Football Betting Weekly Public Action Report: Sharps vs. Squares

by Trevor Whenham - 9/16/2016

It's time for another season of my favorite series of articles of the year - the Public Action Report. This is when we let the line movement pick out our bets for us. We don't do any thinking or interpreting here. We just apply a specific criteria, and see what games fit the bill.

It sounds risky, but over the years it has been very good both at picking teams that will cover the spread and also at picking out underdogs that win outright and deliver nice returns on the moneyline.

It has unfortunately been a pretty slow start to the season this year. There were no games that matched the criteria last week, and there are just two college games this week. It's odd not to have any NFL games through the first two weeks, so hopefully that changes next week. What we do have, surprisingly, though, are two games featuring Big Ten teams. Fans of the conference won't be happy, though - in both cases we are advising you to pick against the Big Ten squad.

Before we get into the games we should look at the criteria - I don't expect you to blindly follow the picks without understanding what is going on. Sportsbooks won't tell us how much money is bet on each team in a game, but they will tell us what percentage of bets are on each team. To start, then, we are looking for lopsided games - contests in which at least 70 percent of bets have been on one side. When action is heavily on one side, we would typically expect the line to move to make the more-popular team less attractive. After all, books can make a profit without risk if the betting action is balanced between both teams, and making a profit is all books care about. What we are looking for here, though, is games in which the line movement has actually made the more popular team more attractive. A more attractive line will draw more bets - something books wouldn't want if the percentage of bets on each side reflected the amount of money on each side.

We can deduce, then, that for some reason books want more action on the team that already has drawn more of the bets. There are two main reasons that that could be the case. First, and by far the most common, is that a small number of sharp bettors have been betting on the opposite side as the public and been doing it in such high volume that they have actually bet more money than the much larger number of bettors on the more-popular team. The books are moving the line then to attempt to balance action and to dissuade more sharp action. Second, perhaps the books have some knowledge that makes them comfortable taking unbalanced action on the game because they feel they have an edge. Either way, the movement is a good indicator that something is going on in the game, and it means that we should pay close attention to the less popular betting choice.

Without further ado, then, here are the first two Public Action report games of the year:

Penn State (-8.5) vs. Temple (Saturday, Sept. 17, Noon ET): The Nittany Lions have drawn about 80 percent of the bets in this game as they get ready for the unpopular celebration of Joe Paterno during this game. Despite that lopsided action, the line opened at 9.0 and has made a slight dip down. It's not a significant move, but the direction of it in light of the action means that Temple is worth a look here. The Owls won this matchup last year as six-point underdogs, so they are capable of doing some damage. They had a really concerning loss to Army in the opener but bounced back well last week. It's not like Penn State is in a good place, either - they are coming off a loss at Pitt. They were 3.5-point road dogs in that one, so it wasn't an upset. Given the amount of trash talk they did towards their rival, though, it was a humiliating setback. Penn State narrowly covered that spread, but they had covered just one of their previous eight spreads, so they are not friendly to bettors. Temple is worth a close look here.

Ohio State (-1) at Oklahoma (Saturday, 7:30 pm ET): Nearly 80 percent of bets have been on Ohio State, yet this line opened with Ohio State favored by two points, and they are now favored at one. It seems like the line is again drifting in the other direction with 1.5 available in many spots, but the early movement is a clear sign that Oklahoma is worth a look. Oklahoma lost their opener to Houston, but there is no shame in falling to a team like that, and they bounced back and looked like a much better team in the second outing. Ohio State has been dominant so far, but they just haven't played anyone - Bowling Green and Tulsa are hardly elite squads. With so many new starters and young players, we don't know how they will respond in a game this significant and challenging. Oklahoma gets the nod here - at least by this criteria.

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