Future odds offer preseason kicks

August 7th, 2008

Matt Villano

Most pundits agree that the 2008-09 professional football season will result in continued frustration for both the 49ers and the Raiders. Still, these bleak predictions haven't stopped local bettors from lining up to place their future bets before the season kicks off on Sept. 4.

As the term implies, "future" bets are speculative wagers on a sport or sporting event that hasn't happened yet. Generally speaking, most sports books offer future odds at the start of a season.

While there are no (legal) sports books here in California, there are plenty in Nevada and online, giving gamblers many places to bet. And judging from the action on the Raiders and 49ers, it's clear that local football fans are turning out in big numbers to throw money behind their teams.

Consider this: When oddsmakers at MGM/Mirage properties in Las Vegas (including the Mirage, Bellagio and MGM Grand) hung futures odds on teams to win the Super Bowl, the Raiders opened at 100:1 while the Niners opened at 125:1. Last week, however, those odds had shrunk to 35:1 for the Raiders and 50:1 for the Niners.

Generally speaking, oddsmakers move the lines when they see action on the opposing side. According to Jay Rood, the new race and sports book director at MGM/Mirage, that was precisely the case for futures odds on the Raiders and Niners this year.

"We got a ton of action on those early numbers, and our numbers moved accordingly," he says. "Any time you're a fan, it's always kind of fun to have the possibility of a fresh start, and a lot of fans like to bet that."

Still, in the wake of the New York Giants' improbable upset victory over the New England Patriots in last year's Super Bowl, other sports betting experts suggest that bettors gravitate toward more predictable future bets.

Steve Budin is CEO of SportsInfo.com, a Web site that doles out sports betting advice, and he says the best values before the NFL season starts are over/under wagers. With these, oddsmakers predict that a team will win a certain number of games during the season, and gamblers wager on whether the team will win more or fewer than this amount.

Interestingly, the over/under number for both the Raiders and the Niners for the 2008-09 season was right around 6 (some books had the Niners at 5.5). In the case of the Raiders, Budin says taking the "over" might make some folks rich.

"I'm not high on the Broncos or Chiefs at all, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Oakland start to turn the corner this year, especially with such a strong (on paper, anyway), defense," he writes in a recent e-mail.

As for the Niners, Budin is equally optimistic: "I really like San Francisco to finish with at least six wins (again, weak division) and even flirt with .500," he writes.

With this advice, choose wisely. The opening kickoff on the 2008-09 season is Sept. 4, four weeks from today.