How weather impacts Steelers-Bills betting, over/under - ESPN

The over/under total at sportsbooks for one of this weekend's wild-card games dropped dramatically earlier this week. The reason? The weather.

Before the game was moved from Sunday to Monday, the Buffalo Bills, no strangers to frigid conditions, were set to host the Pittsburgh Steelers in 40 mph winds. Sports bettors and bookmakers took notice. The consensus opening odds for the total points scored fell rapidly from Sunday to Monday, with the over/under in the Bills game quickly falling from as high as 43 to as low as 35.5. (It was pulled off the board on Saturday and reopened at 38.5.)

«Once the news comes out that there's horrible weather, [the under] just gets pounded relentlessly,» Adam Pullen, assistant director of trading for Caesars Sportsbook, said. «It's going to be interesting to see where the bottom is. Where do the sharps start betting the over?»

At BetMGM, that number was 35.5, a full 6.5 points lower than the opening number. Christian Cipollini, trading manager for sportsbook BetMGM, said the forecast for Buffalo prompted a flurry of bets on the under from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. ET on Monday. Cipollini said they moved the total quickly but still struggled to slow down the rush of bets on the under.

«Every time that we thought that we had gotten to a place where the action would end, it just kept going lower,» Cipollini told ESPN.

Kansas City is also expecting extreme weather for the Dolphins-Chiefs game Saturday, but that forecast didn't have the same impact on the betting line.

«The wind is usually actually the bigger indicator of changes to what that total will be, more so than in that Chiefs game that also is going to have some weather,» Cipollini said.

Weather still could be a factor Monday, with forecasts