The San Diego Chargers usurped the Oakland Raiders this morning as the team with the most significant positive line value in week 3.
While peak expectations for the Titans cast Tennessee as two point favorites (at some shops) over the visiting Raiders, Oakland backers have since come on strong. Accordingly, the line has shifted to cast the Raiders as 1.5 point favorites. As far as we can tell, this change unfolded absent any new fundamental development of substance. We recommended Oakland +1.
The Indianapolis Colts appeared as 2.5 to 3 point favorites over the visiting San Diego Chargers on boards across Vegas as well as offshore until Saturday, when betting markets began pricing in the potential of Andrew Luck's absence. This consideration triggered a three to four point swing, shifting the line to Chargers -1. This morning though, CBS Sports' Jason La Canfora confirmed than Luck will in fact start for the Colts. Accordingly, Indy has regained favor, but as the Colts are now expected to win by 1 to 1.5 points, the line has clearly moved San Diego's direction, consistent with our Chargers +3 pick.
It appears as though the Los Angeles Rams too have garnered significant backing from sharps. For much of the week, the line bounced between the Bucs as 4.5-6 point favorites. However, today, the spread has contracted meaningfully to 3.5.
Interestingly, this tightening has unfolded even as support for the Rams (by volume of spread bets) has declined. This condition constitutes a reverse line movement, which is hypothesized to represent the action of smart money bettors. Research has found that intra-conference reverse line movements are especially predictive. As such, we regard this circumstance as supportive of our Rams +6 wager.
Unfortunately, the line has moved against our bets in a couple of situations. For one, the 49ers were billed as 9-9.5 point underdogs much of last week. Yesterday though, the line started to creep higher, and now rests at 10-10.5.
This is particular move is more significant than a shift, for instance, from 8 to 9 because the home team by 10 is a more frequently recurring margin than -9. To this point last season, the home team won by 9 twice, but won by 10 on nine occasions. That bookies are willing to fork over to underdog bettors the increased PUSH potential (and reduced losing potential) that +10 affords over +9 hints at high confidence in a Seahawks win by greater than 10 is fairly high.
Further, increasing point spread expectations for Seattle, despite a minority of betting volume support constitutes an aforementioned intra-conference reverse line movement. This is cause for concern for our Niners +9 pick.
Finally, the Denver Broncos line has also moved off of a key level -- from +3 to +3.5. This reset means that a three point Bengals straight up win translates to a win for Broncos ATS supporters, rather than a PUSH, especially significant as a home team win by three is THE most common outcome in professional football. As with the Niners contest, this spread change too signals higher confidence (versus a random half point widening) by bookmakers in a Cincinnati win by more than a field goal.
Further, given Cincy's 41% share of spread betting volume, this move likewise constitutes an (anxiety-producing) reverse line movement, calling our Broncos +3 play into question.
We illustrate below a final view of the wagers we recommended (and bet) for week 3, along with the changes in the lines and juice since we committed (source: BovadaLV). Of our nine remaining week 3 spread plays, six have experienced positive line movement (either through the spread and/or vig moving our way), two have seen negative line movement and one is unchanged.
Happy betting!!