LVASPorts.com handicapper Fezzik responds:
For those who don't know what happened, last Saturday's USC/Utah game closed at USC -8 and the final score appeared to be 17-14 USC, making bets on Utah winners. However, two hours after the game, the score was officially changed by the NCAA (because of a rule interpretation) to 23-14, which meant that the ultimate winning side was USC laying the 8 points.
As you might expect, several sports books had a big problem with this and a few got destroyed -- all because they didn't have a clear rule in place. Among the few that weren't hurt was the MGM Grand, as they have a crystal clear (and obvious) rule that says, "We do not recognize overturns/score changes after a game is final." OK, it's a little ambiguous as to what "final" means, but I think it's clear that if the crowd and players leave, what the scoreboard reads is the final score. MGM paid the Utah bettors and that was the end of it, as anyone reading the rule clearly saw that they had no case to argue.
Why the Vegas sports book managers don't consider the blizzard of liability/PR problems they risk with dumb or unclear rules is beyond me. An example of a dumb rule is, "We do not recognize any overturns/score changes after the day of the game." DOH! This means that they do recognize them on the day of the game, which is ridiculous! Once you've paid out 75% of the winning tickets on Utah, you simply can't turn around and pay USC, though that's what some were forced to do.
Offshore books can use the day-after rule, simply by the nature of how they pay. In a case like this, all they have to do is past post the winners and turn them back into losers, but that doesn't work in Las Vegas where there's a rush to the window seconds after a game ends. If you pay tickets immediately, you must make it policy to recognize only immediate overturns.
While this scenario comes up about once in a decade for a full-game result, it comes up all the time in first-half wagers, specifically when there's a disputed 3-point shot or a technical foul in basketball. But with only a 12-minute cashing window and very low volume on first-half bets, books have never had to sweat any real two-sided liability in these situations
Bottom line, I give an A+ to MGM for having the right rule in place. An A+ also has to go to the many books, like Jerry's Nugget and Station, that simply paid out both sides. I give an F to the consultants and managers of the books with rules that trapped them in the middle of a no-win -- or maybe I should say both-win -- situation.
By the way, the line was as high as 9.5, so the best bettors won regardless of where they made their bet. As far as the -7.5 and +8.5 bettors are concerned, most either did, or at least could have, come out with winners (while a few took a really bad beat). In fact, you could make a neat little trivia question out of this.
Q: How can you lose playing the favorite -7.5 and the dog +8.5?
A: By betting the -7.5 in Vegas (or at least at MGM) and the +8.5 offshore … then not cashing the original "winner" within two hours after the game. The result: 0-2.
Finally, as I type this, I have a friend that's still diving through garbage cans searching for half-ripped-up USC -8 tickets! There might actually be some decent EV in that.
