What World Series? Bettors flock to Packers-Cardinals for Thursday night game
The traditional captivating force that is the World Series has a football companion in seizing the nation’s attention this week, as the unbeaten Arizona Cardinals measure their Super Bowl credibility in a Thursday night home game against the Green Bay Packers.
While Tuesday night’s Game 1 of the Fall Classic between the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves starts baseball’s seminal event, the gambling action on the Cardinals-Packers regular-season clash is astoundingly higher.
“As of right now, we have 90 percent more wagers on Packers-Cardinals compared to World Series Game 1,” Tipico Sportsbook Betting Analyst Sunny Gupta told Paste BN Sports Plus Monday afternoon.
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The frenzy was paused minutes later when word came that the Packers have placed leading receiver Davante Adams on the COVID-19/reserve list, imperiling his ability to play in the game and forcing books to temporarily take the game off the board.
Betting resumed with Tipico stretching the Cardinals from –3.5 to 6.5-point favorites while dropping the over-under total from 52.5 to 50.5.
The NFL’s superiority in popularity among sports gamblers may surprise the 50-plus crowd who grew up considering baseball the national pastime.
A pronounced disparity in NFL vs. MLB action is constant when the sports are pitted against each other on regular-season Sundays in September.
But a revelation of just how staggering the divide has grown was seen in last week’s Thursday night game between the Cleveland Browns and Denver Broncos when it outperformed by six-fold that night’s NLCS Game 5 between the Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers, according to Gupta.
And now comes this compelling desert visit by quarterback Aaron Rodgers and his 6-1 Packers to meet a Cardinals team tasting 7-0 for the first time since 1974 — 14 years before the franchise’s move from St. Louis to Arizona.
With an early claim at NFC supremacy at stake, the game ranks as the NFL’s marquee event thus far.
The meeting portends a competitive, offensive battle matching veteran Rodgers in perhaps his last season in Green Bay against the strong-armed Murray seeking to create his own legend.
In victory, Murray, a betting front-runner for MVP, could stamp his team as a true Super Bowl favorite following victories over the Los Angeles Rams and Tennessee Titans.
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Rodgers has led his team back impressively from its season-opening blowout loss to the New Orleans Saints, although the Adams uncertainty would severely hamstring his cause given Adams 52 receptions for 744 yards thus far.
Two of the prominent oddsmakers on The Strip are also bracing for an unprecedented rush of betting.
“Thursday (NFL) games, many times, are bad matches with low handle, but we got lucky with this … it could be the most-bet game of the week,” said BetMGM’s Director of Trading Jeff Stoneback. “We should double a usual Thursday.”
At Westgate Superbook, Race and Sportsbook Director Jay Kornegay said Packers-Cardinals should finish with a far greater handle than most Thursday games.
“I would suspect it would be on the plus side of the average by 25-30 percent,” Kornegay said.
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Routing the World Series interest comes even as expectations are that the baseball matchup will be tightly competitive with several ripe storylines.
With the Astros appearing in their third World Series in five seasons, they’ve built themselves as an obvious heel following the sign-stealing, garbage-can-banging scandal that stained their 2017 championship.
There’s also the endearing presence of Houston manager Dusty Baker going against his former team the same year Baker’s close friend and former Atlanta teammate Hank Aaron died.
The Astros are –145 favorites to win the World Series, according to Tipico, with the Braves listed as +125 underdogs.
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In Game 1, former Astros pitcher Charlie Morton, 37, will start for the Braves against Astros starter Framber Valdez, the 27-year-old who shut down the Boston Red Sox on one run in eight innings of work in Game 5 of the ALCS.
Houston is a –135 moneyline favorite in Game 1, with Atlanta at +110 and the over/under at 8.5.
The Astros opened the season as more than a 20/1 underdog to win the World Series, and the Braves were at 50/1 in July. Baker calls the events that led both teams here “storybook.”
Yet, meanwhile, at the sports book, the bettors are more enamored with the football game.
“No contest,” says Westgate Superbook’s Kornegay. “The gridiron game (will out-do the World Series at least) five times over.”