The NFL opener regularly turns into one of the most combined regular season games of the whole year, and Thursday’s match between the Dallas cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles is no exception.
As the last bet is placed when Thursday’s opening, game experts believe that hundreds of millions of dollars will be at stake across the country only with American sports books, without including the quantity of play on daily fancy sites, prediction markets, offshore sports books and with local bookmakers.
“The excitement of the return of football really reigns the bettors,” said Joey Feazel, who oversees football chances for Caesars Sportsbook, adding that the company almost tripled in Paris for football in preparation for the NFL season. “Eagles-Cowboys lines up to be the biggest bet of the opening week so far, and we would expect it to lead us in the handle during the season.”
In 2024, only the Super Bowl and two conference championship games attracted more money from the bettors to the Draftings than the opening of last season between the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City chiefs. ESPN Bet said that more bets had been placed on the opening of ravens-chiefs than any other match during the regular season, and Caesars Sportsbook said that the first two isolated games of week 1-Ravens-chef and Packers-Eagles-Both ended in the top 10 of the most heavily paired games throughout the regular season.
The operators of the season in other major American sports, such as the NBA, the NHL and the major leagues baseball, do not receive the same peak of interest as the first match of the NFL season, according to bookmakers, partly because of the sports calendar.
The volume of Paris decreases considerably during the summer, before taking off in September. Colorado Sportsbooks said it had taken $ 173.1 million in Paris on professional football last September. It is almost as much as the bet on baseball in August and July combined, according to the Colorado Department of Return. The seasons of the NBA and the NHL start from mid-October to the end, when the football season reaches its point halfway.
“You get the countdown of the NFL – ‘181 days in football’ – the whole off -season” “, told Johnny Avelo, Director of Sportsbook in Draftings and a 40 -year -old Las Vegas bookmaker.” When football arrives here, [bettors] Have reserved money. “”
Ed Salmons, a veteran of Las Vegas Oddsmaker with the Westgate Superbook, recalled the point of the interest of the bets which occurred when sports returned from the stop of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
“When Covid occurred and the world stopped and baseball started, I remember the first week of baseball, our round was … I had never seen anything like it,” said Salmons. “They just wanted to bet.”
Excessive demand for similar football generally lasts the first two months of the season, say the bookmakers, before leveling after Thanksgiving. The early success rate of bettors also plays there.
“When you look at your handle [the amount bet]Not to mention the matters of the playoffs, generally weeks 1 and 2 are the highest weeks of the season, “said Salmons.” Obviously, if the public does good the first two weeks, it will continue in weeks 3 and 4. “
But, for the bettors, the first match of the NFL season generally exceeds them all.
“Let’s just say they have more money to start the year at first,” said Salmons.
The Eagles grow the favorites on the cowboys visiting during the opening of the season of Thursday, which, from Wednesday, was the most betting game of week 1 by a “considerable margin” in ESPN Bet.
