The clich\u00e9 states that there are two certainties in life \u2014 death and taxes. Here\u2019s a third: Betting will be huge on the NFL regular-season opener, even with an unusual Wednesday kickoff, as is the case in NFL Week 1 odds for the Patriots vs. Seahawks clash. “It doesn\u2019t matter what day the NFL starts \u2014 Tuesday or Wednesday, or a day that\u2019s not even one of the seven,” DraftKings Sports director of operations Johnny Avello said. “Whatever day they start, there\u2019s gonna be a huge audience, and it\u2019s gonna be a heavily bet game. “You could\u2019ve put Jets vs. Titans on Wednesday and still gotten good handle. But since it\u2019s Patriots-Seahawks, it\u2019s gonna be one of the bigger starts to any season.” Avello helps break down Patriots vs. Seahawks odds, in this rematch from Super Bowl 60. This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX Sports may be compensated. Read more about Sports Betting on FOX Sports. Patriot Plays Back in mid-May, DraftKings opened the Seahawks as 3.5-point home favorites for Wednesday\u2019s 8:20 p.m. ET kickoff, and the spread stuck there all summer. “There was absolutely no movement for months,” Avello said Tuesday afternoon. “That doesn\u2019t mean it wasn\u2019t generating good action. There was just no need to move. “But as of Monday, we went to Seahawks -3 (-118).” The reason for that? More bettors are weighing in on the Patriots and in multiple ways. “I knew bettors would take the Patriots on the moneyline. Now, they\u2019re taking the Patriots with the points,” Avello said. “So it\u2019s no surprise that the line dropped to 3. I\u2019m not sure that we\u2019ll see 3.5 again.” So where does Avello see action going as kickoff draws closer? “I\u2019m almost certain that the Patriots will continue to be bet on the moneyline,” Avello said, noting New England is currently +142 to pull the outright upset. “A lot of Patriots bettors are gonna take the plus number to win this game straight up.” Which means DraftKings will likely be rooting for what\u2019s termed a Super Bowl middle, where the favorite wins, but the underdog covers. So something like a Seattle 23-21 victory would be welcomed by bookmakers. “We find ourselves in that situation quite a bit. We could be in that same position for 49ers-Rams on Thursday.” More Scores DraftKings\u2019 Patriots-Seahawks total has been stagnant all offseason, opening and remaining at 44.5. And on Tuesday afternoon, on straight bets, it\u2019s actually almost dead-even two-way action. But rest assured, the public betting masses will flock to the Over between now and kickoff, if not on straight bets, then certainly on parlays\/same-game parlays and such. “I wouldn\u2019t expect us needing the Over, even though the total has been pretty steady,” Avello said. “I can\u2019t see the public betting anything but the Over.” Player Prop Pops Another big element of Wednesday\u2019s game \u2014 and every game in NFL Week 1 odds, for that matter \u2014 is player props. These offerings have grown exponentially over the past few years. Specifically, bettors love wagering on Player To Score First Touchdown and Anytime Touchdown. “First Touchdown Scorer and Anytime Touchdown Scorer are the biggest prop bets on our network,” Avello said. “And on in-game wagering, we\u2019ll have Next Touchdown Scorer and those types of props.” So far, a couple of running backs are popular TD plays. “Jadarian Price and Rhamondre Stevenson have taken some money on both anytime touchdown and first touchdown,” Avello said of the Seahawks and Pats running backs, respectively. Price and Stevenson are +650 co-favorites to score the first TD on Wednesday night, with Stevenson +110 and Price +130 to score an anytime TD. Patriots wideout A.J. Brown, formerly with the Eagles, and Seahawks wideout Jaxon Smith-Njigba are also getting attention in both markets, as will plenty more players by kickoff. Smith-Njigba is +800 in First TD and +135 in Anytime TD, while Brown is +1000\/+155. “Touchdown scorers seem like the props that have really resonated with bettors and get the most handle of all the prop bets,” Avello said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The clich\u00e9 states that there are two certainties in life \u2014 death and taxes. Here\u2019s a third: Betting will be huge on the NFL regular-season opener, even with an unusual Wednesday kickoff, as is the case in NFL Week 1 odds for the Patriots vs. Seahawks clash. “It doesn\u2019t matter what day the NFL starts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}