In sports betting, the term ‘line’ can refer to both the money line set for baseball matches and the point spread for a football game. In fact, the line is nothing more than an indicator of the odds set for a particular sporting event, which can be translated into various different systems. When a prominent Vegas oddsmaker establishes the first line on a sporting event, then it is referred to as an ‘opening line’. Although offshore sportsbooks sometimes manage to get ahead Vegas oddsmakers in issuing sports betting lines, Vegas lines are invariably the ones that enjoy the most credibility and attention.
Establishing the line requires thorough research, as well as a balanced mix of professional experience and intuition. An oddsmaker’s caliber is influenced by his overall accuracy, and his job is anything but easy, since he has to account for numerous variables when deciding the odds:
- Team performances during the current and past seasons;
- Team records against all league adversaries;
- The state of the playing surface;
- Home ground advantage;
- Weather conditions;
- Key player injuries;
- Overall team morale;
- Off-field events with an impact on team performance (e.g. media gossips and disputes).
The lines and odds set for points spreads shouldn’t be perceived as means of predicting game outcomes or clear indicators of wager value, so avoid making your sports picks based entirely on that. When setting the line for a particular match, oddsmakers strive to balance things out by encouraging the public to bet evenly on both teams involved in the sporting clash. If one of the teams gets a lot of betting action and emerges victorious from the game, this can cost the sportsbook a great deal of money. However, if they manage to keep things square, bookies only have to pay half of the bettors with action on a game, in which case they make a profit equivalent to the vigorish – the commission deducted by the sportsbooks when processing wagers.
Oddsmakers are so determined to keep things level that they often attempt to influence the movement of the line by following betting trends. Vegas lines can move in either direction, depending on the situation: if the underdog too much attention, oddsmakers may decide to readjust the line by subtracting several points from this overly bet team. What’s interesting is that wagers laid out before the line changes still stand, and are calculated against the original line. With good timing, you can place additional wagers after the line changes, only this time on the opposite end of the game. Mainly employed by the experts, this practice is known as ‘middling’, and enables bettors to win on both bets.
Occasionally, even prominent, high-caliber sports gamblers can influence Vegas odds and lines, as other bettors tend to replicate their actions for better success rates with their sports picks. Since this can encourage too much action on one side of the bet as well, oddsmakers must take corrective action and readjust the line accordingly.
Under certain circumstances, oddsmakers may decide to set their own figures, irrespective of Vegas lines. If they become good at it, manage to achieve good exposure and establish themselves in the market, they might end up being hired by Las Vegas casinos, which are the only resources that can legally employ the services of oddsmakers in the US.
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