There isn’t an award in the NFL for Organization of the Year, but if there were, send the trophy to the Philadelphia Eagles, who will meet the New England Patriots on Feb. 4 in Super LII.
Betting
Gun Runner, the 4-5 morning line favorite, drew post position 10, a major disadvantage in a 1 1/8-mile race where the horses enter the first turn almost as soon as they break from the gate.
If, as expected, a federal ban on sports betting is lifted in the coming months, the NBA wants sports books to pay the league 1 percent of the money wagered on its games as an “integrity fee.”
One William Hill bettor lost a $250,000 wager he placed on the Patriots (-7) Saturday in Southern Nevada and another lost a $500,000 bet he placed Sunday at William Hill’s location at the Baha Mar Resort in the Bahamas.
Assuming Tom Brady’s injured hand doesn’t affect him in a major way Sunday in the AFC championship game, the Patriots should advance to defend their Super Bowl championship.
We briefly detour off the road to the Kentucky Derby this week to consider the Pegasus World Cup, a little contest in Florida coming up next week that carries the distinction of being the richest horse race in the world.
The biggest bet South Point oddsmaker Jimmy Vaccaro ever took was a $2.4 million money-line wager from billionaire investor Carl Icahn in 1995.
A William Hill bettor lost $150,000 in money-line wagers on the Saints at 2-1 odds, a CG Technology sports book bettor also lost a six-figure money-line wager on New Orleans and a Caesars Palace sports book bettor lost a money-line wager of more than $50,000 on the Saints.
This weekend, we have two live ’dogs in the NFL playoffs. The Saints are getting 5 points at the Vikings, and the No. 1-seeded Eagles are catching a field goal against the defending NFC champion Falcons.
We should have majored in math or economics. If we had, this column might have been about us winning half a million dollars in the Westgate SuperContest Gold or $168,000 as the back-to-back winner of the Golden Nugget’s Friday Football Showdown.
We revisit last week’s Sham Stakes to highlight an angle that turned an unbettable race into an opportunity.
A year after all four home favorites won their wild-card games by double-digits and covered the spread, the weekend went to the underdogs, who finished 4-0 ATS with two outright upsets.
Nick Saban shoots for his fifth national championship with Alabama on Monday. Las Vegas sports books think the Tide will win — a 4-point opening line could be bet to 4½ or higher by kickoff.
Handicapper Hank Goldberg’s best bet for the NFL’s Wild Card weekend is the Kansas City Chiefs, who are 8½-point favorites over the Tennessee Titans on Saturday at Arrowhead Stadium.
The Sham Stakes at Santa Anita and the Mucho Macho Man Stakes at Gulfstream Park on Saturday give newly turned 3-year-old thoroughbreds their first chance to show their stuff in 2018.
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