The Nfl Line!!!! What You Should Know

BigJoe · July 2005

written by ace-ace ex-bookie I HAVE A BOOK....THAT HAVE A LOT OF WHAT I CALL FOOTNOTES TO LIVE BY.....IN MY MIND ...THIS IS NO.1 AS A EXBOOKIE I KNEW HOW THE LINE WAS MADE .....THIS IS WHY I MADE A PROGRAM TO FIND THE LINE VS THE SPORTBOOK LINE TO FIND VALUE + OR - I'M NOT SURE WHO DID THIS.....BUT HERE IT IS.... FOOTNOTE NUMBER (1) Successful football handicapping starts with throwing out those old strategies and systems that, on the surface, seem like they should work, but in reality never do. When most sports gamblers set out to make pro football picks, they call upon all manners of statistics as well as their knowledge of the sport to try to determine which team has the best chance to cover the spread. Seems logical, right? Wrong! This is how most people go about handicapping games, and almost everyone loses. To make enough winning picks to beat the sportsbooks over the long run, you must begin by analyzing the NFL betting lines to match the perspective of the oddsmakers. This can be accomplished by looking backwards to determine why the odds on a given game involving 2 teams has been set at a particular number, adjusted to a particular number, or maintained at a particular number. How did the line originate? Why is the line the way it is? By analyzing NFL betting lines in reverse, you'll be able to do two important things for increasing the success of your pro football picks: 1) You'll be able to shift your focus away from using statistics, sports knowledge, and other unprofitable techniques to pick which team you think will cover the point spread. 2) You'll be able to redirect your focus towards using indications in the NFL betting line on a given game to identify which team oddsmakers & insiders think will cover. Looking for indications in the sportsbooks' point spreads is your best bet for picking which team the oddsmakers and insiders think will cover the spread in a given game. The key is to understand that the sportsbooks' point spreads are the oddsmakers' instrument for dividing the monetary betting action in half for a given game. In other words, the very existence of NFL betting lines and point spreads gives a sportsbook an element of control over how the population as a whole decides to bet in a given game. To start, the odds on a game are not the oddsmakers' assessment of what the difference in final score will be. It is their assessment of what particular football odds line number will draw even action from the combination of sports bettors. Oddsmakers are masters at using point spreads to keep betting action divided in half. By making adjustments in a given point spread oddsmakers can sway large numbers of sports bettors who have not yet made a decision on which team to bet on in a game to place their bet on the team that has "lesser action." Ask yourself, how often have you been undecided on a game with a 3 point spread only to make your decision after the line moved down to 2 1/2 or up to 3 1/2? The movement in the spread was the book's effort to balance the action, and often times it can have a direct result on your wagering decision. Of course, when point spreads are moved, it can also sway sports bettors who have already placed a bet on a game to "put down" additional action on that game... Or to even reverse their direction and bet the other way to try to "sandwich the game" and hit both sides. But as far as the oddsmakers are concerned, keeping the action split at each odds line number (dollar number) or point spread is the key. Doing so allows the sportsbooks to make their juice. By controlling the odds, the bookmakers have an amazing amount of control over who bets what amount, and at what point in time they bet that amount, thus enabling them to keep the action divided in half. However, before oddsmakers can even begin to make adjustments to keep action divided in half, they must choose a starting point or "opening line" for the game. When creating opening lines, the incentive for a sportsbook's oddsmaker is to choose football odds that will do a fast, efficient job of splitting action in half. Doing so guarantees that they can make the most juice. If an opening line doesn't draw even action, the sooner the spread can be adjusted to draw even action, the more vig the sportsbook can guarantee for itself. Simply put, the more a line needs to be adjusted to keep betting action even, the more overall risk the sportsbook is exposed to, and the lower the profit they stand to make. This is because the sportsbook can get stuck with uneven betting action for any given point spread number, which cuts into profits. Therefore, you can see that the oddsmakers would be very interested in knowing what specific point spread number would draw even action for a given game before having to release the opening line for that game to the public! But before oddsmakers could know what an opening line on a given game would need to be set at to draw even action, oddsmakers would need to know which team sports bettors planned to put their money on in advance of that game! And for a variety of different odds line numbers. This brings us to the oddsmakers' greatest strength when it comes to using point spreads to divide betting action in half. The oddsmakers' greatest strength for dividing betting action in half is based on the fact that most sports bettors make their decisions by relying on some level of information they have collected about the matchup. To cope, oddsmakers have developed techniques to allow them to measure the level of information that prospective sports bettors know about a given game, and oddsmakers can look at this information before having to release the opening line for that game. One method oddsmakers use to measure the information level known to sports bettors about a game is to release an exclusive "unrefined" test line for select knowledgeable and well respected gamblers or "insiders" to bet into. For inside gamblers who have access to these "unrefined" test lines, it's like having access to free money. Because if the odds end up being far off from the test line, the game can be sandwiched by insiders for a potential double hit. But it's well worth it for the oddsmakers to give these insiders the sandwich opportunity. Because by allowing select insiders an exclusive opportunity to place bets against early test lines, oddsmakers get a chance to determine whether or not the insiders are playing the same side in a game, whether insiders are split, and how strongly insiders feel about their selection in terms of how much they are wagering. Collecting this type of information about how insiders are evaluating their selection on a given game helps the oddsmakers make an assessment of what the opening line will need to be set at in order to generate even betting action from the combination of inside sports bettors and general public sports bettors on a given game. Of course oddsmakers also study general public wagering patterns. But as a rule they are more concerned with measuring insider wagering interest because insiders place bigger bets (which are harder to balance), and because insiders can at any moment have access to more relevant information about a given game than anyone else. For example, insiders may know: What types of strategies the teams plan to use? Whether or not the teams are emotionally ready to play? Who is officiating the game and what affect it can have on the teams' playing styles? Whether the starting quarterback has a blister on his thumb? Insiders can be in possession of so much pertinent info (a.k.a. inside info/inside reads) that never gets disseminated to the public prior to the start of the game that most people simply wouldn't believe it. The level of information that insiders possess is obviously the driving point for their bets. And since oddsmakers are providing insiders with an early test line to bet into so that they can measure the level of insider interest in a game before creating the opening line for the sole purpose of balancing action, sportsbooks' football odds and point spreads very often reflect the level of information that is known to insiders about a given game. This is the golden egg of pro football handicapping.

hookyoo · July 2005

That is some very good information. something I have heard before but, did not really know the details of how lines were set or adjusted. Thanks for the info.

TheNFLMan · July 2005

Can you give us an example?

The Nfl Line!!!! What You Should Know

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