Re: It really cracks me up
Check out a USC football game on a Saturday night or a Lakers basketball game on a Sunday night and you'll see Los Angeles money in Las Vegas. I believe it's easier to find a rogue number on the dog than the favorite. I understand that times have changed, but I believe chalk players live on. When players go on "tilt," they often lean to the favored side. P.S. - There are many "casual" or unsophisticated players wagering four and five-figure amounts in Las Vegas. Big money is not always smart money. Through the years, Vegas bookmakers have learned to book the action without moving the numbers. But some houses still book to the money.
I may agree with you on the rogue number bit, but only because it's usually a rec book such as Bodog or BetUs that is getting hammered by squares on the favorite. But if they were a true market (i.e. didn't boot all the sharps who would be betting the dog), I don't think you'd see the rogue numbers. Another issue in this is how much does a wealthy LA fan laying 5 dimes on gameday on an NCAAF prime time game side or NBA game-day side (in Vegas) affect the market? Not at all in my opinion. Maybe that one book in Vegas, but that has little to no effect on the overall sports betting market. For the most part, the best gamblers are the ones with the biggest bankrolls - the groups who have had years of winning sports betting with good models and top-notch injury information to build up their bankrolls. I was talking to a member of one of these groups the other day and he told me his group
lost (not wagered) 130k on NFLx over the weekend. If they are able to get that much done on NFL pre-season (mostly teasers), imagine what they could do on game-day NBA and NCAAF sides. One of these groups can absolutely dwarf any amount of fan money that may skew a line.
Tim, alot of public teams are hot teams, and if you don't bet it early you won't see the number again, and if you like the back side of that game wait till late to bet it, it happens everyday in every sport... another example using the opening line on the Yankees everyday they play you will get the best number over 75% of time if you bet them early, and if you like the dog wait till late, if you don't believe me, start charting the opening line everytime the Yankees play... and if you have an account with Cris you will see he over moves the runline 7-days a week, its nowhere near equal to a 10 cent line the way Cris moves his runlines, thats why you have to have plenty outs so you can shop around for the best possible number..........
On your advice, I went back and looked at the opening and closing lines of Yankee games from some of 2003 season and then all of 2004 to 2009. The line moved in the Yankees favor in 680 of the 1,297 games I looked at or
52.43%.
I did see two interesting trends though, the money does seem to come in heavy on the Yanks as home favorites (~65% of the time, the line move indicated the money coming in on the Yanks) and as road favorites, the market
faded the Yankees almost 65% of the time. Hard to draw any conclusions from the dog categories (the Yankees have opened as a road dog a whopping 2.9% of the games I looked at).
But over the large sample of 1300 games, it's pretty clear that the market moves with the Yankees just as often as it moves against them.
I think the late games on the West Coast and Sunday and Monday Night football tend to move to the favorite as game time nears. Tourists (and regulars) trying to play catch-up are more comfortable betting favorites. Some weeks you should just take your moderate beating and call it a night. Don't chase a lost day by betting on an inflated favorite to make your balance sheet look good.
I disagree on this for mainly the reasons I stated above. All it takes is one syndicate betting 6 figures on the Sunday night game to counteract every clueless tourist betting $100 on the fave. In addition, "tourists" don't bet offshore which, with probably the only exception of the M, is what comprises the market. I'm sure plenty of small locals get flooded with money on the favorite, Yanks, Cowboys, etc. But in the widely-available sports betting market, these days of "bet the favorites early, dogs late" are mainly over from what I see.
Great stuff there, Tim. I've done well playing 10+ point dogs in the NFL and I still believe dogs and unders are the way to go. That said, I can't prove it except for the snippets of data I compile each year in my 'little black book.'
As I said above, there are still some slight market biases. Under high totals in the NFL is one that may or may not continue to be profitable. Double-digit dogs in the NBA, as you and I discussed via e-mail this winter, are another. The big issue is how many 10+ dogs are there a year in the NFL? They can all be +EV but the volatility created by the small sample could have you lose your ass on them for half a decade.