Somebody is going to get hurt

**psuasskicker** · 09-11-2010, 08:31 PM

Originally Posted by Losac

Thank you Greg. So sick of hearing people think the Vegas spreads mean anything more than a way to get money bet as evenly as possible on both teams. And that stupid myth of "home team automatically gets 3 points so -3 for the Jets means we are just as good". :grbac:

You have literally no idea what you are talking about. Seriously. None.

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**psuasskicker** · 09-11-2010, 08:36 PM

BTW, for you to back-test lines and historic win rates (convert lines to MLs, which is standard across the board) if you really want, here are all open/close lines with the final scores.

http://www.sbrforum.com/scores/NFL%20Odds/20080907.aspx

**HoustonRaven** · 09-11-2010, 08:44 PM

I wouldn't be that hard on Greg or Losac.

The root of the line starts at who is the better team. The line is then determined from there to get the most action.

So both Greg and PSU ate correct. The line is decided on where the the action is but it's also a decent indicator on teams prowess since Vegas has pretty good insiders.

**psuasskicker** · 09-11-2010, 09:17 PM

I don't dispute that the line could be shaded one way to get action. The problem is, barring huge games like the Superbowl they will NEVER be shaded in one direction in order to get even action any more than maybe a point. There's simply WAY too much sharp money that would simply abuse a line that far off. The difference between -3 and -2 is pretty big. It's 60% to win vs. 55% to win the game (game lines are actually set based on the % one team has to win). A player that knows one team is 60% to win, but that Vegas is paying $100 on a $120 bet will crush a line like that.

Imagine the more extreme case that I gave before. You know for a fact the Ravens are 60% to win this game. But Vegas has given you odds that say they'll pay $150 for every $100 you bet. That's $50 in EV for every $100 you put down...a truly ridiculous 50% return on your money. You're telling me you wouldn't put tons and tons and tons of money on this?

Lines will simply never be even CLOSE to this far off.

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**Greg** · 09-11-2010, 10:31 PM

Originally Posted by HoustonRaven

I wouldn't be that hard on Greg or Losac.

The root of the line starts at who is the better team. The line is then determined from there to get the most action.

So both Greg and PSU ate correct. The line is decided on where the the action is but it's also a decent indicator on teams prowess since Vegas has pretty good insiders.

Sorry, but the root of the line and the whole goal of those who create the lines is to get 50/50 betting.

Indeed, how good the teams are does play a role, but not in setting the line but in the perception of the bettors and what the line makers believe the bettors are thinking.

The line maker's job is to get 50/50 betting, not predict outcomes. They judge the perception of the bettors, those who know what they are doing and those who are betting their favorite team, and set the line as best they can accordingly.

If they thought the Ravens were going to win by 10 points but knew setting the Jets at -3 would get 50/50 betting what do they do? They DO NOT set the Jets at +10 because if the Jets cover they get murdered. They set it at Jets -3 and make out either way.

If you think it works otherwise you are nuts.

And no, I don't believe line setters think the Ravens will win by 10, it was an extreme example to make a point.

**JimZipCode** · 09-12-2010, 02:52 AM

Originally Posted by Galen Sevinne

My understanding (and I haven't watched mre than 15 minutes of H.K.) was that Rex said Ray "tapped out". Now maybe the context is similar to what you are suggesting but the phrase "tap out" has a lot connotation.

Rex did say "tapped out", but the motion he mimed was slapping the side of their helmet, as if that was their signal to get a new play call in or something.

DVGN is describing it correctly, the tone of it was to imply that calling plays is hard. It sounded to me like Rex was coaching his guy Sanchez to take the challenge seriously, and telling him a story (possibly a lie) that would motivate him to try to exceed what those guys did. Just good coaching, really. A challenge and an achievable goal wrapped up in a funny story.

The reaction to it was way, way overblown.

**psuasskicker** · 09-12-2010, 08:12 AM

Originally Posted by Greg

Sorry, but the root of the line and the whole goal of those who create the lines is to get 50/50 betting.

Indeed, how good the teams are does play a role, but not in setting the line but in the perception of the bettors and what the line makers believe the bettors are thinking.

The line maker's job is to get 50/50 betting, not predict outcomes. They judge the perception of the bettors, those who know what they are doing and those who are betting their favorite team, and set the line as best they can accordingly.

If they thought the Ravens were going to win by 10 points but knew setting the Jets at -3 would get 50/50 betting what do they do? They DO NOT set the Jets at +10 because if the Jets cover they get murdered. They set it at Jets -3 and make out either way.

If you think it works otherwise you are nuts.

And no, I don't believe line setters think the Ravens will win by 10, it was an extreme example to make a point.

The problem with this example is that if the true line of the game were this far off, there is no chance on this planet that the Ravens side would not get pounded into oblivion. Every sharp on the planet would be max-betting it, and there's absolutely, positively no way that public money - coming in at an average rate of 1% or less of every sharp bet - would be capable of covering it.

Vegas will determine what the fair line is based on how good the two teams are. Then, if they believe that public money will come in heavily on one side they may shade the line very slightly in one direction. But those shades are typically reserved for huge games involving heavy public favorite teams. They aren't reserved for week one of the regular season. And even when they happen, they're maybe a point, two or three if it's a two-TD favorite on some side (i.e. Pats -17 in the SB instead of -15).

It's fine to say that Vegas sets the line where they think 50/50 action will come in on it. First, that's not exactly true in all cases (google "reverse line moves" as a good example). But in most cases it is. The problem is, the action will equalize at the spot where the two teams are truly at in terms of skill. The sharp money is so unbelievably heavy on lines that are off that the line will auto-correct itself when it is off.

Like I said earlier... If you could bet $100 to win $150, and this bet had a 60% chance for you to win, how much money would you put on this? I have a relatively small betting bankroll...couple grand. Situation like that, I'm probably putting nothing less than $500 on it, probably a grand. Every bettor that recognizes a line like this will bet every dollar they possibly can without risking ruin.

Lines not representative of actual team skills cannot hold.

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**psuasskicker** · 09-12-2010, 08:30 AM

Here's an article that discusses this concept of shading lines a bit more. Note that Vegas doesn't want 50/50 action if it can set a bad line that the public will still heavily bet on the wrong side. But...
a) it still starts with setting the correct line, and
b) the lines will never get set significantly to one side outside the skill levels of the teams.

The lines are almost always a very close representation of the two teams' skill and likelihood to win the game. In a regular season game, you're simply never going to see one team come in at -3 when they should in reality be +3...public betting will never cover such a spread.

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By Esposito's estimate, about 20 percent of the money bet on football comes from sophisticated bettors — the "sharp guys" — with the remainder coming from a group known industrywide as the squares. The trick is to set a line that will satisfy both constituencies and make the casino lots of money.

Unfortunately, Esposito couldn't open up his books to show us just how this plays out at Caesars. (Transparency has its limits.) But a different set of data, taken from a handicapping contest run by the online casino CaribSports.com, can address the same issue. In these data, 285 bettors made more than 20,000 wagers on N.F.L. games. What do these data show?

The 285 bettors exhibited the typical preferences mentioned above — a strong bias toward favorites and a weaker one toward visiting teams. The bookmaker, meanwhile, didn't merely acknowledge these biases and balance the book down the middle; it appears that the bookmaker strategically set point spreads to exploit these biases.

How does this work? Let's say that a bookmaker is handicapping a game between the Broncos and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He first studies every conceivable element of the game: strengths and weaknesses, momentum, injuries, tendencies, weather forecast, etc. He then decides that the true line — that is, a line that he figures will give each team a 50 percent chance of winning the bet — happens to be Denver minus 7 points. But because of bettor bias, perhaps as much as 80 percent of the money will inevitably flow to the favorite. So what if the bookie sets the line a little higher, at 9 points? Denver is still likely to draw the majority of the wagering, but its chances of winning the bet are now slightly less than 50 percent. The bookie has thus managed to tempt the majority of the wagering toward an outcome that is unlikely, even if only slightly, to happen. Over time, this pattern will yield the bookie a gross profit margin 20 to 30 percent higher than if he had simply balanced the wagering. In other words, why should a bookie play for the safe 10 percent vig when he can play it only slightly less safe and make much more money?

Chuck Esposito, though he is too smart to come out and say so, seems to be doing precisely the same thing at Caesars. What he will admit is that he doesn't mind if the wagering on a given game comes in at 80-20 instead of 50-50, as long as he thinks that Caesars is on the right side of the imbalance.