Steelers-Chargers Handicap Drama

The Pittsburgh Steelers may have beaten the San Diego Chargers last night, but the drama was on the handicap market. The Steelers were giving 5 1/2 points, and were 11-10 up when it appeared they had run in a touchdown with the clock down to zero. Another 1.01 smashed it appeared.

However, an illegal forward pass by the Chargers meant that the game was over before the ball was taken in, so anyone on the Steelers giving the points lost, and those 1.01 backers got lucky. I did get somewhat confusing when having announced the ruling, the referee then mistakenly signalled a touchdown. But no extra point attempt indicated that the referee had misspoken at this point.

From reading the Betfair forum, it appears that Betfair settled the market incorrectly, after they had suspended the markets prematurely. (Someone was in a hurry to get home).

It's also astonishing how many people bet on American Football, but do not know the rules. Clearly, there was no extra point attempt, which there would have been had the touchdown counted, but still people on the forum were incapable of understanding what the outcome was.

For some, this is a good thing.

Update: Certain posters on the Betfair forum and some other blogs are claiming that the game was fixed. Total rubbish. It was a total cock-up up at the end there, but seriously, if the game was going to be fixed, it would have been fixed a lot more subtlely than that! Still, never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Having said that, the officiating in the NFL does seem to be particularly bad this year.