XFL opener provides double bad beats for bettors

Taking points off the board led to bad beats for bettors in the Seattle-DC XFL game.

The XFL is back. And somehow, without a single game having been played, Vegas was spot on with its line and over/under. Those two numbers created bad beats for anyone who had Seattle and the under in the opener against the DC Defenders.

For a minute or so in the fourth quarter Saturday, it appeared as if the Dragons were on the verge of covering the 9.5-point spread and the game would go over the 51.5 number of points in the over/under.

Seattle had kicked a field goal to cut the deficit to 31-22. That would have made the point spread nine and the total of points 53. However, and this is a huge however, a penalty flag was thrown on the successful field goal. Running into the kicker was called and Seattle coach Jim Zorn opted to take the points off the board leaving his team with the ball deep in DC territory.

The decision backfired on Zorn and anyone who had Seattle and the over. The Dragons fumbled, DC recovered and neither team scored the rest of the way.

And that’s the way to welcome people who wager into a new league: with a couple of bad beats or miraculous wins.

The betting lines were prominent on ESPN graphics and were mentioned frequently in its broadcast.