|
April 2003
The National Hockey League ends its regular season, April 6. Then the real season, the playoff quest for the Stanley Cup, begins.
You can be forgiven if the above information generates a yawn.
In fact, while football, basketball and baseball account for roughly 90 percent of the total money wagered on sports in Nevada, the handle on hockey is so small that the sport is lumped into the humiliating "other" category with archery, auto racing, boxing, tennis, rugby, cricket, badminton, rhythmic gymnastics and tiddlywinks.
The problem with hockey is twofold: the wagering format is anything but simple and the game itself keeps changing.
As for betting, most bookmakers, including The Greek Sportsbook, use a spread line. Typical spread lines might look like this:
| Detroit Red Wings |
- 1/2 |
+115 |
| Washington Capitals |
|
-135 |
|
| Nashville Predators |
|
+150 |
| Ottawa Senators |
-1/2 |
-170 |
In the first example, bettors who prefer the Red Wings must lay a half goal but win $115 for every $100 they wager. Those who back the Caps receive half a goal and wager $135 to win $100.
In the second example, even though you lay a half goal on the Senators, you also must lay $170 to win $100. That's the wagering penalty imposed for betting a heavy home favorite against a weak team.
Using a goal or a goal and a half puck line plus a money line eliminates the possibility of a refund on a tie.
And that's where the problems begin. There can be no ties during the NHL playoffs so books abandon puck lines and opt for a straight money line. You can hardly blame the casual, unsophisticated bettor for being confused. No other major sport has separate wagering formats for its regular and post seasons.
But there's something else.
The game changed dramatically after New Jersey won the Stanley Cup in 1994. Although other teams had more talent than the Devils did, New Jersey showed that you could win with a disciplined, tight checking, defensive strategy. While it's true that a series of rule changes have helped thwart what the NHL deemed was a dull and boring brand of hockey, shrewd coaches and experienced players still know how to exploit subtleties in those regulations. Hence, today, variations of the goal draining "zone trap" still are practiced by a number of teams.
The paucity of scoring opportunities, coupled with the dilution of the League through expansion, has made the NHL much more competitive. While smooth skating teams (in other words, teams with Russians) still enjoy an advantage, it's not so decisive as to foreclose the possibility of upsets. For example, both in 1998 and 1999, the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 seeds in the Eastern Conference were eliminated in the first round of the NHL playoffs. Depending on your outlook, that's either ample proof of the balance or mediocrity of today's NHL product.
The narrowing of the bulge between the League's best and worst teams is really reflected in series playoff prices. During the years when Wayne Gretzky and Edmonton were racking up Stanley Cup titles, it was not unusual to see the Oilers open as -1000 or -1200 favorites (bet $1,200 to win $100) in the first round. These days, the best playoff teams are rarely more than -600 favorites in their opening round series. In 1999, for instance, the top ranked Dallas Stars were -650 against the Oilers; the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings were -450 against the Anaheim Mighty Ducks; and the Devils, the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, were only -300 against the No. 8 seed Pittsburgh Penguins.
Goals-per-game average last year was the lowest (5.23) since the 1955-56 season. A crackdown on obstruction penalties has raised that a bit this season but with overall scoring down so much over the last few years--totals that used to be 6 or 6 1/2 now are 4 1/2 or 5--the way bookmakers consider the odds on game sides has changed, too. Obviously, the fewer goals scored, the tighter the games. And with fewer goals being scored, each goal takes on added value. It's almost as if the bettors have created a new price on what half goals are worth.
Nowadays, the general consensus among oddsmakers and bookmakers is that a half-goal is worth about 50 cents during the regular season and 60 or 65 cents during the NHL Playoffs. In the early 1990s, when goal scoring was much higher, a half-goal was worth about 35 cents. Of course, assessing a half-goal's worth is similar to determining the value for the home court advantage in basketball or the home field advantage in football. Not only is such an assessment subjective, but the advantage might be greater against one team than against another.
When it comes to hockey, because of its complexity, it seems that both bet makers and bet takers always are skating on thin ice.
|
