Forty years ago I was highly challenged while picking the winner in Super Bowl XVI between the San Francisco 49ers and Cincinnati Bengals.
Both teams were making their first Super Bowl appearances, and each won their conference championships on their home field. The Bengals beat the San Diego Chargers in Dan Fouts’ best chance of advancing to a Super Bowl in frigid conditions. The 49ers advanced to the last leg of the Vince Lombardi quest with “The Catch” by Dwight Clark that got the 49ers to a win over their long-time postseason nemesis, the Dallas Cowboys.
The point spread had been near pick ‘em most of the week with the 49ers nudging to a one-point favorite on game day.
I didn’t like taking the 49ers off their emotional win against the Cowboys, thinking the Super Bowl might have been one rung too far for an organization that was enjoying their first winning season in the three years Bill Walsh coached the team. San Francisco compiled regular season marks of 2-14 and 6-10, before their breakthrough 1981 campaign.
Forrest Gregg, was in his second season as head coach of the Bengals. Cincinnati was also coming off a losing 6-10 season before their Super Bowl berth and showdown with the 49ers.
On the Friday before the game, I went to Reno to meet with some sports book managers I knew and get their take on the game and what they were hearing. While there, I picked up a copy of a 32 page tabloid gambling paper produced in Vegas and filled with advertising from sports books, Jim Feist gambling outlets, Mike Warren’s services and features entitled “Denny the Dog” and “Gold Circle Selections.”
My trip around town on Friday further verified there were more questions on who was going to win this game than any one sided predictions. If the inside line dominates, the Bengals will win, one sports manager claimed. If the 49ers defense comes to play, they could get the title, another manager declared.
I got in my car to travel back to San Francisco that night and had tossed the Nevada publication on the passenger seat in my car. On Saturday morning, I was getting the daily paper off the driveway when I spotted that gambling sheet on my front seat, and after retrieving my keys from inside the house, pulled it out to peruse it over my morning coffee.
While this was my first season as a professional handicapper with Qoxhi Picks, my work in the previous decade had led me to all sorts of variables and tendencies involving what most influences an NFL result. What I was really in search of was the magic bullet, the one thing that always won.
Forty years later, I can tell you none exists.
Still, as I paged through this Nevada sports sheet I noticed something, all the headlines were positive for the Bengals and in negative terms for the 49ers. Bold type would pronounce the virtues of Ken Anderson while stories on the 49ers would be preceded by headlines that declared what problems the 49ers will confront.
The bold faced banner headline on the front page had three words, “Bengals, Bengals, Bengals”.
In smaller type under the headline the front page read, “Why the bookies are on Cincinnati.”
The pictures used throughout the 32 page tabloid always had the Bengals with smiles and on top of the action, while the photos of Joe Montana and others of the 49ers showed them with scowls on their faces and even slightly blurred.
I checked this publication for who the publisher was, and sure enough it was a product of the Vegas establishment funded by the books themselves.
Even in the early days of my work in this industry, I knew the books primary objective was to separate the gamblers from their money. And if this was them doing their job, this slanted publication was promoting the reader to bet on the Bengals.
For me, surmising who the books wanted the bettors to wager on was the tipping point in delivering the 49ers over the Bengals in Qoxhi’s first ever Super Bowl release.
The 49ers won, 21-16, covering the one-point spread.
I tell you that to alert you to a somewhat similar incident I noticed yesterday.
Someone dropped a hundred thousand dollar wager on the Chiefs giving the points and the sports book manager who took the wager told the assembled media that up to that point the bets were 2 to 1 on the Bengals, but this size of a wager could even the proposition out.
Really?
That is simply not true.
My actual research with book managers, clearly saw the Chiefs the bet-on team in this game by a 5 to 2 margin, and never less than 60% backing for the home standing Chiefs at any establishment.
Why would a book manager deliver false information to the press?
It must be to fulfill their primary objective; separate the gamblers from their money.
Is saying the Bengals are the choice two to one inspiring Cincinnati or Kansas City money?
I’m betting, for whatever reason they know, it is to entice gamblers to follow the big bet and take the Chiefs.
Rule number one in making money from sports wagering … never give the books what they want.