Does Vegas fix games?

[GrizzlyBuck13]

I’ve always suspected that they do, but with NIL, I feel like it’s being made more apparent since it’s becoming harder for Vegas to control certain coaches/players/officials. With more money being funneled in, it’s resulting in more mouthes to feed and forcing those individuals to make things happen regardless of how obvious it may look.

I say this because I pay attention to lines and have seen far too many hitting right on them or box scores that don’t make sense.

Team cant score in the 1st 2nd or 3rd quarters but miraculously scores 21 points in the 4th and wins.

Or

An O/U of 46.5 set by Vegas in the ASU vs Utah game and then the game ends at 46 points and the large underdog ASU wins. Makes no sense and is literally the least likely thing that would happen, especially if you make Utah the prohibitive favorite in the game. So they can get the O/U dead on, but you can’t figure out that ASU was actually the far superior team?

There are far too many variables in these games for Vegas to be so accurate.

Weather
Injuries
18 year old kids making dumb decisions

Yet almost every time Vegas gets it right on…

Anyway, just my rant. Take the poll and give me your thoughts.

 

[umrebelfan69]

I don’t think so, of course your mileage varies.

But as I see it, books do not care who wins the game. They only care to have even action on the games. That is why they move the lines as the week progresses.

If betting is heavy on one side of a game, say Team X is -3, and everyone expects them to cover and bets it heavy, Vegas moves that line to X -7.5, enticing bettors to take team Y at +7.5. They want even action. That way, the book takes the money lost by the losing bettor, and pays the winning bettors with it. The book makes their money off of the juice paid by the losing bettor.

Same goes for O/U bets. They just need it to be even. I’m sure that major books will do the same as the local bookie down at the pub. They lay off bets with others to be even by kickoff, or as close as they can get to even.

Before we legalized sports books in Mississippi, the bookie I would bet with from time to time explained all this to me. He knew every bookie in Hattiesburg, and they helped each other out with the laying off of bets.

On another note, that bookie was actually a pretty good guy. His settle up day was on Tuesdays at 3 bars in Hattiesburg. The one I went to was called Our Place. Wayne had tabs at each bar, and no matter if you won your bet(s) or lost them, you drank on his tab on Tuesday’s. If he wasn’t going to be there, he would leave your envelope with the bartender, and you would leave your payment with her if you lost. If I was a winner that week, I didn’t drink too much, but you could bet your ass I would need a cab to get home if I was a loser. Had to drink enough beer to come close to offsetting a bad bet. lol