NFL Week 1 Money Moves from Las Vegas: Public dialed in on five teams

Bettors love the Packers this week at Chicago.

LAS VEGAS -- You got to love the betting public. They come firing right out of the gate in Week 1 of the NFL with chalky road favorites as their top parlay plays. Nearly every Las Vegas sports book will collectively be sweating the outcomes of five major games which will ultimately decide how big of a win the house will have on opening weekend.

“They’re taking Green Bay (-7 at Chicago), Seattle (-4 at St. Louis), Indianapolis (-2.5 at Buffalo), Miami (-3.5 at Washington) and Philadelphia (-3 at Atlanta Monday night) the most,” said top William Hill bookmaker Nick Bogdanovich. “When you get good teams laying small numbers, the public will always gravitate to that side.”

That’s five road favorites, a situation where the books should fare well by getting at least three of the ‘dogs to win or cover -- maybe even more. Home underdogs getting +3 or more in the NFL are usually sides smarter money likes to focus on, and a few sharps already have.

“We’ve had some sharp money on Buffalo just before LeSean McCoy was announced as probable,” said Bogandanovich, “and we also took wise guy plays on Atlanta and San Francisco for Monday night’s games, but the public is still on the other side of all those games weighing the risk out more.”

Station Casinos book director Jason McCormick is in the same boat as Bogadanovich with public plays, and said the top sharp plays he’s gotten this week have come on the Redskins getting +4 at Miami and the Raiders +3.5 at home against the Bengals. Stations now has the Dolphins -3.5 and the Bengals -3 -120.

MGM Resorts VP of race and sports Jay Rood took time away his Mirage office Friday to be at the MGM Grand press conference to promote Saturday night’s Welterweight Title bout between Floyd Mayweather and Andre Berto, a fight that isn’t attracting a lot of attention.

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