Monday Morning Gambler: Raiders Impress Again In NFL Preseason, Deliver For Bettors
By Dan Behringer for LVSportsBiz.com
The Las Vegas Raiders were the hot betting ticket for Preseason Week 1 of their preseason campaign. After opening at -2.5, eager bettors boosted the number to -4.5 before kickoff at 1:25 p.m. on Sunday.
Made sense, right? The Silver and Black looked crisp and efficient in their Hall of Fame Game on Aug. 4, rolling over the Jacksonville Jaguars, 27-11. In fact, bettors nudged the total up for Sunday’s game as well, from 34.5 to 38.5.
So when the Raiders, led by backup QB Jarrett Stidham as starting QB Derek Carr watched from the sidelines, took the patchy natural grass field at Allegiant Stadium, expectations were high. At least from bettors.
And they didn’t disappoint. After a slow-moving start that saw the Raiders take a 10-6 halftime lead, the Silver and Black put away the Vikings in the second half. The final score was 26-20 — a cover, an easy over, and an impressive parlay of the favorite with the over.
Two other Raider backups, Nick Mullens, who tossed for 94 yards and a touchdown, and Chase Garbers put away the visiting Vikings and locked up the victory and the cover.
“Everybody banded together, our O-line did a really good job, we ran the ball, and played productive as a unit,” Mullens told reporters.
And does it matter if it’s Preseason Week 1? Not to the bettors. The tickets still pop up on the tiny monitor as winners, and the ticket writers still hand over the cash.
The Raiders (2-0) take their Preseason Show on the road to Miami (1-0) to play the Dolphins next Sunday at 4 p.m.
Elsewhere:
— Attack of the Aces: After an impressive outright 89-81 victory as 2.5-point underdogs over the Seattle Storm way back on Aug. 7, the Aces appeared to be in fine shape for their game vs. the Atlanta Dream only 48 hours later.
So much for that theory. The Dream were competitive throughout, and the Aces needed a 35-25 fourth-quarter surge to put them away, 97-90. But alas for bettors, the Aces were -12 — so no cover. They rebounded with an 89-78 win over the Chicago Sky on Thursday that saw them handily cover -2.
All of which brought some drama to Sunday’s rematch vs. the Storm. Could they defeat the Storm again? Could they cover -6.5? Would the total go over 169.5 this time?
After four quarters of basketball, the answers were yes, yes and yes. Yes, the Aces won and in dramatic fashion, 109-100, before a sellout crowd of 10,015.
“That trust factor just continues to grow,” coach Becky Hammon said to reporters. “Once you get that, you can get something special.”
Chelsea Gray had 33 points, and the Aces clinched the top seed in the playoffs in the win.
Still, the trend over the past 10 games has definitely been toward the under. Besides Sunday’s game, only two other games in the last 10 have gone over the total.
The Aces (26-10, 18-18 ATS) next host the Phoenix Mercury (15-21, 15-20-1 ATS) on Wednesday.
— Hot streak: The Los Angeles Dodgers are one of the hottest teams in Major League Baseball and have been cashing tickets for bettors for metronomelike monotony. Since June 29, they are an astounding 34-6. At 79-34, they have a 69.9 win percentage with an average margin of victory of 2.2 runs. Their next closest competitor is the New York Mets with a 65.2 win percentage.
In games such as their 13-3 romp over the Kansas City Royals on Saturday, bettors cashed tickets on the money line, run line, alternate run line (-2.5), the team total of 5.5 to 6.5, parlays with over 8.5 and “yes” on whether or not there would be a run in the first inning (the Dodgers scored five times.) Whew.
So what happened if you jumped all over the Boys in Blue again on Sunday? That would not have been a good idea. The Royals snapped the Dodgers’ win streak at 12, their longest since 1976, with a 4-0 win in which the Dodgers managed only two base hits.
“I mean, we knew we weren’t going to win every game,” Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, who went 0-for 4, told reporters.
The Team With The Highest Payroll in the Majors opens a four-game series with the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday.
— Follow the money: Can you follow the betting trends in NFL preseason and cash a winning ticket?
Sometimes. The Denver Broncos opened as 2.5-point favorites vs. the Dallas Cowboys in Preseason Week 1. Bettors, perhaps sharps or squares or both, moved the number to -3, -3.5 and eventually to -5 before it came back to -4.5 before kickoff on Saturday. The Broncos won, 17-7.
— Laugher of the week: Playing over the total at Coors Field is never a bad idea. And it was a particularly good idea on Wednesday when the St. Louis Cardinals came to town on Tuesday. The Rockies put up a 16 spot vs. Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas in cruising to a 16-5 win, easily over the total of 11.5.
If you latched onto the idea this might be a high-scoring series, you were right. The other two games of the series both saw 14 runs scored and the totals went over again.
Sometimes it’s that easy. Usually, it’s not.
