The NFL says it publishes injury reports for the specific purpose of maintaining the integrity of the game, preventing insiders from profiting off information by gambling with knowledge of a player’s availability that the general public didn’t have. The rapid changes to the point spread on today’s Bears-Ravens game shows just how valuable injury information is.
The spread, which opened with the Ravens as 6.5-point favorites, shifted dramatically on Saturday when the Ravens announced that Lamar Jackson would not play, and acknowledged that their Friday injury report, listing Jackson as a full participant in practice, was inaccurate. The spread quickly moved by five points, to the Ravens becoming only 1.5-point favorites Saturday afternoon, after the news that Jackson would miss the game.
As of early Sunday morning, the Ravens are 2.5-point favorites.
The reason for the line movement is that many bettors started betting on the Bears once the Ravens acknowledged that Jackson wasn’t healthy enough to play. So the people who knew before the announcement that Jackson wasn’t healthy enough to play had a major betting advantage. And people on the Ravens — players, coaches, other team employees — who knew that Jackson hadn’t actually been a full participant in practice had the kind of inside information that gamblers crave.
Anyone in the sports world who didn’t realize before how important it is to be transparent about injury information should have realized it three days ago, when current and former NBA players and a current head coach were arrested by the FBI in a gambling probe. Among the charges is that former NBA player and coach Damon Jones influenced bets on NBA games by sharing privileged information about players’ injuries. In the NFL, the very purpose of the injury report is to prevent anyone from having privileged information — injury information is supposed to be public.
In the case of Jackson’s injury, the full information wasn’t public. Once it became public, the point spread changed dramatically.
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