Sports bettors are preparing for Colorado’s Hunter Heisman to put the futures in the money

For bookies, the idea that Travis Hunter would win the Heisman Trophy was a miscalculation, despite his immense popularity. Quarterbacks have won 20 of the last 24 awards. Winning cornerbacks or wide receivers are a rarity, and some bookies weren’t sure Hunter could handle the rigors of 100-plus snaps per game. As such, he started as a +3500 underdog and won the award last summer.

But as the Heisman Trust prepares to present its annual award for outstanding individual achievement in college football, it seems all but certain that Colorado’s two-way superstar will be this season’s winner: At sportsbooks, the Heisman is still there -Giving winning odds, Hunter can be found in the list -2000. This is bad news for sports betting providers.

According to ESPN BET, Hunter holds 17.5% of tickets and 31.5% of handles to win this season’s awards, trailing only Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty (45.8% bets, 37.7% handles) , also a Heisman finalist, had his historic rushing season. Although Hunter practically has a chance to win, having Jeanty pull off the upset wouldn’t help the books either.

“We’re not in good shape at Hunter and we’re not in good shape at Jeanty. To sum it up: We are not in good shape,” DraftKings sports betting director Johnny Avello told ESPN.

And as the books prepare for a loss, the betting public is eager to cash in their betslips.

“It will be very good for our customers,” said Caesars head of football Joey Feazel. “(There were) certainly some bets on Travis Hunter early in the year and throughout the year, probably one of our most popular picks all summer.”

From the time the market opened through the first week of the season, the 21-year-old Hunter won 17% of bets and 16.2% of handles on ESPN BET, just behind Oregon QB Dillon Gabriel, the preseason favorite for the award and another finalist Go to New York. From that point on, Hunter was the one taking the majority of the tickets and money until Jeanty saw an upswing just after Week 12.

It’s no coincidence that it happened like this. Hunter wasn’t the favorite for the honor until after Week 11 (+125) and didn’t show a price tag until Week 12 (-400). At this point, hopeful bettors were throwing their money behind Jeanty, but from the sportsbooks’ perspective, the damage was already done.

As Hunter shined early in the season, his odds began to decline, but briefly rose to +1100 after he was injured during Colorado’s loss to Kansas State in Week 7. They went up to +2500 again when Hunter had just two catches for 17 yards the next week, but he got back into the conversation in Week 9 with a 153-yard, two-touchdown performance that brought his odds back down to +375 .

All of those big plus-money bets put a huge strain on sportsbooks throughout the campaign, who also relied on Colorado’s uncompetitiveness to undermine Hunter’s Heisman argument.

“As for Hunter, he played both ways and the team won,” Avello said. “If Colorado hadn’t been a winning team this year, if it had been a four- or five-win team, he probably wouldn’t have won it. But I think the fact that they won and he helped them a lot. “Those wins… it turned out well for him.”

Bookmakers also cite the lack of a standout quarterback as a reason why Hunter and Jeanty were able to win this year’s award. While this will likely end up hurting bookies’ bottom lines, football fans there can at least appreciate what they’ve seen this season.

“I think it’s good for the sport to see that it’s not just a quarterback award,” Feazel said, “this really goes to the most outstanding player in college football.”

ESPN betting analyst Pamela Maldonado contributed to this story.