Football props aren’t so new

By Jeff Haney (contact)

Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Head-to-head player matchups and other oddball football proposition wagers are often treated like a recent phenomenon, a modern-day corruption of the standard straight bet on which team will win the game.

That’s not so, according to an old edition of the Gold Sheet, the venerable sports handicapping newsletter.

Evidently, football props have been part of the sports betting scene at least since the 1920s — though they weren’t always called props.

On the West Coast in the ’20s, according to a column by Mort Olshan of the Gold Sheet, they were known as “freak bets.”

Olshan referred to an article in the Los Angeles Times on Dec. 4, 1926, previewing a USC-Notre Dame game on which there had been a significant line move. The odds on the favored Irish to win outright had dropped from 3-1 to about even money.

Olshan also quoted the Times story in noting that “among the freak bets registered on the USC-Irish game today was one of $10 to $5 that Morton Kaer, the All-American Trojan halfback, would make more yardage in the first half of the game than would John O’Boyle, the plunging Notre Dame fullback, during the same period of time.”

A player-vs.-player matchup on first-half total yardage sounds like a hard-core prop, which makes it seem likely it was just one of many freak bets on the Trojans-Irish showdown. Alas, the Times didn’t list any others. It’s too bad, because these freak bets are the forerunners of the myriad football props that generate so much attention today.

It’s not surprising Kaer was a 2-1 favorite, though. A 1924 Olympian, Kaer was coming off a season in which he set a school record for touchdowns that stood for decades, until it was broken by another running back with tenuous Las Vegas connections: O.J. Simpson.

Freaky.

A trend in the past couple of football seasons in Las Vegas has more sports books letting their freak flag fly, offering bettors a wider variety of props to analyze and perhaps attack.

Oddsmakers at Lucky’s sports book at the Plaza, for example, opted to treat this coming Sunday’s Patriots-Jets game like a postseason clash, releasing 10 head-to-head props based on the performances of quarterbacks Tom Brady and Brett Favre.

The series of props, posted well in advance of the Week 2 game, could be in jeopardy because of Brady’s knee injury Sunday against the Chiefs.

Whether Brady returns or sits out, analyzing the odds on such props can be helpful in deciding whether to risk money on similar opportunities.

In the Brady-Favre props, for instance, bettors can back either man in categories such as total passing yards, completions, pass attempts and touchdown passes.

Among the “yes/no” wagers are props asking whether either quarterback or both will throw an interception.

The price on Brady not to throw an interception, plus 115 (risk $1 to net $1.15), is much shorter than the plus 215 offered on Favre not to throw an interception but could be a better value.

To wit, in last year’s regular season Brady threw eight interceptions in 16 games, which makes plus 115 look attractive. In last season’s 19 games, including postseason action, Brady threw at least one interception in seven of them, which also makes the “plus money” on the “no” side look attractive.

In his past 14 games in which the Patriots were favored by more than 9 — an early point spread on the Pats-Jets game — Brady threw an interception in only four of them. (Interceptions are less likely when a quarterback is nursing a sizable lead.)

In the past four games in which Favre was an underdog, however, he threw an interception in four of them. From that angle, the split of minus 260 on the “yes” and plus 215 on the “no” appears reasonable.

Watch for similar props around town as the season progresses.

Oh, and the result of that USC-Notre Dame game from yesteryear? The Irish won, 13-12.

The bookies cleaned up.

Or, in today’s industry-speak, it was a “good result for the house.”