By now you know that the return of a Chargers fumbled lateral by the Steelers on the last play of the game should have counted, and at 18-10 instead of 11-10, the Steelers would have covered the spread instead of the Chargers. The pointspread implications make for an interesting story, but like most sports betting news items, it is one that is being sloppily and inaccurately reported.

In his popular Monday Morning Quarterback feature, Sports Illustrated’s Peter King led with the following:

No, I don’t believe the final play in the Steelers-Chargers game is scandalous. The referee, Scott Green, made a mistake. A $66 million mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

King goes on to “report”:

The problem is the Steelers were very heavy betting favorites in this game. One Vegas bookie said last night that $100 million was bet on this game alone, with $66 million of that bet on the Steelers. The Steelers were four-point favorites. Instead of winning 17-10 or 18-10, the Steelers won 11-10. Thus they didn’t cover, much to the angst of gamblers around the United States. The call led to the conspiracy theory that somebody must have been in on the action to influence such a gigantic swing in the betting line.

There are only three problems with King’s story:

1. There’s no suggestion by any credible source that any official at any point in the process was part of a gambling scandal. Yet King initiates his column seeking to disprove a “scandal” that nobody else is talking about.
2. No Las Vegas bookie stated that there was $100 million wagered on the game, nor that the money was 2-1 in favor of the Steelers, nor would a Vegas bookmaker, or anyone at all, have access to industry-wide information like that.   A bookie would know what the figures were at his shop, or his chain of books, but that’s it.  But around the world?  Please. The $66 million figure is a complete fabrication.
3. There was no “gigantic swing in the betting line”.  In fact the sentence, “The call led to the conspiracy theory that somebody must have been in on the action to influence such a gigantic swing in the betting line.” makes no sense on any level.  The betting line can’t change after the game has started, and certainly can’t change as the game ends.  I guess King’s meaning to say something like “nobody involved in the process made an intentional decision to influence the betting result.”  But instead, the most influential NFL writer in the business spews out some sort of gobbly goop that doesn’t make a lick of sense, and it flies right past his editors.

King wasn’t the only news source to irresponsibly treat these made up figures as fact. The Los Angeles Times web site “reported“:

No, the real story is that $100 million was bet on this game, two-thirds of it on the Steelers, who were five-point favorites.

At least the Times didn’t try to manufacture some sort of scandal out of the odd result.  But who says that those betting figures are the “real story”?

Let’s examine what’s being reported as news, and  compare it to what is actually known here.

Who’s Riding the Steelers? The Steelers are popular, and have a national following, but what would cause such a surge in betting on the Steelers?  After all, Pittsburgh is a team that had failed to cover four of their last five as a favorite and hadn’t covered a home game since their season opener September 7th against the Texans.   It’s not like people were riding their success, instead Steelers bettors would have been licking their wounds from their recent lack of pointspread success.

Line Moves Indicate Wagering Action on the Chargers: There’s no immediate source for wagering volume, and certainly no industry source for wagering volume on a game-by-game basis.  But importantly, the line movement suggests no such wave of play on the Steelers.  The vast majority of NFL betting takes place on gameday, and the line movement on this game suggested there was late money on the Chargers. The Steelers were a 5-point favorite in Vegas on Sunday morning, and were bet down to 4.5 at most spots, with the Hilton properties moving the game as low as 4 a half-hour before game time. Line movement at influential offshore sports books was nearly identical. If the casinos and offshore books were getting pounded with Steelers money, the line would have been moving up, not down.

Bob Scucci, who runs sports betting operations for the Boyd Gaming casinos in Las Vegas, told media outlets that his properties needed the Chargers, but other Vegas properties report average betting volume and a mixed results. A couple of offshore sources told me the action on the game was reasonably balanced for them.

Was $100 Million Bet on the Game? The $100 million figure is made up, like the 66% figure apparently tossed out there.  It is likely that a few million was bet on the game in Vegas.  Outside of Nevada, who knows? And it wasn’t all on the side.  Over/under wagers and teasers were unaffected by the officiating error.  $100 million in volume worldwide isn’t a bad guesstimate, but there’s no way of knowing.

Real Figures Impossible to Know:  Despite no background for these numbers, the $66 million figure has quickly becoming an established fact among media types who are either too lazy to do a little legwork or simply too unsophisticated to know how to get to the bottom of a story involving sports betting.  It is certainly illuminating to see influential media people reporting as fact stuff that is simply made up, which makes you wonder what else we see reported in these venues is simply tossed out there with no concern as to it’s accuracy and validity.