Atlanta Hawks vs Charlotte Bobcats W T F ?

[The Brainiac]

Opened at Charlotte Bobcats - 5.5 and now down to - 2 .

Bobcats owned them in Atlanta 96-75 yesterday and what changed over the night ?

Any info ?

300 $ on Bobcats with - 2

[BYRNE11]

Revenge...

[McFadden]

Brainiac, I'm betting Bobcats -2 b/c I just don't see Atlanta pulling it off, but don't be surprised if tonight's game is much closer than last night's. Hawks are steaming.

[JohnAndersen]

solid

[MicroBob]

line ended up at CHA -1 from what I saw.

I was on it and CHA won by ONLY 19.

So WTF was with the line move on this one?
Seemed really strange.

Was there some kind of injury speculation? Read nothing like that from what I found.


This line moving so dramatically just made no sense to me and has me feeling even more stupid and square than I already know I am.

[DeezNuts]

Nice! This looked funny to me too, but it almost looked TOO funny. I don't know what historical stats on back-to-back games where a team gets blown out is, but I still put 1 unit on CHA after reading this thread.

DN

[youtalkfunny]

I don't follow the NBA. I've never heard of any of the players I'm about to mention. I haven't tracked the "Don Best Screen" in years (if you don't know what the Don Best screen is, an explanation appears at the bottom of this post).

In other words, I don't know what I'm talking about.

But here's a possible reason why the number jumped on this game, or any other NBA game, if the sportsbetting scene is still anything like it was when I stopped booking in 2002:

From the recap of this game: "Charlotte...won for the fifth time in seven games despite numerous injuries. Center Primoz Brezec (back spasms) and forward Sean May (knee) did not play."

Whether these guys are key players or not is irrelevant. Whether or not everybody knew they weren't going to play is equally irrelevant.

If Don Best sent out an "alert" pop-up that said, "Center Primoz Brezec (back spasms) and forward Sean May (knee) will not play," then somebody figured that had to be worth at least a point, and took the 5½. The race was on between the "screen watchers" and the bookies. Many books moved the number "on air", not wanting to be picked off for a bet at 5½ on a game that should be no higher than 4-4½.

After the screen watchers got theirs, the "steam chasers" came in. They may or may not know why the number just moved simultaneously at every book in the world, but it did, so something must be up, and they want in. Even if most of the "value" dried up when all those 5½'s disappeared, they don't care. A chance to get in on a "steam" play is worth it to them. At worst, they have as good a chance at winning with this bet than any other, since they know nothing about basketball. So they take their chances with the steam team, driving the line down further.

Again, I have no idea how important these particular players are. Nor do I have any idea whether that's what triggered the move. All I can say for sure is, I've seen it 1000 times before.

That 2001-2002 season I mentioned was brutal. Steve Francis was questionable every day with migraines. He was also "Stevie Franchise", MVP candidate, so whether or not he played had a big impact on the line.

Every day, the line would go up, the "alert" that everyone expected popped up, and the race to the number was on again. It didn't matter if Francis had announced he was sitting out for the entire week: Don Best would send the "alert" every afternoon, and it would trigger another run at the numbers.

***

Definition of Don Best screen (you can skip this part if you already know):

Don Best is a website used by bookmakers and sharp bettors. It displays the current, up-to-the-second lines at dozens of Vegas and offshore books. It's not cheap (last I heard, it costs about $650/mo to subscribe), but if you're moving tens of thousands of dollars per day, it's well worth the expense.

Besides the lines, it also keeps an eye on the wire services, and will send "alerts" to inform their customers of the latest injury, weather, or other info that they need.

But like I say, these alerts trigger a ton of action.

When Don Best gets one wrong, it drives everybody nuts. It's always fun to get the "Kobe Bryant is out tonight" alert; scramble to combat the steam hoppers; then receive the "Correction: Kobe Bryant is probable tonight" message, triggering a tidal wave of steam the other way.