So we meet again, at the intersection of No Foresight and Unintended Consequences.
When our top courts and state legislatures declared sports gambling legal, they fired a starter’s pistol for a gold rush of betting house operators to seize the territories, sports leagues, individual pro teams and sports networks all eager for their cut of what most of them once decried and defied as immoral, sports-diminishing, ill-spent and ill-gained money.
Hallelujah redacted!
Both MLB and NBA mandated guidelines for the release of starting lineups well before the schedule starts of games, signaling that they’re now accountable to partnered gambling operations.
This wasn’t done to protect fans who gamble — those chumps are counted on to lose their money by design — as it was to protect affiliated betting enterprises from suffering back-door sliders, losses based on gamblers knowing something they weren’t supposed to know, such as a late switch in starting pitchers.
On Friday, Nov. 15, Marshall’s football team defeated visiting Louisiana Tech, 31-10. You bet it did.
Two days before, the betting line underwent sudden, significant changes. Marshall went from a two-point favorite to 4½. There were reports that those in the know pushed some lines to Marshall laying as many as seven points. The books, who charge an added percentage or “vig” bets, needed money played on La. Tech to balance their sheets.
Regardless, those who bet Marshall, even at -7, won, forcing bookies to pay out far more on that game than they took in. Uh-oh. You can mess with gamblers, the suckers, but not with the house.
Now, these line moves didn’t occur off a conference call among the Confederation of Sports Bookmakers who felt the number needed to be adjusted because it was initially too low. The line movements came from a rush of action, presumably and logically the in-the-know crowd loading up on Marshall.
But why the sudden, one-way action? La. Tech, after all, had won eight straight, and this was a Conference USA game between title contenders.
Well, it came to pass that La. Tech, without releasing the info to the public until Thursday night, a day earlier suspended three players from the game, including star QB J’mar Smith.
And now no one is left above reasonable, institutionalized, they-asked-for-it suspicion. Was this important info intentionally withheld due to inside-gambling action? Was it an honest mistake? Was it a mistake?
Was it a matter of pregame silent strategy or insider trading?
Or was it simply a matter of nobody’s business until almost game time? Why allow Marshall to examine and prepare for the backup QB? Or do teams now owe gambling enterprises their first and full accountability? Athletic Director: “We’re suspending Jones. Alert the sportsbooks, immediately!”
Those who thought that lower-focus Division I games such as La. Tech-Marshall more easily fall under the gambling radar, were wrong. Five grand bet on Ohio State-Michigan is no different than five grand bet on North Texas-Toledo.
Bottom line: The line for La. Tech-Marshall moved too far to create anything better than legitimate suspicion and a terrible stench. But that’s what happens at the corner of No Foresight and Unintended Consequences. With many more soon to come, we’ll meet there again.
Help Garden help kids by paying to help kids
Ah, Jimmy Dolan’s Madison Square Garden. Even when it does — or pretends to do — something charitable it botches it.
Knicks and Rangers season-ticket buyers, already spending a fortune for far less than what it’s worth, last week received a missive from the Garden to encourage entertaining underprivileged kids during the holidays. Nice, right?
But there’s a catch.
The Garden will gift poor kids tickets to Garden events provided its customers pay for them.
In the emailed come-on, MSG boasts that “special discounted tickets of $50 are being made available for this great cause, meaning that for only $500 you can send 10 children to an amazing experience this season.”
Huh?
So why doesn’t the Garden just distribute those tickets among poor kids? Why must it be a matter of having them paid for by those who already pay a bundle for tickets? The Garden wants to do something nice for poor kids? Then do it.
It’s reminiscent of a “Simpsons” episode when Homer says to his pal Lenny, “Remember that time you lent me $20 and I paid you back? Now it’s time for you to do me a favor.”
Ever get the feeling that the expert guy on TV is just bluffing his way through, as in completely?
Early in the first quarter of last Sunday’s Jets-Redskins, Washington QB Dwayne Haskins recovered his own fumble after he collided with running back Steven Sims, who’d been expecting a hand-off. Fox’s Ronde Barber explained:
“Well, this is something that they’ll do very often, and we heard that they want to find a way to get Sims the ball a little bit more.
“And he’s their gadget guy. He’s their reverse guy, he’s their screen guy. And that operation, a play I really have not seen very often the last couple of weeks. And look, you have a quarterback, only his second start. He probably hasn’t executed that play very often.”
What play? A hand-off? Barber, the “last couple of weeks,” would not have seen that or any other play from the ’Skins given that they had the previous week off. And Sims, their all-purpose back Barber claimed the ’Skins planned to get the ball more, finished with two pass catches for 6 yards and zero rushing yards on zero carries.
No wins means no reminders
Recently Mike “My Picks Have Value” Francesa made sure to mention that he went 2-1 on his NFL picks the previous Sunday. Hooray for Mikey! This past week, however, he never got around to mentioning how he made out last weekend. Think that’s because he went 0-3?
Odell Beckham Jr. is my favorite fantasy league player. He’s seen in a Paris bedroom video messing with a bag of suspicious white powder then complains that the NFL has unfairly targeted him for drug testing.
So it took more than a week for Myles Garrett to make the specious claim that he nailed Mason Rudolph in the head with Rudolph’s helmet because the Steelers QB hit him with a racial slur. But the “fact” delivered by ESPN’s Josina Anderson — Garrett’s behavior was totally out of character — was no less specious. In September, Garrett was fined $52,600 for a helmet hit and two roughing-the-QB penalties.
Demoted Devils veteran goalie Cory Schneider will be missed as a pleasant, erudite pregame, postgame and between-periods interview on MSG.
"line" - Google News
November 23, 2019 at 12:40PM
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Sketchy college football betting line change is problematic - New York Post
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