What Vegas Thinks: Why Gamecocks’ betting line against East Carolina keeps on changing
What looked to be just another game for South Carolina in the Gamecocks’ Week 2 contest against East Carolina has proven to be one of the games to watch in the betting world.
ESPN Chalk gambling writer David Purdum joins us to talk about the fluctuating betting lines for the game and how much interest the contest has drawn this week.
NOTE: Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.
The State: Circa Sports had South Carolina as the favorite to win the game against East Carolina. What caused the shift to the Pirates?
David Purdum: “Circa Sports is one of the sports books in Las Vegas that kind of caters to professional bettors, so that definitely got an early sense of action on East Carolina that moved that number pretty quickly. I was looking at their Twitter feed just the other day ... so Circa opened up with South Carolina as a three-point favorite. The line swung all the way to East Carolina as a two-point favorite, so there was some influential money that came in on East Carolina as an underdog that pushed that line. I would note that now it seems to be swinging back that way. Several sports books have the game listed right now as a pick ‘em even. Circa is back down to East Carolina minus-1, so they’re getting two-way action on that game, which is kind of interesting because you wouldn’t expect that one to attract a lot of attention, but certainly the professional bettors did.”
Editor’s note: As of early Wednesday morning, some sportsbooks had South Carolina as a 1-point favorite. Others had the game as even. By mid-morning Wednesday, the Gamecocks were a 2- or 2.5-point favorite. And on Friday, ESPN Chalk and the VegasInsider consensus were at 2 points in favor of South Carolina.
TS: What do you attribute to that much interest?
DP: “Well, at this point in the season, everybody is going off their preseason power ratings and trying to adjust them. The power ratings before the season starts are the weakest. They have the least amount of information in there, but are guessing off the offseason and preseason to kind of establish them, so it’s not uncommon to see this kind of line movement early in the year on games when the oddsmakers have put up a number. The bettors may have a completely different power rating and clearly, in this case, they thought East Carolina was a little stronger in their power ratings than Circa Sports oddsmakers had it, so it’s not unusual to see kind of a vault in the line movement early in the season, but as we get later in the year, you don’t usually see that big of line movement as the bettors’ power ratings and the oddsmakers’ power ratings really kind of gravitate to each other and become very similar. It has moved. It’s very interesting in the number differential between the book bettors and the bookmakers.”
TS: Do you think the lines will continue to change or stay the same in the days leading up to Saturday’s game?
DP: “I wouldn’t be surprised if it changes again, especially later in the week. Betting limits tend to increase later in the week. These early week numbers that we get, the betting limits are much smaller. I think Circa was taking maybe $3,000. Later in the week, they’ll take $10,000, $20,000 and upwards of that in other books, so when you start seeing that bigger money, it could move. Which way it’ll move? That’s anybody’s guess right now.”
TS: Why do you think so many betting sites differ on the favorite?
DP: “I would say the same thing. Oddsmakers and bettors right now have varying power ratings. Their power ratings are what these lines are created from, so if some professional bettors have a different line or power rating on East Carolina, or some oddsmakers have different power rating on South Carolina, then you’re going to see kind of a variety of numbers. Now, you look at it and most of them are either pick ‘em or one, so they kind of timed it to gravitate toward each other and the market does settle down, so I guess the only thing I would say to readers is, it’s just not that uncommon at this period of time for that to move so much.”
TS: Overall, what are this week’s best national games in terms of betting volume?
DP: “It’s kind of a weak slate. Iowa-Iowa State, I know that they attract a lot of early attention. Iowa State opened up as high as a four-point favorite. That number dropped down to three and it came back up to four, four-and-a-half now, so I would expect that one to generate some interest. Texas-Arkansas, you know SEC-Big 12, future SEC rivals there. I’m sure that’ll get some interest as well. Those two right now stand out to me as the two that’ll attract the most betting attention.”
This story was originally published September 8, 2021 at 9:08 AM.
