The fan tax

Bet the 49ers in Seattle if you like, but not at plus 136

DraftKings pays 136 on 100 if San Francisco wins Sunday. FanDuel pays 146 for the same result. Against the exchange's price, the DraftKings ticket gives up about $9 per $100 and the Seattle ticket at the same book gives up about 54 cents.

CM
Casey MontgomeryOct 9, 20266 min read
Every call on this site goes on a public ledger and gets graded. The misses stay up.
Brock Purdy, seen from behind in the 49ers' home red jersey and gold trousers, throws a pass against Denver at Levi's Stadium on Oct. 4.

DraftKings will pay $136 on a $100 bet that the 49ers win in Seattle on Sunday. FanDuel will pay $146 for the identical result.

Those are the two books' prices at 10:21 and 10:24 a.m. Pacific on Friday. The game is the same game. The two books disagree about how much a 49ers fan should be paid for being right, and the ten dollars between them is what a fan pays for betting at the wrong one.

A moneyline is a bet on who wins, with no points involved. Plus 136 means a $100 bet returns $136 in profit. Minus 162, Seattle's price at DraftKings, means you risk $162 to win $100. Each number carries an implied chance of winning, and each book's two implied chances add up to a bit more than 100 percent. That extra is the book's cut, and stripping it out to see what the book actually believes is called removing the vig.

With the vig removed, DraftKings rates San Francisco a 40.7 percent winner. FanDuel says 39.0. BetMGM says 40.3 and BetRivers 40.6.

Kalshi, a federally regulated exchange where customers trade with one another rather than against a house, has the 49ers at 38 cents bid and 39 cents ask at 10:22 a.m. Pacific. That is a 38.5 percent midpoint, and nearly 2.5 million contracts are on offer at the 39-cent ask, so it is a price at real size. Across all fourteen Sunday and Monday games this week, the median gap between DraftKings' vig-free number and Kalshi's midpoint is 0.65 points. On this game it is 2.2. No other game on the card is wider.

What the gap costs you#

Take Kalshi's 38.5 as the fair number and price every ticket against it. A $100 bet on the 49ers at plus 136 wins $136 38.5 percent of the time, which is worth $52.36, and loses $100 the other 61.5 percent, which costs $61.50. Net, it gives up $9.14.

The Seattle ticket at the same book, at minus 162, gives up 54 cents.

What a $100 moneyline bet on the 49ers is expected to give up, by book

Each book's 49ers price at 10:21 to 10:24 a.m. Pacific Friday, scored against Kalshi's 38.5 percent midpoint at 10:22. Bar length is scaled to the largest cost. The Seattle ticket at each book, scored the same way, is printed beside it.

BetRivers, plus 135Seattle minus 165: $1.23
$9.53
DraftKings, plus 136Seattle minus 162: $0.54
$9.14
BetMGM, plus 138Seattle minus 165: $1.23
$8.37
FanDuel, plus 146Seattle minus 174: $3.16
$5.29

Every sportsbook charges for every bet. That is how they stay open. On a two-way moneyline like this one the usual cost is four or five dollars per $100, on either side. At DraftKings this week, scored against the exchange, one side costs about nine dollars and the other costs about half a dollar.

That is the fan tax, the premium a team's backers pay because the book knows they are coming. Last Friday the same measurement on the 49ers and Denver came out at 0.71 points, under that week's median. This week it is the widest on the board.

Where the money is#

DraftKings publishes its own customers' betting splits, all states combined. On the moneyline, at 10:22 a.m. Pacific Friday, 79 percent of the money and 65 percent of the bets are on San Francisco. Tickets count bets; handle counts dollars. When handle runs ahead of tickets, the average bet on that side is bigger than the average bet on the other.

So the 49ers side has the bigger bets as well as more of them. DraftKings is holding a moneyline book that is nearly four-to-one 49ers in dollars, and a book with that much one-way exposure protects itself by paying the popular side less. Plus 136 is what that protection looks like on a screen. Seattle at minus 162, the cheapest Seattle price of the four books, is the other half of the same move. A book that wants Seattle money makes Seattle cheap.

The point spread at the same book runs the other way. Seattle minus 3 has 86 percent of the money and 44 percent of the bets. DraftKings is still dealing it at minus 110 on both sides, because 3 is the most common final margin in football and books move off it reluctantly. The money that bets spreads likes Seattle. The money that bets moneylines likes the 49ers, and only one of those prices has bent.

The movement agrees. ESPN's DraftKings feed lists Seattle's opening moneyline at minus 198. It is minus 162 now. Kalshi's 49ers contract went the other way over the last three days: 41 bid and 42 ask on Tuesday, 38 and 39 since early Thursday.

The case against#

The first argument is that Kalshi is the number that is off, not DraftKings. ESPN's Football Power Index, its own team-rating model, makes San Francisco a 55.9 percent winner. The 49ers are 4-0. If that model is close to right, every price on the board is too long on the 49ers and plus 136 is a gift rather than a tax. I do not believe a rating model over four books and an exchange with nearly 2.5 million contracts at the quote. But the same model had San Francisco at 77.9 percent last week against a 57 percent market, and San Francisco won by ten. One game proves nothing in either direction.

The second argument is better. Kalshi and FanDuel could be the ones shaded, toward Seattle money rather than away from 49ers money. A fan tax can run in both directions, and Seattle has a betting public too. If that is the case, the fair number sits nearer 40 than 38.5. Against the average of the four books' vig-free prices, 40.15, the DraftKings 49ers ticket costs $5.26 per $100 and the Seattle ticket costs $3.20. The gap shrinks. It does not reverse. Against Kalshi, against FanDuel's own vig-free price and against the four-book average, the 49ers side at DraftKings is the more expensive side, and FanDuel's plus 146 is the cheaper way to hold the same opinion.

The play#

No position. Neither side is a bet at any book on this list. Seattle would be one unit at minus 150 or better, which is a 60 percent break-even against a 61.5 percent fair price, and nobody is dealing it.

For a reader who is going to bet the 49ers anyway, and plenty are, the instruction is a price rather than a side. Plus 146 or longer, or not at all. Kalshi's own 39-cent ask comes to about plus 146 once its trading fee is counted, the same as FanDuel's.

What would make this wrong#

If FanDuel and Kalshi come to DraftKings by kickoff, with the 49ers shorter than plus 136 at both, then DraftKings was early rather than expensive, and the bettor who took plus 136 on Friday beat the closing number. That is closing line value, and it is the right way to grade any position. It asks whether you got a better price than the last one the market made, regardless of who wins.

If the gap is still there at 1:25 p.m. Pacific on Sunday, the 49ers backers at DraftKings paid about four dollars per $100 more than they had to, whatever the score.

The read

The 49ers are plus 136 at DraftKings and plus 146 at FanDuel to win in Seattle on Sunday. Against Kalshi's 38.5 percent midpoint, a $100 bet on the 49ers at DraftKings gives up $9.14 and a $100 bet on Seattle at the same book gives up 54 cents. Seventy-nine percent of DraftKings' moneyline dollars are on San Francisco, and the 2.2-point gap between its vig-free price and the exchange is the widest of fourteen games this week, against a median of 0.65. Last week the same gap on the 49ers was 0.71. No position on either side; Seattle only at minus 150 or better. If you are betting the 49ers anyway, take plus 146 or longer. Nothing here is advice. It is a public record of calls made at stated prices.

Sources: DraftKings moneyline, spread and total for every Week 5 game from ESPN's scoreboard feed, 2026-10-09 at 10:21 a.m. Pacific, including the listed opening prices. DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM and BetRivers New Jersey prices for San Francisco at Seattle from Action Network's public odds feed at 10:24 a.m. Pacific. DraftKings betting splits from DraftKings Network's sportsbook splits page at 10:22 a.m. Pacific. Kalshi bid, ask and resting size for the KXNFLGAME San Francisco and Seattle contracts at 10:21 and 10:22 a.m. Pacific, and the San Francisco contract's hourly record for the week. ESPN Football Power Index projection from ESPN's game page. The 2026-10-02 figures are from the same sources at 10:21 a.m. Pacific that Friday.

Betting content is for readers 21 and over, where sports wagering is legal. If gambling stops being entertainment, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is 1-800-522-4700, free, confidential, and answered 24 hours a day.

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