Referees' mistakes prove increasingly costly

AMERICAN FOOTBALL:REFEREEING MISTAKES that led to a last-second Seattle Seahawks victory also meant losses on hundreds of millions of dollars in bets on the favoured Green Bay Packers according to Las Vegas betting experts.

About $400 million (€321m) was bet on the NFL game worldwide, said RJ Bell, chief executive of the pregame.comwebsite, which reports on the sports-betting industry.

About $150 million more was bet on Green Bay than on Seattle, so the referees’ call resulted in a $300 million swing toward the sports bookmakers, Bell said.

Green Bay were leading 12-7 and covering the spread until the controversial calls that resulted in a 14-12 Seattle victory. The NFL has locked out its referees in a contract dispute and is using replacements from lower football levels whose mistakes had met heavy criticism even before Monday.

"The far-reaching effect of all this is that obviously the replacement referees issue needs to be resolved ASAP because the National Football League cannot have any more egg on their face like they did last night," Marc Lawrence, publisher of the Playbook.comwebsite, said.

Lawrence estimated $250 million to $500 million had been bet on the game worldwide, the majority on Green Bay in part due to the team’s popularity and because fans often bet the favourite on Monday night football, Lawrence said.

Bell said that before Monday, the replacement referees had offered an “extra variable” that – if anything – had increased interest.

In Monday night’s game, the officials ruled that a Seattle receiver and Green Bay defender simultaneously caught a last-hope “Hail Mary” pass in the end zone, a touchdown under NFL rules. A video review did not find indisputable evidence to overturn the call.

The NFL acknowledged on Tuesday that referees missed a clear penalty against the Seattle receiver that should have ended the game. The league said, however, that it supported the result of the video review and that Seattle’s victory was final.

Meanwhile, the NFL and the locked-out referees resumed negotiations yesterday amid reports that the two sides had made enough progress that officials might be back on field in time for this weekends games.

The two sides have an agreement in principle, and the only major sticking point is about "a little more money," according to a report on ESPN.com.