Columnist Dean Juipe: NFL bettors hammered by upsets

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

Seemingly everyone in Las Vegas bets National Football League games.

Whether with parlay cards or in casino-sponsored contests, a sizable percentage of the city's adults regularly invest a few dollars on NFL games in spite of the fact they're extremely difficult to handicap.

Every now and then someone actually wins, a fact they'll be sure to let you know as they parade through the office or the bar vocalizing their good fortune.

But more often than not it's the sports books that come out ahead, and this season certainly was no exception.

Here's the most relevant gambling statistic related to the league: Against the point spread, favorites were a repugnant 109-126-9 this season. This is bad news for bettors, who routinely back the favorites.

Straight up, favorites were a mediocre 161-83.

Even allowing for the ties-win premise of some sports-book parlays, bettors took a beating.

What they couldn't foresee was that only one of the six division winners from 1998 -- Jacksonville -- was able to repeat this season. (Of course bettors in 1998 had the same problem, as none of the division winners from 1997 repeated in 1998.)

Parity, a cursed word for many bettors, is in full bloom in the NFL and this season a record 23 teams lost at least seven games. In addition, 10 starting quarterbacks went down with injury and only eight quarterbacks started all 16 games.

Toss in the fact that at least five teams went from very bad to very good, or from very good to very bad, and bettors were further bewildered. Who could have guessed that Indianapolis would improve from 3-13 to 13-3, or that St. Louis would go from 4-12 to 13-3? Or that San Francisco would slide from 12-4 to 4-12, or that Atlanta would decline from 14-2 to 5-11, or that Denver would drop from 12-4 to 6-10?

Those who saw it coming were an enlightened minority.

But now there's a reprieve of sorts as the playoffs open this weekend with at least one intriguing game -- Buffalo at Tennessee -- and three others that will draw considerable attention.

"I'm making two big bets," professional gambler Lem Banker said Thursday.

He's riding the season-long wave of upsets by taking Buffalo (plus 5) to win its Saturday game and Dallas (plus 7) to defeat Minnesota on Sunday. In addition, Banker is wagering on the Bills (at 15 to 1) to go on and win the American Conference title and he has them at 40 to 1 to win the Super Bowl.

He also caught Dallas at 75 to 1 to win the Super Bowl, although his wager this week at the Stardust immediately sent those odds into a tailspin to where it's now 40 to 1.

For the record, Banker said he routinely wins in the "58- to 60-percent" range. Bettors need to win at least 53 percent of the time to break even.

He likes the Bills in spite of this week's surprising quarterback shuffle that puts Rob Johnson in the starting lineup and Doug Flutie on the bench.

"We're 3,000 miles away and in the desert," he said, declining to second-guess Buffalo head coach Wade Phillips. "But I would figure out a way to get both Flutie and Johnson on the field for a couple of trick plays."

Distant or not, Phillips would be wise to listen. Anyone making money betting on pro football deserves to be heard.

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