question regarding sports betting

[im a model]

i spend a lot of time in sports books (i dont bet, i just watch games and get free drink tickets--im an ideal client) and i hear a lot of really dumb stuff...

"whats that dallas +140 houston -160 mean?"
"uhhhhh... thats if you want to just bet it straight up and the book doesnt take any juice, so you could bet 160 on houston and win 140 or bet 140 on dallas and win 160, but i like betting spreads."
"oh, ok. i got it."

...i could go on. its about as bad at the poker table, and i often hear people talking about sportsbetting (usually what random game or total is a lock and/or how great they are at handicapping) and when someone challenges them and says it isnt beatable, if the "handicapper" is not completely retarded they say how the sportsbook just puts out a line to split public action so they are guaranteed a profit, and a smart bettor can beat that line.

my question is why doesnt the book just put out the fair line? that way they wouldnt have to deal with line moves, which cost them money by leaving them exposed to middles anyway. also, they wouldnt be losing money to sharps who know the fair line and to people who are scalping. are the books really in such a financial situation that they are afraid of losing a few games, so they feel they have to balance the action and cost themselves EV?

take a roulette analogy: if there isnt an equal amount bet on red and black on each spin, the casino doesnt care. they know they are going to smash anyone in the long run with their %4.5 edge or whatever it is. they dont try to balance the action by giving red better odds so that they can be guarenteed a %2 edge instead of being exposed for some money if red comes up. so why do they do it in sports? it makes some sense for a start-up book that cant afford any real exposure, but for books like pinny, the mirage, caesars, etc. that have no risk of going broke, why not just set a fair line and not let unbalanced action sway it either way?


and for a somewhat related question: is there a database of the final numbers of public money bet on each side for past games? like how covers has the past several years with the spread and total of the games, is there anywhere that has these numbers with the accompanying money on each side? not that i think a strategy as simplistic as "fade the public over %70" or something would work, or everyone would be doing it, but i think it would be interesting to look at.


and on an editorial note: i hope you appreciated how all three of my locks lost in a landslide. it couldnt have been more perfect. i mean... this [censored] is rigged.

[Performify]

Several of the questions that you raise are answered in the forum FAQ, especially the question of the public money on games. You should really start there before starting a thread, there's a ton of good sports betting info in there:



Books do not try to balance their action, that is a common sports betting myth. Your roulette analogy is exactly what goes on -- the books take unbalanced action because they have a pretty significant hold back on lines and they win over time from most people. Books adjust lines because doing so allows them to adjust their risk profiles, not to try to attract balanced action.

Strategies like universally fading the public are not as large of a winner as you think. Very few easy and simple such systems work.


-P

[im a model]

i dont understand the distinction between "adjusting their risk profiles" and "balancing the action to reduce risk."

i glanced over the faq (thanks for the screenshot by the way--i never would have found it otherwise [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ) and read one link that lead me to this statement:

[ QUOTE ]
(7) Before you make a bet, ask yourself why there would be value in the bet. Ask yourself why the sportsbook would knowingly accept a bet from you if it were in your favor, not theirs. If you think the answer to this question is simply because you think you are better at assessing the teams than the linesmakers, you are almost certainly wrong. As an example, if your betting angle is to fade the general betting public (this is what I do most often), then the answer is likely that the book is willing to take on a little sharp action to manage the risk on the other side.

[/ QUOTE ]

is this balancing action or adjusting a risk profile?

also, i take it you dont know of any sites that have historic money figures?

furthermore, does your saying that universally fading the public (or even qualifying it as fading the public at certain exceptionally high percentages) is not a large winner imply that it is a loser when factoring in the juice?

lastly, what are the simple such systems besides potentially that one and the wong teaser one that you mention in the faq that do work?

thanks for any responses.

[NajdorfDefense]

[ QUOTE ]
i dont understand the distinction between "adjusting their risk profiles" and "balancing the action to reduce risk."

thanks for any responses.

[/ QUOTE ]

Even the largest banks and HFs in the world have risk limits. I worked near a desk that lost $120mm in a few days on a simple spread-widening trade using completely liquid assets on both sides.
I doubt any book could stand to lose even 30% of that on one event [without someone getting canned.].

Put differently, they might set a line so that they get $10m of action on the 'wrong' side and $5m on their side, but they would not want $10m and only $1m on the other side, even if they were very confident they'd be right in the medium and long-term about setting the line on that team. You can get fired first. One big loss is all it takes.

The LV bookies publicly said the USC v Texas line should be 4, and yet it was 7.5-8.5 for weeks, before closing around 7. Now, they were right and Texas covered, but was down 12 late in the game. You need *some* balance, particularly if you are publicly traded like 95% of onshore books.

[dankhank]

[ QUOTE ]
(7) Before you make a bet, ask yourself why there would be value in the bet. Ask yourself why the sportsbook would knowingly accept a bet from you if it were in your favor, not theirs. If you think the answer to this question is simply because you think you are better at assessing the teams than the linesmakers, you are almost certainly wrong. As an example, if your betting angle is to fade the general betting public (this is what I do most often), then the answer is likely that the book is willing to take on a little sharp action to manage the risk on the other side.

[/ QUOTE ]

i went looking for this in the FAQ because i was going to say that answer seemed "out of date" to me. but i guess it is from some other document.

while it is true that most linesmakers are smarter than us and know more about sports, many people here are succesful mainly through finding stupid books, who have bad lines for reasons ranging from laziness to risk avoidance.

by risk avoidance i mean the dumber the book, the more likely they are to balance their action. some books are "willingly dumb" because their marketing has allowed them to get a bunch of square customers, and they have to balance against that customer base. other books are dumb because their handicapping isn't good enough to realize when they are getting very profitable action on a line, and in those cases shouldn't want to balance.

and by laziness i mean if you find a book that does not move their number fast enough to keep up with the market average, then you have another simple system that works.

when you start betting more than $500 a game, or when you have gotten booted from several of the dumb books out there, then you have to start finding more complicated systems for finding winners.

[MyTurn2Raise]

[ QUOTE ]
and for a somewhat related question: is there a database of the final numbers of public money bet on each side for past games? like how covers has the past several years with the spread and total of the games, is there anywhere that has these numbers with the accompanying money on each side? not that i think a strategy as simplistic as "fade the public over %70" or something would work, or everyone would be doing it, but i think it would be interesting to look at.

[/ QUOTE ]

no, because the estimates of 'public' betting are pretty shady to begin with

also, books aren't in the business to collect data that players would use to try and beat them unless that data would encourage more poorly placed bets than good ones




unlike poker, where the house merely wants to keep the games running, sportsbooks want you to slowly lose. They are an opponent.

[Performify]

[ QUOTE ]
also, i take it you dont know of any sites that have historic money figures?

[/ QUOTE ]

to which I said in my original post:

[ QUOTE ]
Several of the questions that you raise are answered in the forum FAQ, especially the question of the public money on games. You should really start there before starting a thread, there's a ton of good sports betting info in there:

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps you were too distracted by the lovely MSpaint work. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]


The FAQ should have lead you to this question / answer pair:

[ QUOTE ]
# Where can I see what the public is betting? (Where can I gauge public opinion?)
# Wagerline.com (look under Handicapping then Consensus Picks)

[/ QUOTE ]

where you can see consensus picks generally regarded as one of the best available indicators of public opinion for at least the last three full seasons (NFL, no idea on other sports).

[youtalkfunny]

[ QUOTE ]
take a roulette analogy: if there isnt an equal amount bet on red and black on each spin, the casino doesnt care. they know they are going to smash anyone in the long run with their %4.5 edge or whatever it is. they dont try to balance the action by giving red better odds so that they can be guarenteed a %2 edge instead of being exposed for some money if red comes up. so why do they do it in sports?

[/ QUOTE ]

The odds of red vs black can be quantified mathematically. It is a mathematical certainty that red will come up 18/38ths of the time (barring factors such as a biased wheel).

Will the Patriots cover -7 at Cincinnati 50% of the time? Can that be quantified mathematically? 'Fraid not. If it could, the books would never move the number.

Unlike the roulette calculation, that -7 was not arrived at by science. It's an opinion, an estimate, a guess. The guy who put that opinion up for betting realizes that he is not infallible. When he sees the betting pouring in on one side, he'll adjust his opinion of what's "fair".

So moving the number "on action" does more than balance the action--it also helps the odds-makers find that "fair" number.

Because the new number is probably more fair than the opening number, other books will probably move their number "on air" (not on action; they haven't taken enough action yet themselves to justify moving it).

Hope this helps.

[youtalkfunny]

[ QUOTE ]
i dont understand the distinction between "adjusting their risk profiles" and "balancing the action to reduce risk."

[/ QUOTE ]

Neither do I. The explanations that followed were no help to me.

[Performify]

My point is/was: Balanced action is a myth, like the sasquatch or the female orgasm.

It's a common misconception. The casual punter thinks "oh, these lines are set so that half the money is on one side and half on the other". Its just not true -- the lines aren't these magical balancing points where it works out like that.

Yes, it's the holy grail. Every book would love it, but its pretty much impossible. True balanced action (literally 50% of the money on Team A at -7, 50% of the money on Team B at +7) doesn't really exist. Books don't effectively hang a line that will get 50% of the money on either side. They can't. The sharps and the public aren't these organized forces that work in equal but opposite perfect harmony. Its not that much of a science. The lines are set, and market forces push the lines to move.

Books certainly shift lines to adjust their risk and exposure on games, what I referred to as their risk profile or their position on a game. But its not done because "ok we have 48% action on this game and we need to get it to 50%".

It's "we have too much action on this side and aren't comfortable with our current position of winning 3M if Indy loses and losing 1.5M if Indy wins, so we need to sell off some Indy / shift the line to bring the risk to the book down to our comfortable risk level of 1M for this game". A book may have 80% of the money on one side of a line and be happy with it. Or they may have 50%-50% and be unhappy because they intended to take a position and shade.

It's especially this way in the trenches at the lower level independents. Your local guy may have 90/10 on a game featuring the home team. He may shade some of that risk up the chain to a larger bookie (or these days, online) but he's not usually going to balance to 50/50. He's going to depend on the fact (usually) that his customers can't beat the -110 line long term and while he might have a big busto weekend here and there, he's going to beat them down over time because they can't pick 54%+ winners but keep betting against the -110.

If that local guy was in Indy in 2006 and booking a lot of homers, he got killed. A lot of regional guys went under last year in the great BSP Uprising -- they couldn't fade the huge public favorites covering with such great frequency, and many were not smart enough to offload enough risk -- "adjusting their risk profile" so to speak.

Ultimately part of this is a semantic difference. "balancing the action to reduce risk" is something that happens using that terminology -- you could say the guy moving from 90/10 to 75/25 is "balancing the action" in that he's bringing it closer to a theoretical balance he will likely never reach. It's just that the final state of true balance just never (almost never) truly hits that 50/50 nirvana. The position could be 55/45 or 60/40 or 51/49 but

Edit to add: All ^ based on my own experience inside and around the industry, obv. not the authoritative voice on this despite the name in green. Happy to get someone else's opinion if they disagree...

-P