Vegas - Iowa at 8.5

Raziel

Raziel

Well-Known Member
Over/Under for season wins. This really concerns me. Vegas seems to be begging people to pick the over for Iowa.

Last year I looked at Oklahoma's Over/Under (at 10 I believe) and thought it would be a no brainer to bet Oklahoma - then a monumental number of injuries struck the Oklahoma team and they finished at 7 wins.

Vegas doesn't put out lines that will routinely lose them money, and Iowa's line makes me wonder what they know that I don't. With Iowa's favorable schedule and large number of returning starters, you would think Vegas would peg Iowa for 9 wins preseason....I know that .5 doesn't seem like that big of a difference, but in the gambling world, there is a HUGE difference between 8.5 and 9.
 
They have to set the line somewhere and all they had to do was read about how lucky we were last year. They arent interested in the Iowa fans placing bets. They want the east and west coast money that believes we were nothing but lucky last season and wont come close to being that lucky again.
Its a sucker bet alright.
I'm going to place a bet.
 
Iowa's schedule is favaorable in that most of our toughest games are at home. It's unfavorable that we don't play Illinois or Purdue. :)
 
Raziel said:
Over/Under for season wins. This really concerns me. Vegas seems to be begging people to pick the over for Iowa.

Last year I looked at Oklahoma's Over/Under (at 10 I believe) and thought it would be a no brainer to bet Oklahoma - then a monumental number of injuries struck the Oklahoma team and they finished at 7 wins.

Vegas doesn't put out lines that will routinely lose them money, and Iowa's line makes me wonder what they know that I don't. With Iowa's favorable schedule and large number of returning starters, you would think Vegas would peg Iowa for 9 wins preseason....I know that .5 doesn't seem like that big of a difference, but in the gambling world, there is a HUGE difference between 8.5 and 9.
Click to expand...

Look at it this way - do you think there is better chance that Iowa wins nine or more, or eight or less?
 
ShadasRevenge said:
Look at it this way - do you think there is better chance that Iowa wins nine or more, or eight or less?
Click to expand...

Considering what I know about Iowa I find it FAR more likely that Iowa would win 9 or more....thus, I think this line is rather puzzling.
 
With a VERY green offensive line like we have coming back, I think that over/under is proper and I would probably stay away from it (personally). Football is won in the trenches and I could see 10 games on the schedule go either way really with a missed field goal here or a few turnovers there. Don't get me wrong, Iowa will be favored in most of them but 4 close losses wouldn't surprise me either. We will not get blown out with our defense but as balanced as the Big Ten is this year and facing some pretty good defenses along the way, we will need to be able to run the ball and keep our defense off the field and get numerous 3rd and 3's, 3rd and 4's to keep the chains moving like we were able to do a year ago. If Bulage and Moeaki were back, I would be a lot more confident as we could slide Reiff over and would be even more in the Nat championship talk.

We have had problems with Northwestern and even Indiana (not great but one of their best teams in a decade and gave us all we could handle at home last year with a above average offense) and Iowa St are concerning. Michigan State is tough if Kirk Cousins gets hot, at AZ (Pac10 runners up a year ago and on the road), Penn St (top 25), Wisky (top 10), and OSU (top 5), at Michigan (won once there since 1990). For people to say this is an easy schedule are flat out looking at it with blinders, imo. Last year was an absolute dream season and up until the NW game, we either got or made our own breaks and the Hawks will have to try to do that again each and every week. Hope they can do it...but the schedule is once again very difficult.

- Ronnie Realistic
 
Raziel said:
Vegas doesn't put out lines that will routinely lose them money, and Iowa's line makes me wonder what they know that I don't. With Iowa's favorable schedule and large number of returning starters, you would think Vegas would peg Iowa for 9 wins preseason....I know that .5 doesn't seem like that big of a difference, but in the gambling world, there is a HUGE difference between 8.5 and 9.
Click to expand...

Look at it this way, if the O/U was 9.5 there would be a lot of money on the under. Not many would bet on 10-11 wins. So 8.5 sounds about right. They'll get plenty of "under" money, because we were 10-2 last year with lots of close calls.

Vegas expects 9 wins. More money likely to come on the "under" 9 than the "over" 9, thus the line.
 
hawkdrummer1 said:
I'm heading to Vegas in 10 days. If that Michigan number goes to 7.5 I'm betting the farm on under.
I'm already betting under on PSU. No way they win 9.
Click to expand...

Sept. 4: Youngstown State
Sept. 11: at Alabama
Sept. 18: Kent State
Sept. 25: Temple
Oct. 2: at Iowa
Oct. 9: Illinois
Oct. 16: OPEN
Oct. 23: at Minnesota
Oct. 30: Michigan
Nov. 6: Northwestern
Nov. 13: at Ohio State
Nov. 20: at Indiana
Nov. 27: Michigan State

9-3 seems pretty realistic for Penn St. They finally play a tough OOC game
 
I've never understood why people think Vegas "knows something". Do you really think they knew that Oklahoma would be struck by a rash of injuries?

In fact, I think the real problem is that people believe the line indicates what Vegas thinks will happen. From my point of view, the line indicates what Vegas thinks the gamblers will think. So when they put Iowa at 8.5, they think about half the people will take the under and half will take the over. Then they'll be right in the middle, take their cut and make a bunch of money.
 
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