Blown calls don’t faze NFL bettors
So you say you’re tuning out the NFL until its referee crisis is resolved?
The people who make their money on football gambling bet you won’t. Las Vegas is on track for a record season in NFL betting, with an estimated $50 million wagered weekly in Nevada alone, and that’s putting it conservatively, says RJ Bell of Pregame.com.
Bell says people will continue to bet big on games in spite of Monday night’s replacement debacle, which might have cost the visiting Green Bay Packers a game vs. the Seattle Seahawks on a disputed Hail Mary pass.
“If the player believes that the variation is random and thus they’re going to win or lose randomly, it’s another variable in a game of variables,” Bell says. “But they crave that uncertainty. They like it.”
Nobody seemed to like the latest result of the referee lockout, as social media were flooded with shock, then a condemnation of the NFL and its commissioner, Roger Goodell.
“(Monday) night was horrible for everybody,” says Mike Colbert of Cantor Gaming. “My sports books won money, but I was literally sick to my stomach.”
Colbert knows people are angry from the barrage of text messages he received from friends. But he doesn’t think the business will suffer, and he doesn’t anticipate any Nevada sports books handing out refunds, as some European books have done for controversial calls in other sports.
“There are bad beats every week. Maybe an onside kick or a Hail Mary beats you. Granted, this was on another level,” Colbert says. “But you hear every week when people take a bad beat, ‘Oh, I’m never betting the NFL again.’ You heard the same thing (Monday) night. But I think it will take a few days for people to come around.”
Expert consensus is legal wagering on the NFL is up 20%-25% from 2011.