Saturday night your Twitter and Facebook feeds were filled with exclamations about Golden State Warriors shooting guard Klay Thompson, instead of Steph Curry, and they should have been. After steadily becoming more of a factor in the Warriors’ NBA semifinal series against the Oklahoma Thunder, Thompson exploded for a game-leading 41 points and he went 11-of-18 from beyond the arc.
VIDEO: Klay on Steph Curry saying 'do what you do': "When the MVP has confidence in you, that means a lot" 📺 (0:34) https://t.co/cz2afTrKq7
— Let’s Go Warriors 💦💛💙 (@LetsGoWarriors) May 30, 2016
And that would have been the whole story as the series goes to a deciding game seven. But Curry had to go and do something crazy. And this time it wasn’t his fault. All he did was perform like his usual awesome self, putting in 31 points of his own. Here’s where the problem is. The sportsbooks put Curry’s points over-under at 30.5. So obviously he went over and everybody who bet that way cashed in.
But here’s the problem. Whoever was scoring the game as it happened made a mistake and accidentally credited this shot…
Steph Curry seals #WARRIORSvTHUNDER Game 6 with a floater https://t.co/jLdKwFyji7
— NBA (@NBA) May 29, 2016
…to Draymond Green. Meaning on the box score immediately released after the game Curry finished with 29 points. So the under tickets were the only good tickets after the game. What happens now?
To take all questions out of Curry’s point total the NBA made it official. Curry had 31.
NBA has corrected Steph Curry's points in Gm 6, from 29 to 31. His last basket was credited to Green. Curry's over/under in Vegas was 30.5.
— David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum) May 29, 2016
So who wins the money? It all depends on the book and the betters can kick all the rocks they want. Some places will play both sides of the bet, some won’t pay either. There are no guidelines on what to do here and believe it or not, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.
Back in 2011 in a college football game USC scored a late touchdown over Utah to give them a 23-14 victory. The only problem was there was a question about it on the field as time expired and when the box score was officially released, the Trojans still won the game, but this time by 17-14. The final touchdown wasn’t on that first box. The line on the game was USC -8.5.
Now, seeing as this is a sportsbetting story I’m sure you can all do that math. The first box released meant the under won. The actual corrected box from the PAC 12 had the score 23-14, which meant the over won.
How did the sportsbooks respond?
At the time Jay Kornegay, the Sportsbook director at the Las Vegas Hilton told the Los Angeles Times, “Vegas is split on this. It’s all up to the house rules and even how you interpret those rules.”
For the record at the time the Las Vegas Hilton went with the updated correct score, but did nothing at all for the tickets it paid out on the under before the score was changed. So if you bet Curry and the over for Saturday night, hopefully you had your ticket with them.
Vegas feels it after NBA gives Steph Curry 31 points – not 29 – in Game 6 https://t.co/EpZ00PqypZ
— Post Sports (@PostSports) May 30, 2016
Over at the MGM Resort, they stuck with the original final score of 17-14 with their sportsbook guy, Jay Rood, saying “Our house rules are we don’t recognize overturned games. An overturn is an overturn. This game ended 17-14, the lights went out and everyone went home.”
But in the case with Curry it wasn’t a miscommunication between the officials and the control room. This was a guy clicking numbers on a stat computer who just imputed the wrong number. It happens all the time. If I told you how many college basketball games, football games and professional baseball games I’ve attended that had to have a stat fixed on the final book, I’d never be able to remember all of them.
On baseball games errors get switched to hits hours after the game. Wild pitches get turned into passed balls. In football sacks get mis-assigned all the time, for every reason other than more than one guy got there at about the same time or the guy running the PA system misidentifies the tackler. Each stat guy has a spotter to help him, but that person is human too. Sports happen fast. Now, I don’t know how you can misidentify Steph Curry, one of the two most popular players in the NBA right now, but it happened.
The sportsbooks need to have a consistent rule over something like this. And if it means they lose the money from people who cashed in early, so be it. It’s not like they won’t make it all back in the very next game.
