Week 7 NFL Betting Recap: A Big Sunday For Public Bettors

Written By Marco Cerino on October 24, 2018

Another wild week of NFL action is in the books, so let’s take a look back and see how the books (and the public) did on the week:

Price check on the Pats

Sunday afternoon’s early marquee match-up featured the New England Patriots traveling to Chicago to face the Bears. Belichick and the stabilizing offense seems a sure bet against a young QB, right?

Well as the week went on, things didn’t look so certain for the Pats. Saturday afternoon, the team plane left without an injured Rob Gronkowski. He wouldn’t play.

This led to bettors confronted with a curious proposition Sunday morning: three different spreads on the game offered by books in NJ. The consensus was Pats -2. However, FanDuel Sportsbook offered a full point extra value to NE bettors, down from -3.5 at one point. William Hill gave a full point extra value but to the Bears’ market. That was their biggest game of the day, getting 20% of the handle, with 72% of the spread bet on the Pats.

Didn’t matter where you bet the Pats: if you did, you won on Sunday.

Public enjoys Sunday

Overall it was a good week for the public. Both Vegas and Fanduel reported losses on the weekend. In addition to the Pats, bettors cashed in on big wins by the Vikings and the Chiefs. Minnesota had the largest share of spread money of any match-up Sunday at William Hill, with 80% of the money bet in their win against the Jets. KC remains the only team undefeated ATS.

FanDuel reported their best result of the weekend was Washington’s nail-biting win against Dallas. William Hill had almost two-thirds of the spread money on the visitors in that game. Hill saw wins in the Titans’ close loss to the Chargers in London and the Panthers’ comeback against the Eagles.

Surprisingly, the public split on the Rams-49ers game. The Rams sold more tickets but the Niners earned more spread money. The Rams covered easily.

FanDuel saw a split of money in the Saints-Ravens game. While two-thirds of the ML bets went to New Orleans, a higher percentage went to the favored Ravens on the spread. Justin Tucker’s late missed PAT sealed the split decision.

Monday Night Moose sightings

There was no confidence in the Giants entering their match-up with Atlanta. The Falcons had a significant late lead, bolstered by another long FG from Giorgio Tavecchio.

But wait, the Giants scored a TD with five seconds left to make the game 24-19. Since they went for two earlier and failed, why not try again? Of course, it worked this time. The bettors holding Falcons -4 or -3.5 tickets were crestfallen. For William Hill and others, it took some of the sting away from what was otherwise an unprofitable weekend.

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