Update: Hilton Contestants Following BadNFL?

Courtesy of Chad Millman, we find out this morning that Steelers -1.5 is one of the consensus picks in the Las Vegas Hilton Supercontest. Although when I checked the pick compilations, it looks like 100 contestants have picked Steelers -1.5, while 86 have picked Ravens +1.5 (so it seems like far from a solid consensus). Still, I'm surprised at how much action this game is getting on both sides; it has to be the most heavily picked game of the contest.

One explanation may be the desire to bet against the "hot" team. Millman explained this basic theory earlier this week; the idea is that by betting against the hot team, you capitalize on the recency bias that infects many prognosticators' approach to these games (a topic we've covered extensively here before on BadNFL).

Still, that 100 people picked the same game I did is interesting; it was the 3rd most popular prediction of the week, and that was at -1.5, whereas the line was at -1 at the time of my post. We'll see. I'm feeling good about it, but we all know that hasn't meant much of anything this year...