What Vegas thinks of the Gamecocks this week, and this season

quote:

---

David Purdum, gaming industry analyst for ESPN, joins The State for a third season of weekly visits to talk about South Carolina football, and how Las Vegas looks at the Gamecocks. Today, we talk about Thursday’s matchup against Texas A&M and what the “sharps” think about South Carolina.

---

quote:

---

They opened at 60-to-1 to win the national title at the LVH SuperBook. That opened up way back on the first week of January. They are now down to 30-to-1, so there has been enough action to drop their odds basically in half in the betting market. The other notable thing is the season win total. They were expected to win 9.5, you could bet over or under 9.5. As soon as the SuperBook put that up, they took three limit bets on over 9.5 wins. They usually take $1,000 on those early limit bets, so there was significant interest in the Gamecocks early on.

---

quote:

---

Yeah, 10.5 now, double-digit line, and I am with you. Kevin Sumlin has a really, really good record against the spread. Obviously, he’s had a bunch of success. The loss of Manziel is the big question mark about them. Ten and a half sounds like a lot to me, I agree.

---

quote:

---

You’ve got the big game week three when Georgia comes to South Carolina, and South Carolina is a 1.5 point favorite. Then you move down to later October you look at Auburn where they are a 7-point underdog. The mid-November when they go down to Florida, who they have kind of owned, South Carolina is minus-1 there, and then the big in-state showdown, South Carolina is a 1.5-point favorite over Clemson. The seven points at Auburn is probably going to be their biggest underdog game.

---