Weekend Sports Gambler: Bettors Doing Slow Burn After Raiders Drop First Two Games
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By Dan Behringer, LVSportsBiz.com Betting Writer
Rooting, cheering and screaming at the top of your lungs for the Las Vegas Raiders and watching them lose is one thing.
Betting on them and watching your hard-earned money go up in smoke is another thing entirely.
So the Raiders are 0-2. They are also 0-2 against-the-spread. That is, no wins and no covers.
And now it’s on the road to play the Tennessee Titans on Sunday. Ironically, the Titans are also 0-2 in the won-loss column and 0-2 ATS.
This will be meeting for the first time since 2019, the Raiders’ last season in Oakland. Is there a pattern? The visiting team has won five in a row, including the Raiders’ last three visits to Nashville.
After the game opened as Raiders -2.5, the line moved to Raiders -1.5 in most locales for the early game. The total has been adjusted from 46.5 to 45.5. Raiders quarterback Derek Carr is generally -115 to throw more than 1.5 touchdown passes and about the same price to come in under that number. His total passing yard total is 255.5 priced equally on over/under.
In the first two games, Carr has been sacked six times. A prop bet on the number of times he will be sacked on Sunday — say, 2.5 — would be lively, but we have not yet seen that.
Raiders coach Josh McDaniel had this to say a day after last Sunday’s 29-23 overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals. “It’s one game to learn from, take as much as we can from it and then process it, and then at the end of the day, it’s onto the Titans. That’s the best we can do.”
Bettors might be looking for a little more. Kickoff is at 10 a.m.
Elsewhere:
— Road favorites: Yes, that’s the UNLV Rebels who are -2.5 point road favorites on Saturday vs. the Utah State Aggies. The total has moved up from 62 to 63.5.
The Rebels are 2-1 on the season — but a perfect 3-0 ATS. Utah State, reigning Mountain West champions, is 1-2 but has yet failed to cover.
Covers.com notes 66 percent of the betting interest is on UNLV.
Diehard UNLV fans probably still remember last year’s 28-24 loss to Utah State at Allegiant Stadium, a loss that coach Marcus Arroyo and players would certainly like to avenge.
“We’re excited about the brand of football we’re playing, and that’s really important,” Arroyo told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “It feels good to start the way we have. We have a lot to build on. It’s good to get our fan base excited. Big deal for us. Fuels us.”
Kickoff is at 4 p.m.
— Are you ready to bet some NHL? The Vegas Golden Knights kick off their preseason campaign in a game on Sunday at the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche. The VGK will then host the Avalanche on Wednesday.
“You’ll probably see two different lineups for the first two exhibition games,” new coach Bruce Cassidy told the Las Vegas Sun. “We’ll re-evaluate after five days how smaller of a group we want to get down from there, how quickly you want closer your group to look like.”
No betting lines yet, but look for them this weekend.
On the futures market, the VGK are anywhere from +1800 to +2500 to win the Stanley Cup.
— Dodgers on top: At TeamRankings, the Los Angeles Dodgers are firmly entrenched as the No. 1 team in Major League Baseball. With a 104-46 record going into their series with the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday, they have won 69.3 percent of their games, roughly four percentage points above the Houston Astros. They also have an impressive margin of victory — 2.2 runs.
If you’re curious, the Washington Nationals at 52-97 with a 34.9 win percentage are buried at the bottom of the rankings.
— Play of the Week (2-1): We improved to 2-1 in our Play of the Week last week when Syracuse rallied late to beat and cover vs. Purdue. Our play this week is Ohio State -18 vs. Wisconsin.
