Merry Christmas Eve! Tonight we have one Bowl Game to sweat across the College Football gridiron. Let’s examine where smart money is leaning for the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl using our VSiN CFB Betting Splits, which are updated every 5 minutes and come directly from DraftKings and Circa Sports.
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8 p.m. ET: California at Hawaii (-1, 51.5)
This is the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl and it will be played at the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex in Honolulu, Hawaii.
California (7-5) just took down SMU 38-35, winning outright as a 13.5-point home dog. Meanwhile, Hawaii (8-4) just brushed aside Wyoming 27-7, covering as 7.5-point home favorites.
This line opened with California listed as a 3-point road favorite.
The public is largely split down the middle and doesn’t know which side to take.
However, despite this roughly 50/50 ticket split at DraftKings we’ve seen the line completely flip in favor of Hawaii, pushing the Rainbow Warriors from a 3-point home to dog to a 1-point home favorite, with some shops even touching Hawaii -1.5.
Normally, in a vacuum, a line shouldn’t move at all if the bets are even because, theoretically, the oddsmakers have balanced action and no need to adjust the price one way or the other. So, based on the 50/50 “dog to favorite” line move we can infer that the bigger, sharper wagers have come down in favor of the Rainbow Warriors.
Many pros have looked to mitigate some risk and gain some added cushion in the event of a potentially close game by targeting Hawaii on the moneyline at -115.
At DraftKings, Hawaii is taking in 47% of moneyline bets and 53% of moneyline dollars. At Circa, Hawaii is receiving 86% of moneyline bets and 97% of moneyline dollars. Both books are showing a “low bets, higher dollars” bet split in favor of a straight up Hawaii victory, especially from the wiseguys out in Vegas.
Hawaii enjoys true home-field advantage in this matchup. This is also the second consecutive home game for Hawaii while California is playing their third road game in their last four games and must travel to Honolulu. The Rainbow Warriors went 6-1 at home this season.
Hawaii boasts the better scoring offense (29 PPG vs 23.9 PPG) and scoring defense (25.4 PPG vs 28.6 PPG).
Those looking to back Hawaii would be wise to shop around, as Fanatics is offering Hawaii +1 and DraftKings +1.5 (-120) while the rest of the market sits at Hawaii -1 or -1.5.
California fired head coach Justin Wilcox after losing to Stanford 31-10 two games ago. The Golden Bears got a dead cat bounce with Nick Rolovich as the interim coach, upsetting SMU in their last game. However, it has since been announced that Oregon DC Tosh Lupoi will be the new head coach, which means the coaching situation is in a bit of a transitional flux for California.
In terms of the total, we’ve seen the line fall from 55 to 51.5.
This downward movement is notable because the public is playing the over at DraftKings (65% of bets) and Circa (81% of bets), yet the total fell. This signals sharp contrarian reverse line movement on a lower scoring game.
Weather could play a big role in this game as the forecast calls for mid 70s, partly cloudy skies and 15 MPH winds, making this a “windy under” system match.
