Naturally, Sunday night’s NFC Championship game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Detroit Lions has attracted a lot of attention from sports bettors across the country, and one team has emerged as the clear public pick ahead of kickoff: the Detroit Lions. But surprisingly, the line isn’t moving in that direction.
As David Purdum of ESPN pointed out on Sunday morning, even though the number of bets placed on the Detroit Lions far outnumbered the number of bets placed on the San Francisco 49ers, the betting line actually moved in favor of the Lions, moving from Lions +7 to +7.5.
“The point spread on the NFC Championship Game also moved toward the favorite in recent days, with the San Francisco 49ers going from -7 to -7.5 at some sportsbook late last week, despite heavy support from the betting public on the underdog Detroit Lions,” Purdum wrote for ESPN on Sunday.
“As of Sunday morning at DraftKings, there had been more than twice as many point spread bets on Detroit as there had been on the 49ers.”
This shocking line movement caused a lot of conversation on social media leading up to the game.
NFC CHAMPIONSHIP REVERSE LINE MOVEMENT As the Lions and the 49ers get set to play with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line… the sports books are getting ready to take your money
#GamblingX #AI #NFL #Lions #49ers pic.twitter.com/9YGnsdy4SQ — THE PICK VAULT: SPORTS PICKS (@thepickvault) January 26, 2024
EXACTLY!
This is called "Reverse Line Movement" or RLM.
We often hear about fade the public… its a meh take. Easy way to sound relatively aware, but more or less its meaningless.
The meaningful fade the public moments are when there is an indicator that the books are trying… https://t.co/cVAX5yXQGb
— Michael Fiddle (@FiddlesPicks) January 27, 2024
We’ll have to see which side comes out on top on Sunday night.