Raiders open as underdogs for first game at Allegiant Stadium

The Raiders will almost surely be underdogs when they open Allegiant Stadium.

The New Orleans Saints were listed as 4-point favorites over the Raiders (total 50½) for their Week 2 meeting at the Westgate on Thursday as sportsbooks started posting lines for the NFL season after the league schedule was announced.

The Westgate posted spreads and totals for Weeks 1 and 2. William Hill posted spreads and totals for Week 1. Caesars Entertainment posted spreads for Week 1 and the Saints-Raiders game. (Caesars makes the Saints 4½-point favorites, down from a 5½ opener.)

The Raiders are a pick’em at the Westgate and Caesars for their season opener at the Carolina Panthers (total 46½). William Hill posted the Panthers -1.

Westgate vice president of risk Ed Salmons said the sportsbook would be playing close attention to the betting public’s reaction to the Raiders in their first season in Las Vegas.

“It’s hard to tell what influence the Raiders will have on the town compared to the Knights,” he said. “It they start scoring and winning, people will get behind them quickly.”

Salmons was already envisioning a scenario in which the public backed the Raiders against a rebuilding Panthers team in Week 1. If the Raiders won convincingly, then they might become a popular home underdog against the Saints, creating a lot of liability in what would already be a heavily bet Monday night game.

The Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs are set to open the season at home Thursday, Sept. 10, against the Houston Texans. The Chiefs were installed as 10½-point favorites at the Westgate (total 56½) in a rematch of last season’s wild divisional playoff game that saw Houston take a 24-0 lead before Kansas City erupted for a 51-31 victory.

The Dallas Cowboys are 3-point favorites (total 50) at the Los Angeles Rams in the Sunday night opener, the first game at the Rams’ new SoFi Stadium.

In the Week 1 Monday night doubleheader, the Pittsburgh Steelers are 3½-point road favorites (total 48½) at the New York Giants, and the Denver Broncos are 3-point home favorites (total 42) over the Tennessee Titans in the nightcap.

Quarterback Tom Brady is set to be an underdog in his first game after leaving the New England Patriots, as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 4½-point underdogs at the New Orleans Saints. ESPN Stats and Info said Brady had been favored in 74 straight regular-season games.

The Patriots are 6½-point home favorites over the Miami Dolphins in their first game without the six-time Super Bowl winner.

Salmons said Brady was more of a question mark than the Buccaneers, who went 7-9 despite quarterback Jameis Winston throwing 30 interceptions.

“Their weakness was that Winston wouldn’t stop throwing interceptions for touchdowns,” Salmons said. “The books always thought more of Tampa than the public. But you could argue that Brady’s last year in New England was awful.”

The Westgate reopened its betting app Thursday for the first time since the casino shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Salmons said he already had basic numbers in place for every possible game, then he and three other members of the Westgate team hashed out the lines once the schedule came out.

“It was good to see everyone,” he said. “It was good to see American sports on the screen.”

Salmons said the Westgate planned to post NFL game of the year lines, including on every prime-time game and all Raiders games, in the next week, possibly as soon as Sunday.

Contact Jim Barnes at jbarnes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0277. Follow @JimBarnesLV on Twitter.