One week after having perhaps the worst single day Las Vegas Sports Books have ever seen, the house scooped most of the chips in Week 8. As great as the Sunday win may have been, which in some cases was the best of the season thus far, it doesn’t even begin to nibble off the deficit created last week.

“We did well for the day,” said Lucky’s Sports Book Director Jimmy Vaccaro. “Handle was up across the board and on parlay cards, likely due to the great week the public had last week.”

The win was spurred by the public’s intrigue of big games between good teams, but also finally having one of the public’s darlings of the year, the Colts, not cover for only the second time this season while remaining undefeated.

“Our best game of the day was the 49ers covering against the Colts,” said Vaccaro.

“We also did well with the Dolphins and Eagles decisions. We opened the Eagles at -1.5 and Giant money moved it to Giants -2.5.”

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Large money and small money contributed to many of the books biggest games of the day and it had to be encouraging for the books to at least be able to root for decent teams like the 49ers and Eagles. Those two games were the foundations of many of the betting public’s parlays and when they went down, so did the risk.

The Vikings-Packers game was one of the largest handles of the day and it worked out perfect for the books because action was split for each team which further eliminates the type of broad-scale risk the books witnessed last week.

The easy bet-against games weren’t there, either. Tampa Bay and Kansas City had bye weeks and it helped that two of the worst teams in football played against each other. Attempting to pick a side in the Lions-Rams game had to be a tough dilemma for the public, but there was some late action on a side.

“We got a little bit of late money on the Rams when it was announced that Calvin Johnson wouldn’t play,” said Vaccaro.

The Rams would go on to win 17-10 late, but it still remained the least-bet game of the week

The books also found a way to get some money on bad teams, or at least a couple of them. Both the Raiders and Browns were opened with over-inflated lines as a reaction to the bet against trends.

The Browns were getting 13 on the opener at the Bears, while the Chargers opened as 17.5-point home favorites to the Raiders. The Bears closed at 10.5 while the Chargers closed at 16.

The Browns looked to be keeping it close, but fell apart late blowing the cover. The Chargers jumped out to a 21-7 lead and from there played clock management, only scoring three more points to win 24-16.

In the Chargers’ case, even though some books didn’t do well with some sharp money, they must be pleased to see a team as bad as the Raiders at least show some fight and compete. The Raiders were still bad, but they are still a professional team playing another. That type of professional pride has been absent this season for too many teams.

There are no polls like in college and no one is voting based on margin of victory. For years the books have always been able to rely on the Pro Football line being the most sound of all the sports because of the professional product being placed on the field. Remember the term On any given Sunday? If a team was double digits, whoever they were in whatever situation, it usually presented good value.

This week, there is more relief for the books because the Browns, Rams, and Raiders all have byes and there is a full menu of quality teams playing against each other.

Even in the instance of America’s new team, the Saints, they’ll be playing a Panthers team coming off a big win in Arizona which should play into some of the public’s thought when deciding what to do, lay the 14 or take the 14.

I would lay 1/6 based on Week 9’s schedule, the books will have one of their better Sunday’s of the year this week.

College Football
Books do well on Saturday
The monthly fall trend of casino’s being able to rely on the Sports Book’s College Football win contributing to the overall scheme continued in Week 9. The mix of action and indecisiveness of the small-money players on the marquee games has kept them guessing all year. Teams like Florida, Texas, and Alabama, who are on TV every week, are all undefeated and popular weekly plays, but have been the most unpredictable of all against the spread.

Middle of the Week
Many folks are skeptical about believing in No. 4 Iowa and it showed right away at the betting window last week when Iowa opened up an 18.5-point home favorite to Indiana. Why shouldn’t everyone question that many points, the Hawkeyes have only one convincing win all season, which was in week 2 against Iowa State where they won by 32.

Every one of their seven other games this season had been won by 11 points or less. In their last four games they had barely hung on, needing fantastic finishes to win, so it wasn’t surprising to see the first few large bets come in on Indiana taking the points.

The line settled at 17.5-points for all the weekend plays which is when most of the smaller money comes in, and in most cases, they like to play the favorites.

Indiana looked like they were not only going to cover, but get the straight up win as they took a 21-7 half-time lead.

The Hoosiers still had the lead going into the fourth quarter at 24-14, and then the tidal wave came. Iowa made big play after big play for a 28-0 run to close out the game giving Iowa a 42-24 win with a margin of 18 points, right in the middle of where the move went meaning the books got beat on both sides of the spectrum. Sharp money won with the early wagers and the small money won with their weekend wagers.