–It’s 11 AM Las Vegas time Tuesday February 2nd – five days before Super Bowl 50. 86% of the money bet on the Super Bowl at CG Technology in Las Vegas is on the Panthers -6. William Hill just took a $625,000 bet on the Panthers moneyline and the Flamingo Sportsbook just took a $300,000 bet for the same.
It was 9 days after the Panthers destroyed the Cardinals 45-10 in the NFC Championship and the narrative all week on Twitter was how the Panthers defense was going to destroy Peyton Manning and how this was a huge mismatch for Denver.
Sports Illustrated did a segment where the writers of Pro Football Now made their Super Bowl predictions:
“While the sentimental side of most football fans will pull for Peyton Manning to win his second Super Bowl and retire, the Panthers are the deeper, more balanced team here. Quite frankly, they don’t really have a weakness. Carolina has the better quarterback in Cam Newton, the more explosive offense and a defense that is facing a Broncos’ offense that has struggled at times this season…And by Sunday Night, Newton will have as many rings as Manning has.”
8 of the 10 writers picked the Panthers to win.
Then the respected money in Vegas started coming in. The Panthers went from -6 to -5.5. The recreational bettor started getting confused at the line movement.
But before the spread moved, Spread Investor subscribers were sent this email for the big game:
“Seemingly everyone is betting on Carolina in this game as LV Sportsbook estimates that 85% of bets are on the Panthers. With that in mind, I’ll let you know I’m backing the Broncos strong. I went 10-3 ATS (77%) in January and I’ve also gone 3-0 ATS on Barstool Sports’ Lock of The Week. I’m taking the Broncos +6 for 10 units, my highest rated play.”
The biggest reason an upset looked ripe was that Von Miller and Demarcus Ware just destroyed the Patriots offensive line and if they did the same to the Panthers then Cam would be kept in the pocket and have a tough time scrambling. If the Broncos pass rush got to Newton this game would be much more about Cam handling the Broncos secondary than it would be Manning handling the Panthers defense.
Von Miller strip sacked Cam Newton in the 1st quarter for a Broncos TD.
“Underdogs are 10-3 ATS the last 13 Super Bowls and Tom Brady lost ATS all 4 times he was a favorite in the Super Bowl, so we’re supposed to sit here and act like Cam Newton is invincible?, another perspective on the game I sent out to my clients.
It would’ve been too easy to just follow the masses and not look at this game from different perspectives.
The Broncos won 24-10, Spread Investor clients won a 10 unit play and hit the +200 moneyline. We hit Under 45 as well. 13-3 ATS run to finish the season.
It’s easy to let other people’s opinions do the work for you – just do a scroll down Twitter or listen to guys from work. Watch enough ESPN coverage from guys not even playing against-the-spread and you’ll have enough opinions and predictions to paraphrase to your friends for days. It’s harder to get the right information and find the right people to listen to, especially when almost all of your friends and coworkers are so strongly in favor of one team. You feel stupid and nervous for thinking differently.
The big respected money that came in on the Broncos from Wednesday on leading up to kickoff didn’t give a shit about what anybody else thought about the game. They listen and follow a select few people but ultimately they trust their own knowledge & intuition.
It’s this type of mentality that moved the Panthers from a 6 point favorite to a 5 point favorite by kickoff despite the overwhelming Panthers support.
Super Bowl 50 reported huge winnings for Las Vegas after the public got slammed- “We had a really good Super Bowl,” Ed Salmons of the Westgate SuperBook said. “No complaints here. The handle was the most we’ve ever had, and the win was really good.”
Those winnings were the result of public mentality on the most bet game in NFL history. Not all games with huge public support end up losing (and not everybody that played the Panthers is a Public Joe), but more public opinions lose than win in the long-term and you can seriously capitalize in the long-term by having knowledge and experience that most of the public can only wish they had.
