How One Player Changes the Odds
Written by Nolan Thomas, Tuesday August 04 2009
Prior to April 2nd, the odds for the Chicago Bears to win the Super Bowl this season in
The 40-1 odds is what was expected from the Chicago Bears if they were to start this season with the exact same lineup that they ended last season with. Acquiring Jay Culter from the Denver Broncos is by leaps and bounds the biggest off season move by any NFL team.
On April 2, the Bears threw the football world for a loop in acquiring Cutler from
Once the trade was announced as official,
Now granted, getting Cutler alone does not make the Bears the overall obvious favorites to win the NFC or the Super Bowl this season. However, they are obviously expected to be a much better team than they were before with Cutler now running the offense, and have to seriously be considered in contention for the crown.
Funny thing is,
Of course, you have to take into consideration that these odds are basically based on the betting public and what teams they are actually betting on to win it all this season. The Bears odds jumped up the charts because once they acquired Cutler, people in masses were betting on them to win. The Broncos odds did not move because no one was betting on them. By the time the season starts, the Broncos odds will most likely be more then 30-1 because of the lack of bets for them, or at least they should.
One place where this discussion is pretty much over is on the Las Vegas Strip. The football betting public has made their mark by taking their money and betting on the Bears to win Super Bowl XLIV in massive numbers.
As mentioned previously, before the Cutler trade, the odds in
Currently, the predominating price on the Bears winning the Super Bowl is less than 10-1 at the actual casinos on
At the MGM Mirage casinos, the Bears are currently 6-1 to win the Super Bowl, and 3-1 favorites to win the NFC Championship. At the Harrah's casinos, which include
To get a sense of how the Bears were looked at prior to the Cutler trade, you need to look no farther than the odds sheets at the MGM Mirage. When the Mirage released its 2010 pro football title odds back in January before the April trade of Cutler, the Bears were the 19th team on the list, one of four NFL teams at 30-1 odds.
The lower odds did not inhibit the public. MGM Mirage took about 350 wagers on the Bears at 10-1 before lowering the odds to 8-1. After taking about 700 wagers at that price, the odds were then lowered to 6-1. The Mirage does not anticipate the odds going lower than that, but they would not mind seeing some more bets on other NFL teams too.
At Wynn Las Vegas and Encore, the Bears are 18-1 off a 30-1 opening line, and a Chicago Super Bowl win would be "a loss for the house," said the director of race and sports operations for both hotels.
At Lucky's, which manages sports betting in 11 Nevada hotels, including Terrible's and the Plaza in Las Vegas, the Bears' odds have fallen down to 12-1 due to the amount of betting and interest in the Bears.
The thing to remember is that the oddsmakers might originally make the betting lines, but it is the gamblers preferences that when all is said and done, set the price that you will get in
Several oddsmakers in Vegas are comparing the effect of Cutler's arrival on the Bears' Super Bowl odds to the Jets last season what media mongrel Brett Favre's "unretirement" did to their Super Bowl odds last offseason. The Jets, who were massive long shots to win the Super Bowl last season, had their odds fall dramatically after acquiring Favre last August.
In addition, for a while this offseason, Favre was yet again contemplating another "unretirement" and returning to football once again this season, this time with the Vikings. Like everyone else,
MGM Mirage adjusted its odds just on the assumption that it was going to happen. If in fact Favre would have signed with the Vikings, the money bet on the Vikings would have been huge and the odds would have plummeted.
In addition, the odds makers would have loved that because it would have padded their pockets because only one of them can win the Super Bowl.
Not only are many Vikings fans disappointed, so is Vegas.
Another player that has changed the odds this season in a big way is the Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. The Pats did not even make the playoffs last year without him, and with him returning this year, they are the favorites in Vegas to win this seasons Super Bowl with 4-1 odds.
When it comes to betting odds, especially with NFL football and the Super Bowl, it is amazing how much one player can change to odds even though it is a team sport.
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