicks from the 16 as chip-shot field goals. (And they are, and have a high success rate.) So it’s not an issue of kicker accuracy; it seems to be more a lack of opportunity.

On the other hand, the “No” side of this bet is priced at -185. This translates to 64.91% accuracy to be profitable. So if the game will end without both teams kicking one for 33+ more than 35.19% (100% – 64.91%) of the time, “No” is profitable.

We’d pull the trigger on this now, but -185 are steep odds and we’ll need a closer look at these “opportunities” — something to look at in the next post.

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Then you drove your truck to Vegas and laid every cent you had on the Steelers to cover a touchdown.

Then, YES — that is the perfect situation to buy a half or even a whole point.  Since you’ll have nothing left if you lose, there’s no need to think about the value of your bet.¹

On the other hand, if the Super Bowl is just one of your many wagers this year, buying points is an overpriced antacid. Buy ranitidine; it’s cheaper.

So far, no offshore or Vegas book has come off the 7-point side and moved to a 7½. Most lines makers opened at a reluctant 7 or generous 6½ (if that makes sense). Only a handful of offshore books are still offering 6½ (and doing so with increased juice).  Most books, offshore and on, are giving 7 at a discount (-105). A handful are posting 7 at a normal price.

You can certainly buy the hook. But coming off a key number is a costly luxury.

For example, Pinnacle (right now) is offering -7(+104)/+7(-110). The trusty half-point calculator suggests that a good price to get 7½ points is -123. (And, so, Pinny will gladly sell it to you at -129. Ah well…)

That’s why this post from Football Jesus’ blog on Thursday caught our eye:

Posted 22 January 2009 (about 6:00PM)

Figuring he must have gotten a sweet deal on the hook — no one’s offering 7½ at a decent price remember — we left a comment:

How much did you pay for the half point?

By today, the post had been updated:

Updated, Now with Even More to Bet

No comment posted.

To be fair, we quite like Football Jesus. He seems to be a nice enough guy. He was quick to respond to an earlier email asking about his work, and was up front about his simple pricing structure (which, incidentally, checks in at about the lower stratosphere). Plus he has quirks that just endear us to him despite the need to tout: The completely cheesy photoshop self-promotions. The free disregard for spelling and grammar. His efforts to document many of the amusing signs that make their way past ESPN College Gameday censors.

But don’t say you just cashed a couple bets and let it ride on a line that’s not posted. We’re not saying you couldn’t get 7½ points on Thursday — but you either paid through the nose, or made the bet with a guy in a Steelers’ jersey in the lobby.

So -1 for embellishment when it comes to making claims on lines.  And another -1 for not acknowledging it. (The “before” picture above comes from Google’s cache earlier this afternoon.)  No harm, no foul in doing a little cross out and making a change and admitting a misstep.

But +1 for coming back over the top (as it were) and pushing it in towards the Cards.

Presumably, that +550 to win outright was picked up just after the Cards beat the Panthers.  (Today, the best number you’ll get for the Cards to win it all is about +230.) But with the Steelers currently at -240, how in god’s name do you not hedge? At worst you break even; at best you cash four times your original Arizona bet.²

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Serious Underlay?

Could it be? Had a nitrous oxide pipe burst in the LVSC offices?  Had Ken White & crew had lost their foolish minds — opening the Cards as one-point dogs!?!

Did you miss your chance to back up the truck on the Steelers as single-point chalk?  Yeah, same here. So we asked VI about it. Five-star customer rep Dan promptly explained:

Back just a couple of days before Christmas, the lines makers at Station sports book in Vegas — acting, in all likelihood, under the influence of Office Nog — thought it clever to post a Super Bowl line before Week 17 even kicked off.  They set it at AFC -1/NFC +1. And though that line went off the board before the next set of games, it was the first to use the Super Bowl’s rotation number, and so the computer interpreted that as LVSC’s opening line.¹

Since then, the Vegas Hilton, Station and the LVSC sporadically posted Super Bowl lines in between playoff games. The AFC is always the chalk, and they spot the NFC champ as many as 3½ points (just this past Sunday before the games).

In this week’s pre-week news cycle hype fest, blog entries and news wire stories have banged out copy about how Vegas already has a line for the Super Bowl! Only during the Super Bowl is the national press exonerated for making an opening point spread its own story. But this kind of January skite is still good PR. Without it, grandma wouldn’t know how to give points.

Bettors who do obsess over lines are aware of how promptly books set odds once the teams’ previous games are done. Or, in this case, well before that.

The opening line for the Superbowl really came out shortly after the wild-card weekend. Eight teams left standing meant 16 possible combinations of opponents. And speculation began there.² Take the LVSC power rating and adjust for the situation and come up with 16 different Super Bowl lines. Beyond lines makers and their most eager customers, very few people care about those other 15 hypothetical Super Bowl lines.³

Now when it did come time to set The Number, the lines makers couldn’t get them up fast enough.

At 10:00PM (EST), the Las Vegas Sports Consultants issued their opening line:

Again. Ten o’clock eastern time.

It’s a bit hazy, but we’re pretty certain that at 10:00PM (EST), it was late in the fourth quarter — somewhere in between the time Troy Polamalu picked Joe Flacco for six, and Willis McGahee’s eleventh-hour winning bid for Hit of the Year.

In other words, LVSC posted their line with 3:39 still on the game clock.⁴

Two minutes later (10:02PM, McGahee still napping), The Greek opened a -270 money line. Two minutes after that, Pinnacle posted -7 (+102). By the time the gun was fired on the AFC Championship at 10:18, the overwhelming majority of Vegas outlets were offering a number. Many off-shores would follow suit within seconds.

Does that matter? Not to Grandma.

She says her local has 6½. She wants to take the Cards, but is afraid of getting screwed by a touchdown. Now, her guy tells her he normally sells the half point at 20 cents coming off key numbers, but since she’s a senior, he’s willing to do it for 15. She also likes the over…

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And no better way to make sense of it all than a nearly incomprehensible chart!

As you can see: The books got killed on the Cardinals money line, and we have little to no sense of color coordination.

After the jump, we’ll explain what all this means in language so convoluted that no one could possibly take the time to audit it.

First column: SI, Sports Insights; SS, Sportsbook Spy; CB, Carib Sports; SB, Sportsbook.com.

Second column: VOL, The volume (#bets); ATS, Percentage of spread bets made on each side; ML, Percentage of money-line bets made on each side; TOT, Percentage of over (visitor) and under (home) bets made; EX, Percentage of exotic (parlay & teaser) bets made.

Red indicates the losing side of the wager. Green shows the winning side of the wager.  Yellow means we don’t have a clue.

Cutting Edge Analysis

Ok, who’s full of shit?

In the NET column is a calculation of the book’s wins/losses if every bet made on each side was exactly the same. This, of course, might not be true, but (for now) we have to make that assumption.  Why? Because exit polls are frowned upon in casino lobbies.

So, for instance, if bettors wagered 57% of their money on the Cardinals to cover (third row), then the books would lose about 9¢ for every dollar they handled. Looking at Carib’s numbers on that game, we can guess that the two-thirds (66.6%) of Arizona bettors took 27% of that game’s handle away from Carib.¹

The most glaring problem here is the discrepancy between Sports Insight’s information on money-line bets on Arizona and Sportsbook Spy’s.  While we’re not exactly sure where these sources differ, it’s pretty clear they have a few elements in common.² But to have pretty much diametrically opposed numbers on the money-line bets is a little crazy. How can 70% of the straight-up bets (according to SI’s sources) be made on Arizona (who was paying about +160-170), while ONLY 31% of SS-source bettors were on the Cards?  Something stinks, to be sure, but it’ll take a bit more digging to offer any insight.  For now, it’s worth noting that Sportsbook.com reflects SI’s numbers more closely.

The yellow, by the way, are exotic bets — teasers and parlays. It’s never a bad idea to check them with the line.  For example, this weekend, anyone who teased Philly (to either +3 or +4) was a loser. Anyone who teased Arizona (to +9 or +10) did so unnecessarily. But in the AFC game, both sides covered if teased.

Part of the reason they are yellow (meaning why we have no idea how to analyze them) is that it is unclear if they are teased at six or seven points.  It’s unclear if the bets were teased at all or included on parlay cards. And it’s really not clear if they’ve mixed in bets with the over-unders.³

See, we weren’t joking when we said light on conclusions…

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Lines effective: 1/18/2009 07:11:23 PM

NFL Football – Sun 2/1
Game			Spread	Money Line	Total Points
Sun 2/1	101	Pittsburgh Steelers	-7 +104	-250	OVER 46.5 -105
03:25 PM	102	Arizona Cardinals	+7 -112	+230	UNDER 46.5 -105

That’s just about the same as -6.5 (-108.5). Not promising for Ravens hopefuls banking on a miracle with 2:34 left on the clock.

Next update:

Lines effective: 1/18/2009 07:43:45 PM

NFL Football – Sun 2/1
Game			Spread	Money Line	Total Points
Sun 2/1	101	Pittsburgh Steelers	-6.5 -109	-250	OVER 47 +100
03:25 PM	102	Arizona Cardinals	+6.5 +101	+230	UNDER 47 -110

Cheeky Pinnacle.  Did you do that just so you could say you opened the line at a touchdown? Is that what the mass media will report?

Here’s Wagerline’s early peek:

Not much overlay.

The earliest numbers from Carib show heavy splits on the Steelers 3:1.