Speaker 1: Visit with our very good friend as we go behind
the counter, John Murray, who is at our Friday home,
except he's he's buying his loans and probably just kicking
back with many TVs in his office. I can see
the feet on the desk right now, the one and
only vice president of the Super Book, John Murray.
Speaker 2: What's going on, John?
Speaker 3: That's pretty accurate. I got I got you. I got
some horse racing going on. Saratoga and Delmar are running today,
so that's some pretty good stuff.
Speaker 2: Going on, all right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, See, Marco's kicking his feet up in the studio,
and you're kicking your feet up, you know.
Speaker 2: In your office.
Speaker 1: So okay, And while and while you're doing that, I'm
watching a mascots practice. They're trampling, jumping and dunking, uh
for the timeouts show there you go.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, we all have our crosses to bear, you know, yeah,
exactly mine. Can't be can't always.
Speaker 1: Be easy, John, Could you picture Marco as a mascot.
I'm just trying to pick a picture of Marco like
dribbling a ball up the court and then thrusting himself
off the trampoline and trying to dunk a basketball.
Speaker 2: I still wouldn't get care.
Speaker 3: How many I don't know how many people we know
they could do that. Honestly, that sounds pretty hard, I know, right,
and you have that big costume on, yes, yes, and
then you gotta jump run, jump off the trampoline and
dunk the basketball. I mean, I don't get that the
easiest thing on the Wolves.
Speaker 1: I know, Hey, we're all old enough except for John
probably right, but we all remember the Phoenix Gorilla.
Speaker 2: I think guy was classic.
Speaker 3: Remember the Gorilla? Sure might I.
Speaker 1: Just have a flashback with that as I as I
see this, this this guy's got you know, he's got
nothing on the Gorilla. I mean, give me a break,
but the Gorilla was a fantastic I mean, when'd you
say the Gorilla was probably up there with the Philly
Fanatic and uh, you know some of the other great mascots.
Speaker 3: I would say, so, yeah, Philly fanatic of the class.
Remember remember in the Simpsons, the Capital City go to
their baseball team.
Speaker 2: Now you're talking to Numbchuck. Okay, that's I.
Speaker 3: Always thought that was very a very very funny mascot.
It was all it was was just a rip off
of but it made me I thought.
Speaker 2: It was Marco.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here giving him real life mascots with real
professional teams, and John's going to a cartoon.
Speaker 3: A good mascot. It was a good one. We went
when I was I was a student at West Virginia University.
We had the Mountaineer. Yeah, guy with a big beard.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 3: That's good. That's a pretty good mascot.
Speaker 2: Did you have an audition for that?
Speaker 3: No, sir, I never never even occurred to me. And actually,
I think the same guy who was the mascot for
like several years while I was there, so I think
the position was spoken for.
Speaker 2: Why is that guy?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: Kind of like the Notre Dame, you know, the leper
Khan looks like he's been in school for like fifteen years.
They all look a lot older, right, I mean, especially
the meantime. You got a college kid with the beer
and he's toting a gun. That's a little scary, that's screaming.
That guy's like forty years old.
Speaker 3: Boy, you're talking like full grown beer, you know, not
like like I've got a little bit of it. I
got some something of a beer. But this guy had
like a soul blown right, big red beer yeah, so
obviously that you know that that's gonna h that's going
to make it a hold.
Speaker 4: John, You love my mountaineer story. The last backyard brawl
that was at Three River Stadium.
Speaker 2: I was there.
Speaker 4: I had seats in the end zone, and West Virginia
had scored a touchdown. It was in the fourth quarter
and the he hits you know, the musket and heat,
he shoots it. He shoots it too close to a
mounted police officer on horse. The horse reared up and
the officer fell off. That was the last time that
he shot that, the musket throwing back.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh that's why
they it's a hard job TC. You know, obviously not
everybody can do it.
Speaker 1: No, you're right, you're absolutely, especially you know, like with
these professional franchises because they're you know, they're doing all
these you know, like I said, skits and jumping around
and all this other kind of stuff. So what I do,
like John, is that you know, when I'm here at
these arenas and I get a chance to to see
the mascots, like you know, without their costume on or whatever,
to see actually what they look like, and saying, Okay,
what's what's this backstory? This is what this guy looks
like or this girl looks like or that that sort
of thing. And there's a thing in the WNBA and
I don't know if you're aware of it or not.
And you know, Mark was, you know, watching enough WNB
and out. But the biggest sensation is Ellie, the New
York Liberty mascot. And people have been blown up on
social media everything wanting to know who Ellie is. And
that is one of the one of the most frequent
questions that I get from people, is like.
Speaker 2: Is Ellie a guy or a girl? What does Ellie
look like? And this and that?
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, I was unable to my last trip
to New York, I was able to uncover the secret
of who Ellie was. And uh yeah, yeah, it was
a little bit, a little bit shocked and surprised. But yeah,
Ellie's like a you know phenom. I mean, you see
Ellie like in the Macy's Day Parade and you know,
doing talk shows and all this stuff, because I mean
she went so she's gotten so popular.
Speaker 2: It's crazy. Ellie the elephant.
Speaker 3: And are you gonna reveal the identity?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I don't you know, know, like her
actual name or whatever, but I know, you know, what
she looks like and gender and that sort of thing,
you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, well you yeah, I said her. There you
go right, right right. But there was a lot of
people that thought it was a dude. You know, I
thought it was a guy. Yeah, But.
Speaker 1: There you go. There you have it, all right. So
there that's your mascot talk, you know for the day.
You know, I got to finish up though, I was
going to say about that Irish guy. So you know,
I got a chance to you know, follow the whole
Leprechaun thing, and it is a different student you know,
usually every like two or three years or whatever. But
they really try to get the guy to look the same.
And that's why you won't see much variation of the Leprechaun.
You're not going to see a guy with a blonde
beard or whatever. They they want to try to, you know,
get that that that kind of that kind of red
hair and beard and that sort of thing. And I
don't know if they go to the lengths of you know,
makeup and you know, fake beard. I don't think they
do that. But it's pretty crazy, man. If you go
through and you know, look at all the leprechauns. It
looks like the same guy.
Speaker 2: It does. But they take it. But to your point, John,
they take this very very seriously, very seriously. It's a thing.
Speaker 3: I thought, like, that's a little discriminatory. You know, he
can't so he can't be the lep unless you look
like the last guy.
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, that's just like the acting
busin this.
Speaker 1: I mean, my my daughter goes through that. I mean,
she just she got turned down for a part and
they go, you nailed it, you were awesome this and that,
blah blah blah. However, you know you you look too young,
like what you know. It's like she auditioned for this
this part. It was like, okay, you know, part of
the of the play is you're gonna be in your
You're gonna be a twenty year old and then the
other you're going to be forty. And it's like, okay, well,
you know you're you're right there. I mean, you're older
than twenty. You got that look, and now what are
you gonna do. It's like, oh yeah, yeah, so we
get you get that stuff all the time. I mean,
that's a that's the nature of like that's the entertainment
that show business. Right there, you go show I don't know,
speaking of show business, what are we doing here with
with NFL preseason?
Speaker 2: Here?
Speaker 1: We continue to get, you know, some of these steam plays.
You know, we talked about the steam plays last week,
and I've got an updated account because remember I saying,
if there is a move, a line move of a
point and a half or more that you know, go
the opposite way, you're making some money. And I believe
the stat I gave you guys last week was like
twenty six and thirteen. That happened all of last year's preseason.
So now we've updated it last week, that same trend
if you went against the move nine and three last week,
so you take basically the last four weeks of preseason
three last year and the one week so far this
season thirty five and sixteen.
Speaker 2: What's up with that? Wow?
Speaker 3: That's crazy? Yeah, Yeah, it sounds like maybe the numbers
are moving too much.
Speaker 2: So I mean, are you guys cognizant of that? Is that?
How much? How much line movement did you do last week?
With that? And what are you looking at this week?
Speaker 3: I think what we're saying more of this week than
we did last week. Is is probably it's probably due
to the stat you just gave, which is buy back.
Like I think last week we mostly just had sharp
groups were on the same side multiple times and different numbers.
And what I'm saying this week more in the preseasons,
you're seeing different groups on different sides of the same game.
And that's what you get during the regular season. A
lot of times you get wise guys on this team
and other groups come back on the on this opposite
obsite side. So this week we're seeing games where we
took a bunch of money on the forty nine ers, Rush,
took a bunch of money on the Raiders, and so on.
We were getting actually getting two way actions. Of course,
the book likes to see that.
Speaker 4: John, we had the first week and going back to
the Hall of Fame game overs in the preseason so
far fourteen and two, when you guys went in to
bring out the numbers this week, how much did you
factor that into setting this week's totals.
Speaker 3: Well, you're looking at that for sure, and you're and
you're looking at the way people are vetting them. And
I will say that the way that the way the
vetters responded, they seem to think that maybe we overreacted
a little bit because I did seem more sharp bet
on under this week than I did a week ago.
There's a number of games where we've seen some groups
coming on the under and we've we've moved numbers back
down a little bit. So maybe maybe they're expecting things
to revert back to normal this week.
Speaker 4: I would think so, John, with the fact that I
think why you get so many overs in that first week.
The first week is a throwaway week. Okay, you're not
seeing the starters.
Speaker 2: Play at all.
Speaker 4: If they do, it's a token series. So you got
all these backup players. But what ends up happening on
so many of these teams I like to call them,
you know the preseason, you know, superstars, but you have
a lot of backup quarterbacks in the league that they
get in. They have experience, have started in the NFL,
but you know, weren't good enough or lost their starting job.
But they're here in the preseason and they're going against
defenses that are wheeling out, you know, third and fourth units.
Nobody's game planning for anything. There's no blitz is you know,
like Drew Locke last week, you know, he had a
big you know game, Uh my guy in Pittsburgh, Mason Rudolph.
You know, he's been a backup forever, but he knows
the system and he gets to play against the lesser
you know units. I think you'll see more of that
this week, where it'll be more stable because some of
the coaches will treat week two with more emphasis.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: Others will use their you know as we used to
call it the dress rehearsal in week three because they
have that extra week off after Week three, so it'll
be split. But I think you're gonna see lower scoring
this week, and that's where I'm looking for my place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we've definitely been seeing that at the betting window.
And and what you're saying makes sense where the teams
out to the side, which game are they going to
want to put some emphasis on, if any, if any
of the preseason games. In the past, it was always
that Week three game out of the four games. And
now I guess we're seeing him do some in week two,
some in week three.
Speaker 1: John Murray joins US vice president of the Super Book.
He is at Wesgate Marco D'Angel in the studios in Vegas,
and yours truly here in Phoenix. Any future line movement
have you seen John over the last a couple of
weeks as we now approach the beginning here of the
NFL season. And then let's also even talk about, you know,
the college side as well too.
Speaker 3: I think one team I've seen some bets coming on
in terms of the wind told us is people betting
over on the Titans that all of a sudden has
been kind of a popular team. We've moved that number
up to six. We weren't five and a half. Titans
obviously look to quarterback cam Moore disappointedly were last year.
But their quarterback play last season was so bad that
you almost can't they almost can't help it get better
with cam Ward the first overall pick. And then I
seen some people playing the Chicago Bears under their numbers.
The Bears, it's a tough division, and there's some people
doubting that they can make that leap and be an
over five hundred team. We've got there win total at
eight and a half right now, the under is minus
one sixty. We've seen some we're seeing a lot of
money on the under on that one college side. I'll
tell you guys, really popular team is Texas Tech. Texas Tech.
You know, they've they've spent a ton of money in
the transfer portal. They think they've brought in more starters
and any other team in the country, and they've been
a very popular team both over there. Winsoral to win
the Big Twelve and to make the college football players.
And the Big Twelve looks like it is pretty wide open.
There's some really good teams in there, but there's no Texas.
There's no Ohio State or Georgia. A pretty open conference.
Speaker 4: John's staying in the Big Twelve. And I know your friend,
my friend Kelly is high on Texas Tech as well.
But there's a team in a Big twelve that I'm
high on. And we did a show this week with Kelly.
I think Utah is going to exceed expectations from everybody.
And last year to me was just an absolute lost
season with Utah because every week the question was is
cam Risen playing or is he not? I mean, he
was questionable every single week. They never got any continuity
on offense. They had a stellar defense that kept them
in games with you know, no offensive support. Now they
have the offensive coordinator come over from New Mexico. He
brings in the quarterback. I think that this is a
team that can be a sleeper in the Big twelve.
You know, I like them when never remember the last
couple of years in the Pac twelve. The reason they
were so successful to me is they were the opposite
of most of the teams. You know, I always referred
to the Pack twelve is a finesse conference where there's
a lot of passing, no defense. Utah was just the opposite.
They were a very physical team. They played great defense,
and people didn't want didn't like that style. And I
think that plays well in the Big twelve because that's
what you have in the Big twelve as well. You
don't have those big physical teams. Everybody's pass happy.
Speaker 3: Well, I know you're referring to your friend Kelly, and
Kelly Kelly is as big of a contrarian better. I mean,
that's basically a real personality in venting is cour So
I think Utah might fit into that category because I
can tell you at least here at the Westcast super book,
I mentioned a lot of money on Texas Tech. We're
taking a lot of money on Arizona State, and we're
taking a fair bit of money on Baylor. Utah has
kind of been that forgotten team in the Big twelve,
and maybe there is an opportunity for them to get
themselves into the mix, you know, into the college football
playoff picture. I went into Big twelve. They're a team.
They absolutely had a lost season a year ago, and
prior to that, they've they've been such a good program
for so long. Decompensing wide open as it is, that
might actually be a good worth.
Speaker 2: A good look, you know, guys.
Speaker 1: The reason why, you know, like I said, Marco hit
on it the lost season, but it wasn't just Cam Rising,
is because they put everything into Cam Rising. He was
there like for six years, and they had no backup quarterback.
They tried the second string guy, the third string guy,
the fourth ringing and then they were just terrible at
the quarterback position. And that's my fear about Utah. Now
they're gonna go ahead and start Isaac Wilson. Okay, and
those that don't know Isaac Wilson, he's a younger brother
of Zach Wilson, played at BYU. He's a freshman. But
the same thing, they don't have much of a depth
chart at that quarterback position, and this freshman is going
to have to come in and into the big twelve,
into the situation and be better than what they were
at quarterback last year. And uh, that's my only scary
you know, thought he got a game in last year.
He didn't look great, but we can only hope that
that he is good.
Speaker 2: But you guys are right.
Speaker 1: I mean, Utah Is could be that team, especially on
the defensive side of the ball. But that's a team
that is just uh, you know, if they don't have
a quarterback, we're gonna have a You're gonna have another
lost season. So I don't know how much we can
trust Isaac Wilson. This kid could be great, but you know,
I think the only time will twelve. I can't jump
into him until I see him, you know, a few
games under his belt, so off keeping.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have to keep an eye on that. Hey, John,
let's happen.
Speaker 3: When you can't trust the quarterback and you say that
quarterback can just doom a college or pro team. We've
all seen that. So it's a good call.
Speaker 1: On Okay, major League Baseball real quick, the Dodger woes,
I mean that has to make you happy, right, I
mean with the way that this team has been playing, Uh,
not only just a public team, but usually a heavy
favorite team. And I know at the beginning of the
season is like, oh, everybody in their mother's on the Dodgers.
Dodgers are in the parlay situation, is going against the
Rockies and going on the Dodgers. I mean, this team's
under five hundred for the better part of the last month. Uh,
that's got to be good for you. And what do
you see are you still seeing people just keep doubling
down on the Dodgers.
Speaker 3: Well, it's been it's been incredible because you know, the
Dodgers coming into the season off winning the World Series
that you look like they've gotten much better, at least
on paper. You think they're gonna win the division easily,
be the number one seed. To see them fall out
of first place and lose like this has been good
for us. But the betters move on quickly, you guys,
they've already moved on. The team they love now is Milwaukee. Yeah,
and Milwaukee wins every day. I don't blame them, so
right now it's the moving target nowadays. We really want
to see, is Milwaukee lose or they mean not cover
the run line once once in a while. Milwaukee is
a clearly the better's Darling's right now. But yeah, of
course I'm the Dodgers lose has been good for us,
there's no doubt.
Speaker 1: And the Mets are probably in that same category as
well too. I know the Mets are a pretty public team.
Speaker 3: The Mets meltdown has been great for us because we
have a lot of lives we still do and seeing
them out over a lot of liability on Mets futures.
So the mess losing now, they're now they're underpace for
their win total. Possibly they can fall out of the
playoff picture. The Mets losing is great for us. We
hope they keep it up all right.
Speaker 1: John Murray, Vice president of the Super Book John, appreciate
the time as always, good stuff, and uh, keep keep
holding down the foid over there until we get back.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, I'll talk to you guys next week.
Speaker 1: There it is John Murray all right behind the counter
with him, brought to you by our great partners at
wager talk dot com.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: For all of your betty needs, go to wager talk
dot com.