SOURCE: thestar.com

As much as the food editors dispensing chili recipes and advice on icing a cake in team colours, part of the annual Grey Cup buildup centres on the good, old point spread.

It's the professionals' opinion not necessarily of how the game will play out, but of how our friend, the bookmaker, can encourage equal wagering action on both sides.

Saskatchewan has opened as the 11- or 11½-point favourite over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to win Sunday's bun-throw. The over/under total runs from 49 to 50.

If the lopsidedness sounds insulting to the Blue Bombers, it needn't. Only three days ago, the Riders had been 7½-point underdogs in Vancouver and the Bombers themselves were a touchdown doggie to the Argonauts, who ended up doing all the barking. After a couple of playoff upsets, what's another?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants, the industry's bet-setting leader that provides the numbers to the Las Vegas casinos, does not reveal its opinion on the CFL until today. When it arrives, it won't be too far out of step with what is out there now on the Internet.

A man at LVSC yesterday said they happily post a line and a total, but no proposition bets, the kind that proliferate at Super Bowl time.

Those are little side wagers on things like number of pass completions, number of field goals and, Janet Gretzky's favourite, the coin toss. This being the Grey Cup, somebody should set an under/over on how many kegs of beer the patrons will go through at Spirit of Edmonton.