SOURCE: Las Vegas Sun

In response to the insatiable demand for football betting opportunities among sports gamblers, it has become fashionable—even expected—for Las Vegas sports books to offer lines on dozens of games from the forthcoming season by early summer.

Whereas there were just a handful of these so-called "games of the year" available a few years ago, a leading sports book such as the Las Vegas Hilton now routinely posts as many as 80 NFL games and the same number of college football games, with other books offering a smaller selection.

A major target audience for the games of the year, oddsmakers have said, is visitors to Las Vegas who like to place a season's worth of wagers on their favorite teams during their trip to the only state with legal sports betting.

But more serious sports bettors—professionals and wannabe pros—also take their shots, trying to forecast moves in the point spread and lock in some value.

Their performance has been surprisingly erratic, however, especially in college football, where the talent disparity between opposing teams is often greater and point spreads fluctuate more than in the pros.

Even in the highly inexact discipline of projecting point spreads months in advance, their results usually end up all over the place, according to a review of how point spreads moved in games involving top college teams and whether those moves indicated which team covered the point spread.

For instance, consider the track record of Ohio State, last year's preseason No. 1 team, in its "games of the year" that were posted by oddsmakers in July.

In an early season game at Texas, the Buckeyes opened a 1½-point favorite according to the Hilton's games of the year, went off as a 3-point underdog on game day - yet easily covered the spread in a 24-7 victory.

A couple of mid-season games played closer to form. Ohio State went from -1 to -7 against Iowa and from -6 to -14 against Michigan State, winning and covering easily both times.

Then, in a late-season game against Michigan, even though the Buckeyes entered with a record of 11-0 straight-up and 9-2 against the spread, they went off as a 6½-point favorite after opening on the early line at -7. Ohio State won but failed to cover, 42-39.

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