Thanksgiving is a fantastic holiday for both NFL fans and sports bettors. The football action kicks off with Chicago Bears-Detroit Lions at 12:30 p.m. ET, Washington Redskins-Dallas Cowboys is next at 4:30 p.m. and it concludes with Atlanta Falcons-New Orleans Saints at 8:20 p.m. ET.
With most off work to celebrate the holiday, these games draw a massive television audience and, in turn, betting action.
The influx of money from recreational bettors provides interesting opportunities for sharps as oddsmakers have to monitor how public bias influences action coming from the masses.
As a result, wiseguys can buy back any value created by the overwhelming recreational money.
And according to The Action Network’s public betting data, wiseguys have already keyed in on Thursday’s Redskins-Cowboys NFC East matchup.
With Alex Smith out for the season following a gruesome leg injury in Week 11, BookMaker opened the Cowboys as 9-point favorites against Colt McCoy and the Redskins.
Fifty-nine percent of bettors want no part of McCoy and are instead laying the points with Dallas. However, the line has dropped to -7 at many shops across the market.
Why? Because actual money wagered on the spread is backing Washington.
While the Skins are only drawing 41% of overall tickets, those bets account for 59% of dollars, meaning that the larger wagers placed on this game are taking the points.
At the time of writing, there are still plenty of shops hanging Washington +7.5, which should attract even more wiseguy attention considering the importance of the key number of 7.
