The Philadelphia Eagles came from behind to beat the Washington Redskins 32-27 on the opening Sunday of the NFL season. For the favored Eagles, the second half comeback victory left a satisfying taste for the season to come.
But for bettors, the Redskins late TD left a bitter taste, because the team failed to cover the spread.
Such are the quirks of sports wagering as the NFL gets under way. And Americans did wager.
William Hill sportsbooks reported that 59 percent of the money they saw was on the Eagles. FanDuel was even more lopsided, with 94 percent of the money laid on the Birds, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Jeff Davis, director of trading for Caesars Entertainment, was asked if it was a six-figure swing. “Into seven figures,” he replied.
It was certainly a strong week for bettors, said Patrick Eichner, director of communications for PointsBet. Besides the Eagles, popular favorites in Week 1 included the Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Rams, Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots.
Each week during the season, three or four games draw that kind of attention, William Hill’s Nick Bogdanovich said.
FanDuel says the amount of money bet by its users online on Sunday was roughly 12 times the amount spent on the same day a year ago, when its mobile betting app had just launched.
“There was a seven-times increase in handle and bets in New Jersey from Week 1 last year,” FanDuel publicity director Kevin Hennessy said. But it’s more than New Jersey. “We are excited for the season and have seen some real great interest in our new retail sportsbooks in Iowa and Indiana already.”
Rival DraftKings said the amount of money bet on Sunday nearly doubled compared to the same day a year earlier. In addition, traffic at both companies spiked on September 5, the first NFL game day and the latest day for which figures were available, said analytics firm SimilarWeb. FanDuel had 524,416 visits and DraftKings 306,681 visits that day, according to Reuters.
“Thursday Night Football’s Packers vs. Bears matchup was our highest unique bettor count event in PointsBet history,” Eichner said. “On an individual event basis, NFL games will be our highest turnover events of the year.”
Companies typically do not release dollar figures, but trends show the importance of football, the most popular U.S. sport, as the newly-legal U.S. online sports betting market gels, according to PlayNJ.com. A poll last year by Gallup found some 37 percent of U.S. adults cited football as their favorite sport to watch. Next came basketball, favored by 11 percent of respondents, and baseball at 9 percent.
FanDuel Chief Marketing Officer Mike Raffensperger said the NFL counts 100 million fans in the U.S. “There’s no week of the year we can acquire new customers like we can in the first week of the NFL season.”
In Nevada last year, betting on football—including college football—accounted for 34 percent of sportsbook revenues. “Football sparks the most interest and fandom on Saturday and Sunday, Hennessy said. “The atmosphere at the Meadowlands on Saturday is electric with college football bets and NFL bets being placed.”
While the NFL is king when it comes to sports betting, if you add up the amount of money wagered, basketball, baseball and college football are up there, just because there are so many more games and teams, said Bogdanovich, whose company works with Monmouth Park Ocean Resort and Tropicana in New Jersey. “Baseball and the NBA are played almost every day. But if you take individual games, there is so much more bet on pro football. There are only 16 games and that makes it special.”
Some 40 percent of overall business is now from in-play wagers, typically as odds change during the game as opposed to pre-game betting, Hennessy said.
“Clients can bet on the spread as the game is going on, so all bets of that nature are considered in-game,” Eichner said.
In-play betting may grow beyond changing spreads. “I see betting on specific plays in the future.” Bogdanovich said. Betting on whether the next play will be a run or a pass, bets that have to be made within seconds.
According to a new national survey commissioned by the American Gaming Association (AGA), more than 38 million American adults—15 percent of the U.S. adult population—are planning to bet on NFL games this season. The number of bettors saying they will place their bets in-person at a casino sportsbook is 6.9 million people, up from 5.7 million who say they placed a similar bet last year.
Still, in New Jersey, the state with the most liberal mobile betting rules, roughly 80 percent of wagering is done through apps.
Asked who they would put a $25 bet on to win the Super Bowl, NFL fans overwhelmingly favored the Patriots (23 percent), followed by the Chiefs (8 percent), Dallas Cowboys (7 percent) and the St. Louis Saints (6 percent).
Sorry, Eagles fans.
Other key findings of the poll, conducted by Morning Consult among a national sample of 11,001 American adults:
- 39 percent of self-described “avid” NFL fans plan to place a bet on the NFL this season
- 24 percent of Americans would like to bet on the NFL if it was legal and convenient to do so in their state
- 75 percent are more likely to watch a game they bet on, while 63 percent are more likely to gather with friends and family to watch a game
Previous AGA research shows the NFL stands to make $2.3 billion a year from a widespread legal sports betting market, largely as the result of increased fan engagement.
The NFL’s basic position is that the league doesn’t want to annoy the large portion of its audience that does not bet, according to the New York Times. And with an enormous mass-market audience already, the league contends it will benefit less from legalization than other sports. The NFL has far fewer betting-related deals than other American sports leagues, but took an equity stake in Sportradar, the data distribution company that provides in-game and pre-game odds.
Television is taking a cautious approach to NFL wagering. Fred Gaudelli, longtime producer of NBC’s football telecasts, on a conference call last week said sports betting references would be “somewhat isolated” this season, adding that NBC was beginning conversations with the NFL “about what’s possible going forward.”
Or, as sportscaster Al Michaels has said, “Most people who have bet on the game don’t have to be told what the point spread is.”
