*** Official August - October Chatter Thread ***

[bergerinmouth]

New to Sports betting, Teasing tonights game, taking the under, but can't decide.
USF +4
or
Rutgers +10
????
Leaning towards Rutgers side

[New001]

[ QUOTE ]
New to Sports betting, Teasing tonights game, taking the under, but can't decide.
USF +4
or
Rutgers +10
????
Leaning towards Rutgers side

[/ QUOTE ]
If you like the under, then you should probably just bet it without teasing either side.

[centris]

CLE u4 -115 5dimes
BOS more ks thrown first inning -120 5dimes
BOS/CLE score run in first inning +125 5dimes
BOS u4.5 -115 bodog

[dankhank]

[ QUOTE ]
Bodog prop:


How many ads will Peyton Manning appear in during Week 7's Monday night football broadcast on ESPN?


[/ QUOTE ]

this will be a fun bet to sweat

[furyshade]

this is my first week betting after following the season pretty closely, hoping to learn how to do this.

steelers -3.5 2u
chiefs moneyline 1u
giants -9 1u
ravens -3 1u

only picking a few games, hopefully more next week

[Piece of Cake]

Hi all.

I'm looking for some discourse on contrarian betting. Of course I realize contrarian betting is a misnomer, but rather I mean fading sides with the higher % of wager volume and thus lower average bet size (i.e. Joe Public) and taking the side with low volume and thus higher average bet size (more likely placed by people with inside info or professionally). Apparently this information is available from sportsbooks when I thought I'd have to approximate it based off of yahoo pick'em %s etc.

Although I find game analysis important, I think many cappers think their rudimentary analysis is less valuable than they realize and often very much the same conclusion most of the casual bettor agrees with. That's why I'm much more interested in the wager flows. Of course odds/spreads are set to balance a books exposure to any particular side and thus are a prediction of wager flow not of a game outcome. In fact they can be drastically different - that's why handicapping is so potentially profitable. For this reason, I care a lot less about actual game analysis and a lot more with what drives the public wager flow. In fact, I think one of the simplest ways to take advantage of this would be to fade your weekly office pool. I suspect they have the majority of people picking ATS at lower than a 50% clip and are goldmines if you simply fade the majority pick... lol.

For instance if I told you 73% of a sample of 30,000 bets on last nights game were placed on USF-3, wouldn't it surprise you that despite that the line still dropped to USF-2? Why if the majority of the bets are on USF are sportsbook trying to entice more action on them? Why is the line only USF-3 if 3 out of 4 people are betting on them? These are the questions I look at when capping? And the reasons that drive me to like Rutgers in a situation like this. But w/e that's just one game and doesn't prove or disprove anything - it's just an example of what I look at when capping.

Lastly, if I wanted to trade cash from stars for a US friendly sportsbook, should I do it in the internet gambling P2P transfer thread? I was last on pinnacle (and loved them) for their low vig, but they stopped taking US action long ago and I've been out of the game for the while.

If you want to chat, please feel free to PM me.

[TomG]

Head over to sportsinsights.com if you have not already. They specialize in the type of wagers you describe.

[Piece of Cake]

Actually it was stumbling on their site which led me to post here. It's good to hear from a 2p2 that it is recommended. I'm surprised at the info they offer free of charge and would be interested in hearing if anyone has any expereience with their service.

[CaptainHook]

Congrats you came up with a theory that thousands of other people have come up with. It's also pretty damn easy to test, so if you have any ambition/chance of real success you should probably do so.

What you should probably consider is if the casinos are simply allowing for lopsided bets(which they do). Let's say the spread is set in a place which makes it very appealing to squares, but still not very appealing to sharps taking the other side(perhaps the game is set at it's true line and it is a perfect 50/50). Basically, the casinos have to just take the lopsided action and over time they will be winning way more on these games than if they had simply set the line for even action on both sides. This is what I suspect is happening with most of these lopsided bets, as opposed to your theory of the sharps betting tons more on the opposite side. I can't imagine how it could ever really be profitable to set the lines incorrectly on purpose. The sharps would simply eat them alive.

[Piece of Cake]

I apologize if I came off as spouting this off as if I came up with this out of thin air. This is in no means a theory of mine. Nor do I propose it to be new or revolutionary. As far as I understand it - it's the very basic concept of supply and demand.

I completely agree that it's easily backtested.

Thus my search for discourse. I know this has been discussed to death and would like to develop some contacts for more discussion.

I don't understand your mention of lopsided bets or how you propose casinos could be eaten alive. Please pardon my ignorance. Afaik casinos don't have exposure to any side. Is this an incorrect assumption. Are you saying that casinos "possibly" had exposure to the rutgers side last night because of the majority of bets were on USF? And if USF won, are you saying that they would've taken a loss? I thought that was the farthest thing from the truth and that they simply set/moved the line in order to balance exposure on each side and were only in the business of providing the action and taking their juice off the top.