Book-making book recommendation?

I'd like to learn about making book. I was hoping someone could recommend a book about it. (Book making book! MakingBook, I'm looking in your direction...). I found a couple on Amazon "The Book on Bookmaking" and "The Art of Book Making," but they didn't have a lot of reviews so hard to tell if they're any good. Also most of the results turned out to be about binding books at home...
Anyway, does anyone have any solid recommendations, from a very basic perspective, for a resource on evaluating the odds of various unknown events, assigning payouts, and adjusting them for the betting pool. From as basic as a situation where you evaluate two things to be equally likely to handicapping multiple-participant events?

the pool of people looking to be bookmakers is tiny, so I dont think you will find a book on that.

I think you want a book on handicapping or sports betting, so that you can compare your analysis and your expected spread based on that analysis with the spread the books give.

Larry is right - what you are describing is a book on handicapping (well, except for the part about adjusting the lines/payouts based on the betting pool).

Also, assuming you are interested in being a bookmaker (as opposed to "just being interested in how it works), where would this book be located? If it's in the USA, bookmaking includes some other details - for example, trying to collect the money from losers, and staying one step ahead of the police (I heard somewhere that the book's biggest worry is the wife of a losing bettor).

Quote: ThatDonGuy

Larry is right - what you are describing is a book on handicapping (well, except for the part about adjusting the lines/payouts based on the betting pool).

Also, assuming you are interested in being a bookmaker (as opposed to "just being interested in how it works), where would this book be located? If it's in the USA, bookmaking includes some other details - for example, trying to collect the money from losers, and staying one step ahead of the police (I heard somewhere that the book's biggest worry is the wife of a losing bettor).

Thank you both for the replies. I'm actually not thinking of getting into being a bookmaker, but very interested in learning how it works, in some detail. I guess the goal would be to make better bets with my friends by learning some of the math/art/science behind setting lines, adjusting the payouts and etc. It just seems like something cool to be knowledgeable about. And I suppose it would help evaluate bets in legal sportsbooks too, but that would just be additional.

I think staying one step ahead of the police has a lot to do with how u run your book. Not threatening losing players who can't pay, while perhaps hurting your bottom line, is probably one good idea.

For quite a while I used to go to Newbury races and originally tried to study how prices moved up and down in an effort to get the best price for the (random) horse I had picked. Eventually I learned tic-tac (now almost extinct) and the concept of book-values. Also I could see how some bookies were prepared to lead the field when pushing out odds compared with the smaller ones who followed (and also tended to take smaller bets). Occasionally you'll see a bookie "take a view" and either offer better odds or never offer good odds on a particular horse. Thus there is some mathematics involved (although nowadays every on-course bookie has a laptop to do it, print tickets etc.).

I cannot help you with how to pick horses/dogs whatever, but essentially the bookie has to determine the true odds on the event (or guess). With Betfair and the like, there is more information around, so bookies can now run closer to book that in the past (except some Scottish tracks which have always been generous).

In the UK (and elsewhere) bookies offer odds such as 2/1 13/8 4/11 etc. and on a two-horse race might offer 1/2 and 7/4. In the US they use a different system where, based on a bet of 100, +x represents odds against and how much you win (e.g. +175 = 7/4). -x represents odds on and how much you need to bet to win 100 (e.g. -200 = 1/2). Thus the above race would be -200 +175. Many sports bets are based on the line, giving an advantage to one team (say 5 1/2 points) trying to offer similar odds (say 10/11 -110) on either side.

"Book Values" are essentially an estimate of how much money the bookie takes to payout £100. (It is the reciprocal when comparing casino games.) Thus if there was a horse race with five runners being A 3/1, B 3/1, C 4/1, D 4/1, E 4/1 the maths would be (to a 100-book) 25+25+20+20+20 = 110 (25 @3/1 returns 25+75=100 etc.). As the odds varied, depending on bets made, the book value would alter, and the aim of the bookie is not to go over-book and try to balance things out to reduce the risk. For instance if there was a heavy bet on C, then its odds might go 7/2 and A and B out to 100/30. The skill is knowing when to change your odds as the bets come in - if you are too inflexible you'll occasionally lose to a series of big bets and do it too often then you'll go over book by offering too good prices on less-backed horses. It is not unusual for the best prices in a race to go over-book, but this will be when one or more horses are backed heavily (say 2/1 to 6/4) - in this case some bookies will have taken 2/1, but as the odds still fell, the average bet will have been at 15/8 and 7/4.

There's a lot of skill in this side of bookmaking and I suspect quite a few bookies get by knowing the above rather than much about the horses running. In the heat of the moment, I remember half-time of one NFL match, you just have to react to the bets coming in and put aside your opinions. The important thing seemed to be to get the favourite (i.e. build up a bank), lay a few of the other horses and hope it's your day, especially if the 33/1 winner comes home (unless you're the one bookie that took the £5k/£150 bet!).

"Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie." Shows some of the dark side of the business.

"Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie." Shows some of the dark side of the business.