What about this sport...
 

Curiously, Why dont people gamble on bowling? Is it because they dont want to? Or because sportsbooks dont offer it? Who would want to place bets on bowling?

Re: What about this sport...
 

WAY too much variance, and far too hard to handicap for betting. Lane conditions dictate who can/will win for the most part, and 1 game is weak way to decide a champion, weaker way to discren an edge. It's akin to playing three innings and calling it a baseball game. Probably the biggest reason is while it is a HUGE participation sport, it's a tiny viewership sport, and it regularly goes up against the NFL on Sundays.

Otherwise, as I 'd guess you already know bowling, is probably gambled on more than any sport except maybe pool. Just not with books.

Re: What about this sport...
 

whatever happened to the bowling league thread you made in SE?

make it happen!

Re: What about this sport...
 

I am leaving to gambling on bowling right now.

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None of the reasons Daliman mentioned other than difficulty in handicapping has anything to do with anything. Every spread bet is either win/lose.

Re: What about this sport...
 

Daliman,

To expand on what Thremp said, why would variance be a reason for not offering bowling lines? Plenty of people bet 1Q lines in basketball, first to score in football/baseball/other sports. Variance is what keeps losing players coming back, whether it's sports betting, poker or any other form of gambling.

Re: What about this sport...
 

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Daliman,

To expand on what Thremp said, why would variance be a reason for not offering bowling lines? Plenty of people bet 1Q lines in basketball, first to score in football/baseball/other sports. Variance is what keeps losing players coming back, whether it's sports betting, poker or any other form of gambling.

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THERE IS NO MORE VARIANCE IN A [censored] COINFLIP THAN ANY OTHER [censored] COINFLIP.

Re: What about this sport...
 

nobody wants to bet on bowling

therefore, no lines

pretty simple

Re: What about this sport...
 

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None of the reasons Daliman mentioned other than difficulty in handicapping has anything to do with anything. Every spread bet is either win/lose.

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Not true. You can figure that a speed team in baseball is going to do better in a big park, and you can figure a power running team is going to do better in a 10 degree game in a blizzard, but you can't figure that Norm Duke isn't going to be able to handle an odd oil pattern better than a house pro who may have oiled the lanes himself. It all matters, and the minutia of figuring out all these small details wouldn't be worth the minimal betting handle.

Also, as stated before, the variance is too high on a game-by-game basis to handicap anywhere NEAR accurately. I could beat a top pro in almost any given game.

Re: What about this sport...
 

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Also, as stated before, the variance is too high on a game-by-game basis to handicap anywhere NEAR accurately. I could beat a top pro in almost any given game.

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Also, as I said before this is not the reason that it isn't offered. It is essentially meaningless.

The fact no one gives two [censored] about bowling and likely it would get no action for the amount amount of effort that goes into it is the correct answer (perhaps Pinny will throw up lines similar to its Arabic soccer leagues).

Re: What about this sport...
 

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I am leaving to gambling on bowling right now.

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In english this is I am leaving to GAMBLE on bowling right now. haha

Re: What about this sport...
 

did you win?

Re: What about this sport...
 

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I could beat a top pro in almost any given game.

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Uhm. In order to do this you have to be pretty damn good. If you are just a random league bowler you have almost no chance on pro conditions.

I think handicapping bowling is very possible due to the PBA using only a certain number of conditions and there only being a certain number of surfaces. There would be a ton of variance, but the players do have their favorite patterns and lane types.

Re: What about this sport...
 

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I could beat a top pro in almost any given game.

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Uhm. In order to do this you have to be pretty damn good. If you are just a random league bowler you have almost no chance on pro conditions.

I think handicapping bowling is very possible due to the PBA using only a certain number of conditions and there only being a certain number of surfaces. There would be a ton of variance, but the players do have their favorite patterns and lane types.

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I'm decent, when in practice I avg ~205, but right now am out of practice in a crappy lane condition league averaging 192. Put me on torched lanes with most pros my chances go WAY up though.

Re: What about this sport...
 

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Also, as stated before, the variance is too high on a game-by-game basis to handicap anywhere NEAR accurately. I could beat a top pro in almost any given game.

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Also, as I said before this is not the reason that it isn't offered. It is essentially meaningless.

The fact no one gives two [censored] about bowling and likely it would get no action for the amount amount of effort that goes into it is the correct answer (perhaps Pinny will throw up lines similar to its Arabic soccer leagues).

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You never said why it isn't offered. Also, duh.

Re: What about this sport...
 

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I could beat a top pro in almost any given game.

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Uhm. In order to do this you have to be pretty damn good. If you are just a random league bowler you have almost no chance on pro conditions.

I think handicapping bowling is very possible due to the PBA using only a certain number of conditions and there only being a certain number of surfaces. There would be a ton of variance, but the players do have their favorite patterns and lane types.

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I'm decent, when in practice I avg ~205, but right now am out of practice in a crappy lane condition league averaging 192. Put me on torched lanes with most pros my chances go WAY up though.

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When in practice you are probably +30 to the average pro and +50 to the best

Re: What about this sport...
 

"likely it would get no action for the amount amount of effort that goes into it"


Not sure how much effort is necessary for something like this.

Pinny has offered lines for AA baseball or the Arizona Fall League...leagues with pretty much zero television coverage. And, as mentioned, they also offer lines for some pretty obscure soccer leagues among other things.
So why they wouldn't offer it for bowling, particularly events that are televised, is indeed somewhat interesting imo.

The argument that it's too hard to handicap or has too much variance is pretty silly.
But I just can't completely buy the argument that it's too much effort to be worth it because of some of the other stuff I have seen offered.

Re: What about this sport...
 

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I could beat a top pro in almost any given game.

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Uhm. In order to do this you have to be pretty damn good. If you are just a random league bowler you have almost no chance on pro conditions.

I think handicapping bowling is very possible due to the PBA using only a certain number of conditions and there only being a certain number of surfaces. There would be a ton of variance, but the players do have their favorite patterns and lane types.

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I'm decent, when in practice I avg ~205, but right now am out of practice in a crappy lane condition league averaging 192. Put me on torched lanes with most pros my chances go WAY up though.

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When in practice you are probably +30 to the average pro and +50 to the best

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Nowhere near that much, and yes, I lose 9/10, but still, a few taps and I'm right there. I can't think of other pro sports I can say that in, (not considering poker a sport).

Highest league average ever is like 255, by I think Bob Learn Jr, but that was a walled shot I could probably average 220+ on from what I heard.

Re: What about this sport...
 

it's a semi-reasonable assertion I guess that bowling is such that you actually would have a realistic chance of winning.

Trying to compete in any other individual sports like tennis or golf and you would have pretty much zero chance of winning.
Maybe billiards or snooker or 9 ball though. And maybe a way outside chance in darts.
I don't know much about any of those sports but they seem like you could have a chance if you got lucky in there.

I still don't think this has anything to do with why betting isn't offered on it.

Truly ANYONE can win at poker and the variance is just plain silly but they offer betting on the WSOP main-event as well as some other tournaments.

Re: What about this sport...
 

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I could beat a top pro in almost any given game.

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Uhm. In order to do this you have to be pretty damn good. If you are just a random league bowler you have almost no chance on pro conditions.

I think handicapping bowling is very possible due to the PBA using only a certain number of conditions and there only being a certain number of surfaces. There would be a ton of variance, but the players do have their favorite patterns and lane types.

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I'm decent, when in practice I avg ~205, but right now am out of practice in a crappy lane condition league averaging 192. Put me on torched lanes with most pros my chances go WAY up though.

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When in practice you are probably +30 to the average pro and +50 to the best

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Nowhere near that much, and yes, I lose 9/10, but still, a few taps and I'm right there. I can't think of other pro sports I can say that in, (not considering poker a sport).

Highest league average ever is like 255, by I think Bob Learn Jr, but that was a walled shot I could probably average 220+ on from what I heard.

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Highest league average ever is 261 by Jeff Carter who is now on tour. He is a great, great bowler, but by touring pro standards he is probably average or a little below. He's been on TV maybe 4 times in 5 or 6 years on tour. (I am too lazy to look it up for sure)

220 in league is sooooo much different than 220 on tour.

Re: What about this sport...
 

Domer had the answer to this sandwiched in between my two posts.

I still cannot grasp this variance argument if they release lines. WTF does it have to do with anything? Its like a standard answer people just randomly throw out when they don't know what is going on.

Re: What about this sport...
 

I agree with domer's assessment.
The reason there is no betting on bowling is because they have the perception, likely correct, that almost nobody gives a crap.

I also cannot figure out the variance argument and why it would be so special to specifically make bowling not bet-worthy but not for any other sport.

Re: What about this sport...
 

Pinny did offer lines on the PBA telecasts for 3 or 4 weeks before they shut down US wagers. The lines would go up on the day of the telecast and they would create a line for the final match during the commercial break before that match.

I remember that the limits were really low on the head to head matchups. The lines were openly discussed on the PBA website forum at the time.

The low limits and lack of US wagers would lead me to believe that there was minimal action on those lines. I can't imagine variance would matter on these lines, assuming that the person setting the lines wasn't so bad at setting lines that Pinny would lose enough money to care.

Re: What about this sport...
 

Would that sport be any more susceptible to the players throwing the games?
I know they don't get a lot...especially if they don't win.
But, as you say, it's going to be kind of difficult to make money on the low bet-maxes I assume they set.

Re: What about this sport...
 

The current payout structure on the telecasts are 25k-13k-6k. I'm not sure if it would be possible to bet enough with the low bet maxes to make up for the possibility of the bowler winning more by just winning their match.
The telecast money doesn't take into account any ball or other incentives that the bowler might have for winning the event.

The low amount of action on the event would probably make it pretty obvious that something fishy was going on if someone was throwing a match. Pinny was the only place I know that offered a line, so it isn't possible to spread the action across 5 books to hide what is happening. I guess it comes down to how many times would Pinny take one-sided max bets before the line comes off the board.

Re: What about this sport...
 

it is next to impossible to figure out if someone is throwing a bowling match on purpose

Re: What about this sport...
 

I realize that it would be nearly impossible to detect an attempt to throw a match. The betting action would have to point directly at that situation and even then it might still be hard to tell. The main point is that it might not be financially reasonable to throw a match under the limited betting situation that existed.

Re: What about this sport...
 

You think if you make the lane conditions tougher it evens the playing field? So you have a better chance to beat Pete Weber on the U.S. Open lane condition than at your local league with a house shot? You are way out of line. When lane conditions become easier it becomes easier for everyone to strike and pro's don't get 11 pins for throwing a better strike than an amateur. But when strikes are hard to come by and require a perfect approach, timing, release, and ball selection it gives the pro an edge you can not imagine. I average 220-230 depending on my effort, I bowled against Pete Weber 9 games in our state tournament and i was 0-9. The odds of any given bowler beating a top notch pro on a tough condition are about the same as the College Football National Champs beating the Patriots in snow at home.