Re: Is this profitable?
I've never seen what I'm about to write posted on 2+2. If it's common knowledge, I apologize.
There are a lot of people in this world, who make a lot of money, by doing the following:
1. Subscribe to donbest.com. This will get you real-time line updates from dozens of major sportsbooks, offshore and in Las Vegas (but no one who does this cares about Las Vegas). When I say, "real time", I mean, "up to the second". I think this currently goes for about $600/mo.
2. Open accounts at as many of these donbest-listed books as you can afford.
3. Sit at your computer. Have several browser windows open. Multiple monitors would be a good idea. In these many windows, you'll be logged into all your sportsbook accounts, and you donbest will always be visible (with the sound on--it "beeps" when a line changes somewhere, and the new line is highlighted).
4. Wait for the beeping to go crazy. When this happens, it's telling you that a ton of money is being bet all at once. When this happens, start scrolling through your donbest, looking for the game in question. It will be easy to find. The numbers will highlighted all the way across the screen. This is called "steam". A big syndicate (most likely Billy Walters, or maybe some other group of wiseguys) is making a play. They have to attack all the books simultaneously, else the books will move the line "on air" (without taking a bet). Books don't like giving -2½ when the line should be -3.
5. OK, now here's the hard part. You need to get down on this "hot" team BEFORE THE LINE MOVES. It was -2½ all day long, and no one paid any attention to this game. Then the order came down, and all the beards started grabbing all the -2½ they could get. The books who took the bet went to -3. Other books, watching the same donbest screen, and not wanting to get picked off by the steam-chasers for a free half-point, also went to -3.
But the steam chasers are relentless. Some, who weren't quick enough on the mouse to get -2½, decide they want on the same side as Billy Walters, and they lay the -3. Enough of this action can drive the line to -3½.
6. The game closes at -3½, and we all know, the closing line is the strongest. But we're quick little buggars, and we snatched up plenty of -2½. We laid -110 (or less, if we're at reduced juice books), and we got a free full point.
IMO, blindly betting teams at -110 is profitable if you get a full point most of the time, and at least a half-point all of the time.
7. Hope you like baseball, because the steam can REALLY move a price in that sport. Betting "the moves" can get you 15-20 cents per play. Against a dime-line, that seems huge to me.
I booked in Vegas for close to ten years, and never heard of any of this. Then I got an offer to come offshore, where I learned about this strategy the hard way.
I didn't know if the players doing this had an edge or not. But it didn't take long to see the fastest players were making a ton of money off of us.
One college football Saturday, the New Mexico game goes black on the donbest screen (NM is getting steamed). My phone rings. Before I pick it up, I already know exactly who it is. It's our biggest steam chaser, who has been instructed that he has to place all bets by phone, with a supervisor, because he was "beating us to the moves" more than we could handle, by betting on the website and with the phone clerks. Quite simply, he was finding these games on his donbest screen and betting them, faster than we could find them and adjust them. That's not because we were lazy; it's because we were busy trying to run a sportsbook on a Saturday afternoon in October.
So anyway, my phone rings, and before I pick it up, I know who it is; I know what game he wants to bet; and I know which team he wants.
ME: Sports.
HIM: Game 287, New Mexico, what's your line on that?
ME: New Mexico +7.
HIM: OK, give me New Mexico for--what's my limit there, five dimes?
ME: I'll tell you what. I'll give you this bet at even money--no juice--if you can name two players on the New Mexico team.
HIM: Just give me New Mexico for five dimes, smart guy.
My boss welcomed this action, convinced that nothing could overcome his -110 edge. I couldn't persuade him otherwise.
That book closed its doors inside of one year. Those guys buried us.
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