NFL bookmaker roundtable: wild-card round line moves, sharp bets
Nick Bogdanovich, director of trading, William Hill: The game that has had the biggest line movement is Seattle Seahawks-Minnesota Vikings. The line opened at Seattle -3.5, moved to Seattle -5, and now sits steadily at Seattle -5.5.
Jay Rood, vice president of race and sports at MGM: The Vikings moved from +5.5 to +4.5. The wiseguys are taking the points in what looks to be a low-scoring game in the cold.
Jay Kornegay, head oddsmaker at Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook: The Washington Redskins opened as a 1-point favorite at home vs. the Green Bay Packers; currently, the line is Packers -1.
Jason Simbal, vice president of race and sports at CG Technology: The Seahawks opened as 3.5-point favorites in Minnesota and went up to +6 for a brief period before settling at +5.
John Avello, race and sports operations director at Wynn and Encore: The Steelers game had the biggest move of all four games, going from Pittsburgh -1 to -3.
Bogdanovich: The game with the biggest public action has been Seahawks-Vikings. This game’s action represents 36 percent of the total dollars wagered on the four wild-card point spreads combined for this weekend. Betting action for this game is heavy on the Seahawks, with 79 percent of the point-spread tickets and 81 percent of the point-spread money on Seattle.
Rood: Seahawks-Vikings. The Seahawks bandwagon is filling up fast.
Kornegay: The public likes the Seahawks, with five times as many tickets written on Seattle than Minnesota and approximately 2.5 times the money.
Simbal: Thus far the public has been on the Seahawks and the Kansas City Chiefs.
Avello: Pittsburgh is also the side the public is on. What the public sees is an offense moving the ball at will, and a Bengals team that’s only beaten the Steelers three times this century.
Bogdanovich: The game that currently has had the biggest sharp money is Packers-Redskins, with the sharp money on the Packers. 58 percent of point-spread tickets are on the Redskins and 52 percent of the point-spread total dollars wagered are on the Redskins, but the sharp money is on the Packers.
Rood: Vikings (against the Seahawks) and the Redskins (against the Packers — home ‘dogs in the playoffs). For the Vikings, it’s a defense that’s getting healthy again and their power run game, and the Redskins are a high-flying team full of confidence. Both are too much to pass up for the sharps.
Kornegay: Sharp money has come in on the Vikings +6 vs. the visiting Seahawks, and the Packers when they were +1 at the Redskins.
Simbal: The smart action has been on Seattle — they laid 3.5 and 4 very early in the week. Seattle is garnering both professional and public action.
Avello: The sharps have yet to take a side in any of the games, but they do like the under in the Seattle-Minnesota game — they’ve taken it down from 42 to 40.
Bogdanovich: The playoff team that we have the most futures liability on right now is the Arizona Cardinals. The Cardinals winning the Super Bowl is the worst-case scenario.
Rood: Pittsburgh Steelers. Always the Steelers. Even with a choppy year, they drew a good amount of futures money and their odds never really dropped until it was clear that Big Ben [Ben Roethlisberger] was good to go.
Kornegay: We have the largest liability on the Steelers to win the Super Bowl.
Simbal: We have the most future liability to the Steelers. The Carolina Panthers are the best for us.
Avello: In the future book, I’m in pretty good shape with the exception of the Steelers. There’s always a few in there that try to be spoilers for the house.