Public bettors backing Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills on Thursday Night Football
The Week 8 edition of Thursday Night Football features two teams that need a win desperately — the Buffalo Bills and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The Bucs started the season 3-1 before heading into an early bye week. After coming out of the bye, the Bucs have lost to the Detroit Lions (20-6) and Atlanta Falcons (16-13), both at home.
This week they travel to Buffalo to take on a Bills team that sits at 4-3 after somewhat head-scratching losses to the New York Jets in Week 1 (22-16 without Aaron Rodgers) and New England Patriots (29-25) last week.
The Bills opened as 8-point favorites and are up to -8.5, while the consensus total has ticked down from 43.5 to 43.
“Betting so far has been relatively quiet, with ticket counts relatively split,” Chuck Esposito, sportsbook director at Station Casinos, said via text. “More parlay money on Buffalo money line and clearly more tickets and money on the OVER.”
Despite their record, the Bills are still among the favorites to win the Super Bowl (12-1 at BetMGM, sixth-best odds), but this is an important game for them as injuries (Matt Milano, Tre’Davious White) are starting to pile up.
At DraftKings Sportsbook, 57 percent of wagers and 79 percent of the total dollars were on Buffalo -8.5, and a whopping 82 percent of bets and 78 percent of money were on the Bills ML.
Thomas Gable, sportsbook director at The Borgata in New Jersey said via text that he’d received “some early money on Buffalo” as well.
The Bills are 3-4 against the spread, while the Bucs are 3-3. Buffalo is 3-4 to the OVER, while Tampa Bay is among the league’s worst at 1-5.