Columnist Dean Juipe: NFL bettors crushed in first week

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4084.

Losses followed losses until virtually everyone who held a betting ticket on season-opening games in the National Football League was reduced to despair.

If you had a teaser or a parlay card or wagered on more than one NFL game, chances are you lost.

And that means the house won.

In what had to be an incredibly one-sided day in the endless battle between sports books and bettors, those who take the wagers were smiling broadly while those who dig into their wallets to place them were stunned as one NFL favorite after another was victimized by an upset.

Of the weekend's 15 games, 14 went off with a clear favorite; many parlors had Baltimore at St. Louis up as a pick 'em. Of those 14 games, the favorite was an outright winner in only seven. And of the 14 games, the favorite covered the point spread in only three.

With bettors always inclined to play favorites, the series of upsets proved to be a colossal windfall for the state's legalized books.

"It was a good day for us and a real poor one for the bettors," admitted Art Manteris of the Las Vegas Hilton. "Most of the general public plays favorites and it seemed like they were all going down."

The only exceptions -- and the only favorites to cover -- were New Orleans (vs. Carolina), Jacksonville (vs. San Francisco) and Pittsburgh (vs. Cleveland). Four other favorites -- Green Bay, Arizona, Tennessee and Minnesota -- won but didn't cover, and that doesn't do the bettor a bit of good.

All things considered, it's hard to imagine Nevada sports books ever having a day where things went as well as they did Sunday.

"True, but that was offset by what happened to us Saturday (with college football games) and Monday (with the NFL Miami at Denver game)," Manteris said, figuratively dabbing at his eyes to stem the flow of tears. "We didn't do well Saturday and most of our bettors had (underdog) Miami and the over Monday."

Nonetheless, the first weekend of any NFL season is always a high-volume day for the books and they were ecstatic as bettors tore up one useless ticket after another. If you know anyone who won Sunday, consider him lucky or able to read a crystal ball.

"We (in the business) want to see parity in the NFL," Manteris said, "and there does seem to be parity this season. Maybe it will change as the season goes on, but right now there may not be any dominant teams."

Parity -- where each team is as equal to another as is humanly possible -- has been a constant in the NFL for some time, yet this season it may be more pronounced than ever. If the trend continues, bettors will be penniless by midseason.

Asked to put himself in the bettor's shoes, Manteris said his advice would be to look at each game individually and not get too caught up in playing favorites. Yet people who do nothing but study NFL statistics and pursue inside information were still befuddled by what happened Sunday when the underdogs had a field day.

To be kind, maybe the books needed a day like that after a summer of losing at baseball. Within the state, books supposedly lost in the second quarter of the year as the result of "sophisticated" baseball bettors out-handicapping the pros.

But whatever the books lost on baseball had to be a pittance compared to what they raked in as the NFL's new season debuted.

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