What Vegas Thinks of Flacco

**Paintballguy** · 11-18-2018, 11:51 AM

Originally Posted by RavensDFan

lol

It has zero to do with what Vegas thinks of Flacco and everything to do with fan perception and how they bet. That is what changes the odds, what those betting do with their money. Don't know why it would be a surprise that those outside of Baltimore would have a negative perception of Flacco since his own fan base thinks every bad thing that happens in the world is his fault.

Clearly you have no idea how Vegas works. Point spreads and over/unders are set by the sharps by what the sharps think about the teams. They will adjust the lines to injuries. Clearly with Flacco out they think the ravens are better. The public moves the money line.

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**RavensDFan** · 11-18-2018, 11:59 AM

Originally Posted by Paintballguy

Clearly you have no idea how Vegas works. Point spreads and over/unders are set by the sharps by what the sharps think about the teams. They will adjust the lines to injuries. Clearly with Flacco out they think the ravens are better. The public moves the money line.

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No that isn't true. They adjust to odds based on bets to make it more favorable for themselves in regards to payouts. And their odds of payouts changes based on actual bets put down and true, some last minute changes. That is true for any sports betting. That is how it works. Feel free to google it. So more people are putting money on the Ravens with an LJ start because so many hate Flacco and/or are excited about LJ. So you understand how if the Ravens only needed to cover 3 pts instead of 6, then the odds are more likely that a Ravens win would net a payout. With needing to cover 6, less likely. It also has to do with AJ being ruled out as well. Bengals can't put up points without him so it decreasing the Bengals chance of winning overall. So it means less chance of any payout for Vegas.

Edit: Forgot the other part of that, more people bet on Baltimore, if Ravens win and only have to cover 3, not only is a payout more likely, but larger. Vegas is all about the money(for themselves) and their lines are based on where the money is going and what odds are going to make not only their odds of a payout less but the actual payouts amounting to less. Vegas is never your friend lol

**Paintballguy** · 11-18-2018, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by RavensDFan

No that isn't true. They adjust to odds based on bets to make it more favorable for themselves in regards to payouts. And their odds of payouts changes based on actual bets put down and true, some last minute changes. That is true for any sports betting. That is how it works. Feel free to google it. So more people are putting money on the Ravens with an LJ start because so many hate Flacco and/or are excited about LJ. So you understand how if the Ravens only needed to cover 3 pts instead of 6, then the odds are more likely that a Ravens win would net a payout. With needing to cover 6, less likely. It also has to do with AJ being ruled out as well. Bengals can't put up points without him so it decreasing the Bengals chance of winning overall. So it means less chance of any payout for Vegas.

https://www.actionnetwork.com/nfl/20...gers-tom-brady

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**RavensDFan** · 11-18-2018, 12:21 PM

Originally Posted by Paintballguy

https://www.actionnetwork.com/nfl/20...gers-tom-brady

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I guess you missed this line in that assessment:

"depending on where they believe the action will go". In other words, everything I just said.

**balbomb** · 11-20-2018, 08:45 PM

So the easy answer is you are both right. RavensDfan, I think you are undervaluing the influence of sharp money otherwise known as the smart bettors in Vegas. There are many examples where 80-90% of actual bets placed on a game go for the favorite, but the line doesn't move all week. The reason for this is that all of the big bets are placed from the smart people with the biggest bankrolls. Another example is if you watch the action on a game in the first ten minutes that the spread opens. A lot of times the bookmakers will almost instantly adjust the line based on a few smart bettors who realize the line is out of whack. Furthermore, another indication you need to look for is the late movement of a line (about two hours before gametime). As another poster showed, this continued to climb in the favor of the Ravens and the axiom "the late money is the smart money" is still almost always true.

All of this is to say, there is so much skilled analysis going on by the big money makers in Vegas and offshore, that just by following Vegas odds, you will have a much more accurate depiction of reality in sports than if you combined the consensus of all the people on tv, writers, and radio.

So if Vegas thinks Flacco sucks, he sucks, and this could not be proven more true than based on the line movement of the game last week.

**Ravens4Real** · 11-20-2018, 09:28 PM

Originally Posted by balbomb

So the Ravens opened as a 3.5 point favorite, then all of the major books took the game off the board until today. Most would assume that if your Super Bowl winning QB is injured, the spread will go down. For example, Aaron Rodgers is worth the most points in the NFL, he is a full 10 points better than his backup. A number of years ago, Brady was listed as between 7 and 8 points, Todd Gurley is worth 3 points, and JJ Watt was worth 2 points during that monster 20 sack year he put together in 2015 as a few examples. Well since Joe is listed as doubtful, and it looks like either a rookie QB or a guy who has not suited up on gameday for two years is going to start the spread is now...

Ravens 5.5 point favorite. Quite honestly I was surprised that we opened as more than a 3 point favorite, and shocked that the spread went up! This has always been the case, but Vegas is always going to be the smartest people and they are telling us that Flacco flat out stinks. Not elite, not average, not mediocre, they are saying he is trash. Most of us at this point have come to grips with Flacco being a pile of poo, but it really is shocking that a starting nfl qb is actually less valuable than either of his backups.

You are shocked that we opened up as a favorite, vs. a west coast team, at home and that team being one of the 3 worst teams in the entire league? Also, they typically always set homefield as a 3 points favor. The public placing a lot more money on the Ravens could make Vegas up that spread from 3 to 5.5. It doesn’t have to be from what they believe. They are allowed to change the spread.

Also, Vegas arent always that smart. They lost millions on that game last night. Game hit the over in the second quarter.

**balbomb** · 11-21-2018, 07:27 AM

Originally Posted by Ravens4Real

You are shocked that we opened up as a favorite, vs. a west coast team, at home and that team being one of the 3 worst teams in the entire league? Also, they typically always set homefield as a 3 points favor. The public placing a lot more money on the Ravens could make Vegas up that spread from 3 to 5.5. It doesn’t have to be from what they believe. They are allowed to change the spread.

Also, Vegas arent always that smart. They lost millions on that game last night. Game hit the over in the second quarter.

Not trying to be mean but your whole post is incorrect. The opening line against the bengals opened at 3.5 which of course factors in home field advantage (ravens actually get 3.5-4 points due to their record against the spread under Flacco and Harbaugh). Think you might have been confusing bengals and raiders?

Additionally yes it’s possible for public to move the line for example from 3.5 to 4, maybe 4.5, but once the spread crosses not only the key number of 4, but also 6, it is only BIG sharp money driving that number. See books will go out of their way to not be middled. So for example if you have a lot of money at the beginning of the week at -3.5, but end with spread 6.5, any game falling within 4-6 points the casinos will lose on both ends. To avoid this they start making the bets at -4 with added juice -115 up to -125 to dissuade money coming in on one side. What they can also do which occurred here was to take the bet off the board from wed-fri. That the number jumped so dramatically is further and stronger evidence of how poor a qb Flacco is because no other factor changed.

Finally you are certainly right that Vegas is not always right, for example they are big losers the last three years on Sunday and Monday night football games continuing to go over when there is an unbalanced amount on the over, with that said try to beat the Vegas lines in nfl football for a year, a tiny tiny percentage of people make money and the majority of the people lose, or try to convince themselves they are smarter than they are.

**FearTheRaven** · 11-21-2018, 12:00 PM

Yikes lot of gambling novices on this board lol.

Ravens are a good bet this week, especially with Oakland coming off a win.

**Ravens4Real** · 11-21-2018, 12:35 PM

Originally Posted by balbomb

Not trying to be mean but your whole post is incorrect. The opening line against the bengals opened at 3.5 which of course factors in home field advantage (ravens actually get 3.5-4 points due to their record against the spread under Flacco and Harbaugh). Think you might have been confusing bengals and raiders?

Additionally yes it’s possible for public to move the line for example from 3.5 to 4, maybe 4.5, but once the spread crosses not only the key number of 4, but also 6, it is only BIG sharp money driving that number. See books will go out of their way to not be middled. So for example if you have a lot of money at the beginning of the week at -3.5, but end with spread 6.5, any game falling within 4-6 points the casinos will lose on both ends. To avoid this they start making the bets at -4 with added juice -115 up to -125 to dissuade money coming in on one side. What they can also do which occurred here was to take the bet off the board from wed-fri. That the number jumped so dramatically is further and stronger evidence of how poor a qb Flacco is because no other factor changed.

Finally you are certainly right that Vegas is not always right, for example they are big losers the last three years on Sunday and Monday night football games continuing to go over when there is an unbalanced amount on the over, with that said try to beat the Vegas lines in nfl football for a year, a tiny tiny percentage of people make money and the majority of the people lose, or try to convince themselves they are smarter than they are.

You are actually wrong in a sense. The public putting too much money on a certain side indirectly moves the spread up or down. But the only people that move the spread are the bookies in Vegas or wherever located. The public can only directly move the money lines.

The public influences the spread number posted but does not move it by themselves.

I was only wrong in seeing the post not until Monday and assumed that he was talking about the Raiders game and not the Bengals. That was my mistake.