Betting the Spread

It is estimated that more money is bet on a Monday night football game than changes hands in that day's stock market. Americans bet at least $5 billion illegally a week on pro and college football. Minimum. As many as 40 million American adults placed $5.5 billion in bets on the Super Bowl, either with friends, in office pools or with bookmakers.

In 1976 Nevada's eight legal sports books handled nearly $57 million in wagers. For the year leading up to June 1996--the latest figures available--the state's 123 legal sports books handled more than $2.4 billion in sports bets. The money was handed over in cash. The great majority of it was placed on college and pro football games.

Credit the point spread. In the early Thirties, the only way to bet games was by the money line. Bookmakers quoted numerical odds on games: 2--1, 5--2, 4--1, 8--1 and so on. No one had yet thought of laying points instead of odds.

Obvious mismatches didn't attract serious money on either side. Gamblers weren't interested in putting up $500 to win $100, or $100 to win $20.

In 1938 that began to change, when the Chicago Gym Club, a hangout for sporting types, began taking bets on college and pro football games. The club offered the money line odds (2--1, 7--5, etc.) posted by Bill Hecht, a successful Minneapolis bookmaker whose betting lines were distributed by Gorham Press Football Service. Hecht's odds were so reliable that newspapers began publishing them as a service to readers. At the Chicago Gym Club, one of the bookmakers who used Hecht's line was Charles McNeil, a graduate of the University of Chicago and a whiz at math. In the early Thirties he worked as a securities analyst until after lunch, when he'd go to the club and book bets. By 1940 Hecht had invented what was known as the ''split line,'' which was used to bet college basketball games.

The split line was an ingenious wrinkle that worked in the following way: If Kentucky were favored to beat DePaul, the split line on the game might be Kentucky by 6/8--Kentucky bettors would collect only if the Wildcats won by more than eight points, while DePaul bettors would collect only if the Blue Demons lost by fewer than six points. If Kentucky won by seven points, bettors on both sides lost to the bookmaker, who had ''middled'' them. If Kentucky won by eight points, Wildcats bettors broke even (a ''push'') and Blue Demons bettors had to pay up. If DePaul lost by six points, DePaul bets were a push, and Kentucky bets were losers.

Bettors loved the novelty of this earliest known example of point spread betting. They stopped enjoying it within a year or two because bookmakers were cleaning them out. The split line was a great betting proposition--for bookies.

The split line also offered another precedent: a commission (gamblers call it vigorish) paid to the bookie. A winning $10 bet (in whatever multiple) resulted in a $9 win. The bookmaker's fee of a dollar equaled an 11 percent commission on losing bets.

Enter Ed Curd of Lexington, Kentucky, who by 1940 was taking the biggest sports bets in the country. Operating out of the Mayfair Bar in Lexington, Curd offered point-spread betting as we know it today. Curd also changed the vigorish. Instead of requiring bettors to lay $10 to win $9, he changed it to $11 to win $10--and that's still the standard today.

The point spread isn't a handicapper's best assessment of two teams' strengths and weaknesses. Ideally, the point spread will maximize betting interest in both teams. In January's Super Bowl the Packers were 14-point favorites over the Patriots. The $5.5 billion bet on the game was because fans of both teams thought their boys would beat the spread.

By the fourth quarter, the Packers had the game sewed up, but millions of Americans stayed glued to their TVs. With time running out and Green Bay ahead 35--21, bets on both teams would be won or lost if either team scored again.

Neither team did--95 percent of bets on the game ended in a tie--but that high level of suspense is why the Super Bowl is among the most watched programs shown on TV. Without point-spread betting, the Super Bowl wouldn't draw spectacular TV ratings. Without point-spread betting, pro football would probably be televised only by one or two cable networks. Without point-spread betting, pro football would be about as popular as tennis--or golf, B. T. (Before Tiger).

But that's another story.