- Week 3 of the NFL season is in the books with only three undefeated teams and four winless teams remaining.
- San Francisco, Dallas and Kansas City attracted the most straight betting action against the spread.
- Sharp bettors with a contrarian bent love to follow betting data in an effort to fade the ‘public’.
In our previous article, we looked at the carnage that was the Week 3 Circa Sportsbook Pro Football Survivor Contest where 58% of the field was knocked out on Sunday. The big blow there was dealt by the Jacksonville Jaguars losing outright as -7.5 home favorites to the Houston Texans. That eliminated an absurd 2,421 entrants. Typically, whenever there’s an upset that decimates a contest like this one I can explain why it was a bad play. This one wasn’t too bad IMO. The ‘public’ might not have noticed the dramatic week to week improvement of CJ Stroud, but that doesn’t negate the fact that Jacksonville just laid an egg against a team they should have beaten on their home field.
The Week 3 NFL betting data continues, this type from Tipico Sportsbook. The well known European sportsbook now serves clients in Colorado, Iowa, New Jersey and Ohio and always shares some interesting insights. For Week 3, 52% of totals market handle was on the ‘OVER’, a five percent decrease from Week 2. 41% of the moneyline handle was on road teams after 57% betting on road teams in Week 2. Other than a lot of ‘public’ teams playing on the road in Week 2, this is a tough one to explain. It might have to do with Tipico’s client base–Ohio had the heaviest NFL action in Week 3 and both the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals were playing at home.
There’s been a lot of talk that the ‘bread and butter’ straight bets are no longer of interest to the sports betting market of today. Tipico’s data suggests otherwise. 70% of their handle was on moneyline, spread and total bets. The most popular player prop market was ‘Anytime TD scorer’ with 78% more handle than the #2 player prop, Player Receiving Yards. If I remember correctly, the ‘To Score Anytime’ prop is the most popular in European soccer player prop markets. Player Receptions saw the market handle increase by 18% pending the two Monday night games.
A couple more notes about the player prop market: Christian McCaffrey, Travis Kelce and Justin Jefferson were the top three in the ‘Anytime TD’ market. Overall, players bet nearly 81% of the player prop bet handle on the ‘Over’. This was an 11% increase over Week 2 and all you need to know about why ‘Sports Handicapping 101’ dictates to always take a look at the ‘Under’ in these markets.
The top five games by handle were the Giants at 49ers, Steelers at Raiders, Bears at Chiefs, Cowboys at Cardinals and Titans at Browns. Not surprisingly, the The 49ers, Cowboys, and Chiefs were the top 3 most bet on teams to cover the spread in Week 3 (by number of bets).
