LVASports.com moderator and handicapper extraordinaire Fezzik answers the latest sports-betting-related reader query, as part of the ongoing "Fezzik Fridays" feature.
Regular-season results used to have a big impact on lines, but no longer.
The best evidence of this the game you reference, where the Patriots annihilated the Jets in Week 13. Given that outcome, you would expect that the public would be all over the Pats the following week (against the Bears), driving the line up, up, up. But the look-ahead line on that game was Patriots -2.5, and despite the convincing win against the Jets, it moved minimally to -3. It's true that just about every "recreational" bettor pounded in a $20 bet on the Pats, which drove the line up to -3.5 initially, but then the pros jumped in and took the Bears +3.5/-120 and +3/+100, causing the line to move back down to 3, and even 2.5 in some spots.
As we now know, the pros got their teeth kicked in by the recreational bettors on this one, but the bottom line is there are sports-betting pros who've made millions over the years betting against teams like the Pats in situations just like this. They're well-capitalized and their large "chunk bets" more than offset the recreational bettors' action. The ticket count may well have favored the Pats 12-1 in this game, but the vast majority of large bets were placed on Chicago and they completely neutralized the action.
Exceptions to this rule show up in the very big events like the Super Bowl and March Madness, where the volume on singleton games can overwhelm a market, causing large line moves on the public darlings.
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