NFL betting favorites win 14 of 15 games, fuel best week for bettors

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  David PurdumNov 10, 2026, 09:41 AM ET

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  • Joined ESPN in 2014
  • Journalist covering gambling industry since 2008

NFL favorites won 14 of 15 games in Week 9, a historic run of chalk that left the betting public smiling and bookmakers staring at one of their worst days in years.

It's only the fourth time in the Super Bowl era that favorites won 14 games outright, the most ever in a single week, according to ESPN Research. Favorites won the first 12 games of the week, before the Green Bay Packers ended the run by upsetting the New England Patriots as 3.5-point underdogs late Sunday afternoon. By then, the damage was done.

"Sunday was our worst day in two years," Neil Walsh, senior vice president of Hard Rock Bet's sportsbook, told ESPN on Tuesday. "And the bleeding continued through last night."

Parlays, for a change, were responsible for much of the betting public's success, with the favored Buffalo Bills' win over the Minnesota Vikings on Monday cashing long-shot tickets. Hard Rock Bet said 9 of 10 parlays that were live going into Monday had the Bills as the final leg. Jamey Pileggi, who oversees NFL odds for Circa Sports, said the Bills were the final leg of at least one 14-team and another 15-leg parlay at the book.

"It's been a relatively smooth season. All these underdogs have been winning in the first half of the season," Pileggi told ESPN. "This one Sunday didn't go our way."

Parlays built around favorites to win outright, known as money-line parlays, have become increasingly popular in recent years. Bettors stack teams they expect to win to chase bigger payouts, leaving bookmakers rooting for at least one underdog to spoil the parlay party.

"The underdogs were nonexistent all day, with the one exception being the Packers, which the public also backed," Joey Feazel said in an email to ESPN.

NFL favorites not only won but also covered the point spread in 11 games, one shy of the record for a single week and an added boost for a betting public that endured a rocky start to the football season. Multiple sportsbooks said Week 9 was their first losing week and by far the worst of the season.

Despite the rough week, bookmakers remain resilient and hopeful.

"You're going to see three or four of those [weeks] a season," Johnny Avello, sportsbook director for DraftKings, told ESPN. "Hopefully you don't see more than that because if you do, that turns into not quite the season you would want to have."