Moneyline.....and the Livin' is Easy

O

ouch

EOG Dedicated
With apologies to George Gershwin (and dearly departed EOG poster, Jeff Jones).

I have a serious question about playing huge money lines. Do you guys do it often, or at all? It looks so easy, just like the lyrics of the song. And yet, every bit of gambling wisdom I have ever heard says that ultimately it will kill you.

Let's take tonight's Bucks/Rockets game. Milwaukee, a team on a roll is roughly a 16 point favorite at home against a horrible team. That translates to anywhere between -1549 and -2035 according to today's Best Bets Threads. The Bucks should easily kick ass assuring one unit in the till. But if a miracle happens, and the Rockets play out their ass and somehow win, you get absolutely buried. If you win 15 or 20 bets in a row like this, and invariably lose one, you are right at break even. That seems like a poor proposition.

Have I been misguided in this? Is the conventional wisdom wrong?
 
C

cheapseats

EOG Master
I attacked the BB daily thread with the ML only approach, you'll see 103-67 +6.81 units. That was my plan to show it can happen. I took a few on the chin as you can imagine. Never-ever use big ML on the road, stay away from any game that has any oddity or unusual line-up, weather, or such, game must be as expected with starters, injury, etc. Look hard at the motivation of the big ML. It's doable. BTW, Sublime......................
 
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choslamshe

choslamshe

EOG Master
I do it early and often, but have adopted a mindset to keep my balance with these plays almost separate than my regular plays. With that being said, the biggest piece of advice I would give to anyone is to learn the 'European' game. Not just soccer, but basketball, handball, rugby, volleyball, etc. I would say that 90% of my big ML plays (-1000 or higher) come from European instead of our North American leagues. A lot of free money floating around the likes of Danish/Czech basketball, Champions League handball, and Aussie Rules. There used to be a time where I would look for 3 huge MLs in "our" main leagues (NHL, NBA, MLB, NFL) to parlay but no value anymore with parity and how pathetic most league regular seasons are these days (no one tries).
 
FairWarning

FairWarning

Bells Beer Connoisseur
ouch said:
With apologies to George Gershwin (and dearly departed EOG poster, Jeff Jones).

I have a serious question about playing huge money lines. Do you guys do it often, or at all? It looks so easy, just like the lyrics of the song. And yet, every bit of gambling wisdom I have ever heard says that ultimately it will kill you.

Let's take tonight's Bucks/Rockets game. Milwaukee, a team on a roll is roughly a 16 point favorite at home against a horrible team. That translates to anywhere between -1549 and -2035 according to today's Best Bets Threads. The Bucks should easily kick ass assuring one unit in the till. But if a miracle happens, and the Rockets play out their ass and somehow win, you get absolutely buried. If you win 15 or 20 bets in a row like this, and invariably lose one, you are right at break even. That seems like a poor proposition.

Have I been misguided in this? Is the conventional wisdom wrong?
Click to expand...
Nowadays, these are prime spots for teams to sit out their players, especially on the road. Potential playoff matchups can factor into it also, whether a favorite is tanking or not.
 
O

ouch

EOG Dedicated
In Today's Best Bet thread, the poster known as Computer Bob made the following selection:

KK Cibona ML -2936 (Pinnacle) Croatia HT Premier Liga Playoffs


Let's have a quick show of hands.....how many people here followed along with that play? I mean after all, it is the resident genius making the call.

Did you risk $2,936 to win $100?

Do you think that makes sense?

Is there an intricate strategy that I am missing?

Could it be that the real number should have been -5000, and you are getting incredible value at -2936?

I am always willing to learn something new here at EOG....because frankly, I don't get it.

I'd especially like to hear what John Kelly thinks of this.
 
X-Files

X-Files

2
ouch said:
about playing huge money lines.... every bit of gambling wisdom I have ever heard says that ultimately it will kill you.
Click to expand...

Betting random "huge money lines" will "kill you" in the long run, but then so will randomly betting medium & small money lines and NFL -110 (or reduced juice -105) lines.

OTOH betting sharp (+EV) lines of any kind will make you profitable in the long run.

If Pinnacle has a match ML at -1000/+600 & all other books are at -500/+400, then you probably have value (+ EV) on betting the -500 ML.
 
WildBill

WildBill

2
I think it really relies on the relative price you are getting as X refers to in his comment about where Pinny is versus the best line you can get. For a casual or even intermediate player to reduce your edge and give yourself a shot at being a small winner I highly recommend following the principles Ed Miller discusses in his book. To summarize you want to have access to a lot of lines and then find spots for your selected side or total where one version of the line is close to no-vig. In some cases, that calls for you to bet on the big ML favorite. Sometimes you bet the line instead.

An interesting game right now is the Kings-Thunder game. As you can see it is the lone game with no vig, you can get -375 or +375 so if you like either side you are playing at no disadvantage provided you have funds in accounts at MGM and SuperBook. ML coupon.JPG

But also at this time you could get an "off market" line of -8.5 for the Kings. I don't think of +9.5 -118 as a good option, when you can get +9 -103 if you have a Points Bet account. So you get faced with choices, but my guess is there is more value in betting the ML if I like the Kings and probably take the +9 -103 if I like the Thunder. Best part is lowest hold is 3% at any book and you are betting it at 0% hold so right there you have an idea of how much "value" you are getting by line shopping. But this is a spot where I would definitely say betting a pretty large ML favorite on the road isn't a bad idea if you actually like the Kings here. There are not over -1000 ML teams tonight, but frequently when I do this exercise with them you can get under a 1% edge which I think is sufficient to put in a play on the big favorite if your handicapping calls for them. So even without a 0% edge I might be willing to back a team in the Clippers/Knicks game on the ML as well, but the other games are over 1% and I'd likely pass or try to find a favorable pointspread bet on them for the game or half, whatever eliminates the most hold.

Game Lines.JPG

These are heady times for those of us in legal sports betting markets because you can go after this strategy quite easily for all major sports. I remember looking at trying similar strategy when the book first came out using offshores and there just wasn't enough line diversity at the sites I trusted to play at. For those who aren't serious players at the pro levels where you'll spend 10+ hours a day watching screens and trying to size up the market this strategy is the easiest to execute.
 
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