Westgate sports book manager Ed Salmons and Boyd Gaming sports book director Bob Scucci reported taking sharp action on Kansas State, a 5½-point underdog to Kentucky after the line climbed as high as 6½.
Todd Dewey
Todd Dewey covers sports betting for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
tdewey@reviewjournal.com … @tdewey33 on Twitter. 702-383-0354
Underdogs dominated Sunday, going 7-1 ATS with four outright wins as No. 1 Xavier, No. 2s North Carolina and Cincinnati and No. 3 Michigan State all were eliminated.
A CG Technology bettor lost a $20,000 three-team money-line parlay to win $870 on Purdue, North Carolina and Virginia when the Cavaliers became the first No. 1 seed ever to lose to a No. 16 seed.
Popular favorites Villanova, Kansas and Duke covered double-digit spreads, and there were buzzer beaters, bad beats and countless roars from the crowd on the first day of the NCAA Tournament.
Last year, an estimated $300 million was wagered on the 67-game tournament at Nevada sports books.
Top seeds Villanova and Virginia lead a pack of 10 teams with odds of 15-1 or less to win the NCAA Tournament. But MGM Resorts sports book director Jay Rood said there are better futures bets on the board.
No. 10 Butler, a 1-point favorite over No. 7 Arkansas, was the only lower seed favored over a higher seed when Las Vegas sports books posted the opening lines Sunday for the NCAA Tournament, which opens on Tuesday and starts in earnest Thursday.
While handicapper Micah Roberts predicts the Astros will repeat as world champions, the Giants, who won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014, are his sleeper pick at 30-1.
It won’t take a miracle for the U.S. men’s hockey team to win the gold medal this year — when the NHL won’t participate in the Winter Olympics — but the odds are against the Americans (10-1).
The mystery bettor — just call him Biff Tannen Jr. — who beat Las Vegas out of millions of dollars when he won all of his wagers on the World Series reportedly won more than $10 million on at least $7.4 million in money-line bets on Philadelphia, which closed at plus 170.
Professional sports bettor Erin Rynning is betting on the Patriots on the money line.
If, as expected, a federal ban on sports betting is lifted in the coming months, the NBA wants sports books to pay the league 1 percent of the money wagered on its games as an “integrity fee.”
One William Hill bettor lost a $250,000 wager he placed on the Patriots (-7) Saturday in Southern Nevada and another lost a $500,000 bet he placed Sunday at William Hill’s location at the Baha Mar Resort in the Bahamas.
The biggest bet South Point oddsmaker Jimmy Vaccaro ever took was a $2.4 million money-line wager from billionaire investor Carl Icahn in 1995.
A William Hill bettor lost $150,000 in money-line wagers on the Saints at 2-1 odds, a CG Technology sports book bettor also lost a six-figure money-line wager on New Orleans and a Caesars Palace sports book bettor lost a money-line wager of more than $50,000 on the Saints.
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