I recently listened to a poker player use Black Friday shopping as an analogy to how a football line is set. Just like mobs of shoppers will storm Best Buy on Black Friday, scores of sharp bettors will be refreshing their online offshore accounts on Sunday evening, waiting for the following week's early college football lines to be posted.
And just as with Black Friday, there's some really great deals available to bettors that have the first crack at betting into newly-posted lines. With retail, the first 20 people or so will get a $50 TV. But after those 20 TVs are gone, the prices return to normal.
In betting markets, the market-making books are comfortable allowing a few bettors to take positions on games that will win money from them over time. But only a few bettors actually get money down on those "Black Friday" lines, and the amount you can bet on the game (or the supply of 50$ TVs) is set very low during this time.
For a very simplistic example, say Pinnacle opens up a line first at -9. Someone that Pinnacle respects then places a max bet on -9, and the line moves to -9.5. Another bettor that Pinnacle respects thinks there's still value on -9.5 and makes another limit bet, causing the line to move again to -10. On Monday morning, it's still -10 and all the other sportsbooks open up shop and copy the market-making books' lines.
The -9 and the -9.5 were the $50 TVs. Obviously, someone who took -9 is not automatically going to win his bet. He likely doesn't even have a 60% or better chance of winning. If -9 was the "lock of the century", that same person surely would've found value in -10 and max bet it again on Sunday night.
There's just a ton of variance in sports. It's also true that linesmakers & sharps completely whiff on lines all the time (i.e., LSU -7 against Tech in the Texas bowl), but that is very, very rare in P5 college football & especially the NFL. In some niche sports, linesmakers don't care what sharps think and will set a horrible line because they know the public $ will be grossly lopsided on the wrong side (i.e., Mayweather being only a 6/1 favorite over McGregor).
Even though the predictive value of this info is minuscule, I still find it interesting to see what linesmakers & respected sharps are thinking about each week's Tech game. It's also a different perspective because these bets don't really come from "football" guys. Most never played a down in their life and couldn't tell you a player on any given team. They care more about nerd stuff like Bayes theorem compared to something like how accurate Bowman is on 3rd downs.
I've digressed some but just wanted to give a little background as to why I even post or track this kind of stuff.
Current Line: Tech -2
Bets Tracked on Sportsinsights: 2,700
Action: 75% of spread bets on Tech
Money: 60% of the $ is backing Tech
This line opened Tech -3.5. Despite the fact that most ticket slips have Tech on them (even at the initial opener of -3.5), this line has moved against Tech AND across the key number of -3. Thus, someone or something that linesmakers respect believes there was value backing Arizona at +3 and, especially, at +3.5.
The total opened as low as 73 at some places and was quickly bet up to about 77. It has settled at 76. As expected, 80% of bets thus far have been placed on the over.
IMO, the best "square" indicator (even though squares win too!) is tracking parlay tickets. Sportsinsights claims that, on parlay tickets involving this spread, 80% of the picks have been on Tech.
I have a half unit play locked in on Zona +3 (thanks for accommodating @SoCal Raider!). As I posted earlier, I've had a terrible feeling about this game since the summer. However, with Zona's defense looking horrific and ours like the '85 bears, my (historically optimistic) Tech brain has convinced my (historically pessimistic) Tech gut that we should and will win this game. Nevertheless, I don't mind having a half unit on +3 since (1) this is a perfect emotional hedge opportunity and (2) it appears that my +3 number will beat the closing line at Pinnacle.
Prediction:
Tech 33
Zona 31
And just as with Black Friday, there's some really great deals available to bettors that have the first crack at betting into newly-posted lines. With retail, the first 20 people or so will get a $50 TV. But after those 20 TVs are gone, the prices return to normal.
In betting markets, the market-making books are comfortable allowing a few bettors to take positions on games that will win money from them over time. But only a few bettors actually get money down on those "Black Friday" lines, and the amount you can bet on the game (or the supply of 50$ TVs) is set very low during this time.
For a very simplistic example, say Pinnacle opens up a line first at -9. Someone that Pinnacle respects then places a max bet on -9, and the line moves to -9.5. Another bettor that Pinnacle respects thinks there's still value on -9.5 and makes another limit bet, causing the line to move again to -10. On Monday morning, it's still -10 and all the other sportsbooks open up shop and copy the market-making books' lines.
The -9 and the -9.5 were the $50 TVs. Obviously, someone who took -9 is not automatically going to win his bet. He likely doesn't even have a 60% or better chance of winning. If -9 was the "lock of the century", that same person surely would've found value in -10 and max bet it again on Sunday night.
There's just a ton of variance in sports. It's also true that linesmakers & sharps completely whiff on lines all the time (i.e., LSU -7 against Tech in the Texas bowl), but that is very, very rare in P5 college football & especially the NFL. In some niche sports, linesmakers don't care what sharps think and will set a horrible line because they know the public $ will be grossly lopsided on the wrong side (i.e., Mayweather being only a 6/1 favorite over McGregor).
Even though the predictive value of this info is minuscule, I still find it interesting to see what linesmakers & respected sharps are thinking about each week's Tech game. It's also a different perspective because these bets don't really come from "football" guys. Most never played a down in their life and couldn't tell you a player on any given team. They care more about nerd stuff like Bayes theorem compared to something like how accurate Bowman is on 3rd downs.
I've digressed some but just wanted to give a little background as to why I even post or track this kind of stuff.
Current Line: Tech -2
Bets Tracked on Sportsinsights: 2,700
Action: 75% of spread bets on Tech
Money: 60% of the $ is backing Tech
This line opened Tech -3.5. Despite the fact that most ticket slips have Tech on them (even at the initial opener of -3.5), this line has moved against Tech AND across the key number of -3. Thus, someone or something that linesmakers respect believes there was value backing Arizona at +3 and, especially, at +3.5.
The total opened as low as 73 at some places and was quickly bet up to about 77. It has settled at 76. As expected, 80% of bets thus far have been placed on the over.
IMO, the best "square" indicator (even though squares win too!) is tracking parlay tickets. Sportsinsights claims that, on parlay tickets involving this spread, 80% of the picks have been on Tech.
I have a half unit play locked in on Zona +3 (thanks for accommodating @SoCal Raider!). As I posted earlier, I've had a terrible feeling about this game since the summer. However, with Zona's defense looking horrific and ours like the '85 bears, my (historically optimistic) Tech brain has convinced my (historically pessimistic) Tech gut that we should and will win this game. Nevertheless, I don't mind having a half unit on +3 since (1) this is a perfect emotional hedge opportunity and (2) it appears that my +3 number will beat the closing line at Pinnacle.
Prediction:
Tech 33
Zona 31
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