Betting Line Sports: How a couple of "off" lines helped put an end to the first Delaware sports lottery...

Betting Line Sports: How a couple of "off" lines helped put an end to the first Delaware sports lottery...
Story Submitted by Pro Football Weekly (PFW)
In my story on Delaware legalizing sports wagering — and the NFL's challenge to the state's sports lottery — I briefly wrote on the curious case of how the state's first attempt at sports gambling in 1976 broke down. In short, one of the reasons the game ultimately failed is that bettors pounced on some NFL betting lines that were significantly off.
According to a New York Times story from Dec. 15, 1976, the intrigue centered on two games played in the final week of the regular season. The Delaware State Lottery Commission, in conjunction with a Princeton, N.J. systems analysis company, installed the 49ers as 6½-point road favorites over the Saints and the Packers as 6½-point road favorites over the Falcons for the state's "Touchdown 2" wager, which required bettors to pick between four and 12 NFL games against the spread.
However, sharp bettors saw the two NFL differently. According to the Times account, Joseph L. Zambanini, "a Wilmington tile contractor who [said] that he is an amateur oddsmaker and has access to 'the Las Vegas line,' the gambling underworld's' football point spread," gave multiple interviews indicating that the "smart money" had New Orleans as three-point favorites and Atlanta three-point favorites. *** In short, the Delaware line was 9½ points off from the sharp bettors on those two games. The Delaware spreads, Zambanini said, according to the Times, were a way to make "easy money."
And money did flow into the sports lottery, three times as much as the previous week, according to the Times account. Paul M. Simmons, the state's lottery director, decided to shut down the game on Saturday, Dec. 11.
Something like that would never happen today, what with the wide array of betting information available electronically and the ability to update lines with a keystroke, but it is certainly a story those administering the new edition of the Delaware sports lottery will keep in mind.
So how did the games turn out? Here's another twist: The Packers beat the Falcons, 24-20 — and interestingly enough, Green Bay closed as a 2½-point favorite, according to the Dec. 20, 1976 issue of Pro Football Weekly. So those who bet the Packers at 6½ on a parlay card in Delaware lost, but those who got them in either in Las Vegas (or betting through some other means) won. Note that the closing number represents a 5½-point swing from the "smart money" spread that caused such a stir in Delaware.
In the other game, the Niners rolled, 27-7, making their backers in Delaware and elsewhere winners. The Niners closed as three-point favorites, according to our records, another big point-spread swing. Interesting that in both games, the final line started to approach the spread set in the Delaware lottery — but it was still several points off its original projection.
What do I make of all of this? How interesting would it have been to write about all of that at the time...
*** — (Something longtime PFW readers might enjoy and something that, me, as the resident handicapping historian, found rather interesting: The "early Las Vegas line" in the Dec. 13, 1976 issue of PFW, which went to press the Monday before the final weekend of the season, had Atlanta as a two-point favorite and rated San Francisco-New Orleans as a pick 'em. At that time, PFW also set its own line, and it installed Atlanta as a four-point favorite and New Orleans as a two-point favorite.)


Betting Line Sports: How a couple of "off" lines helped put an end to the first Delaware sports lottery...