Catching the middle.

At what point is it worth betting the opposite of your original bet and hoping the game lands in the middle. For example: This morning I bet the UNDER 137 in the Washington St/Idaho College Basketball game. Currently the under can be found at some Las Vegas casinos as low as 132.5. That gives me a four point window in which if I bet the over 132.5 I could potentially win both wagers. I don't bet a significant amount of money so its not worth it for me personally, but for someone who would have put $500 down on the UNDER 137 would it now be worth risking losing only the vig ($50, you are betting $550 to win $500) to try and win double?

Thanks in advance for any comments.

Quote: SONBP2

At what point is it worth betting the opposite of your original bet and hoping the game lands in the middle. For example: This morning I bet the UNDER 137 in the Washington St/Idaho College Basketball game. Currently the under can be found at some Las Vegas casinos as low as 132.5. That gives me a four point window in which if I bet the over 132.5 I could potentially win both wagers. I don't bet a significant amount of money so its not worth it for me personally, but for someone who would have put $500 down on the UNDER 137 would it now be worth risking losing only the vig ($50, you are betting $550 to win $500) to try and win double?

Thanks in advance for any comments.

I'd guess the answer would be if you felt there was a greater than 10% chance that the score will land in the included range. (You'd be risking the vig on both ($100) to win $1000.) You are basically taking 9 to 1 that the score falls in the middle. Nice odds if you think that's where it would be. And since the lines are set by "experts", I think the odds would be greater than 10% that they'd "even out", so it's a good bet if the middle can get big enough.

Quote: cclub79

I'd guess the answer would be if you felt there was a greater than 10% chance that the score will land in the included range. (You'd be risking the vig on both ($100) to win $1000.) You are basically taking 9 to 1 that the score falls in the middle. Nice odds if you think that's where it would be. And since the lines are set by "experts", I think the odds would be greater than 10% that they'd "even out", so it's a good bet if the middle can get big enough.

You aren't risking both vigs, the bet you win you will get back that vig. So if I bet $550 on the over and $550 on the under both to win $500. Technically it would be a $50 bet to return a total of $1050 if both bets won.

Quote: SONBP2

You aren't risking both vigs, the bet you win you will get back that vig. So if I bet $550 on the over and $550 on the under both to win $500. Technically it would be a $50 bet to return a total of $1050 if both bets won.

That just makes the odds even better!

Quote: cclub79

And since the lines are set by "experts", I think the odds would be greater than 10% that they'd "even out", so it's a good bet if the middle can get big enough.

I'm not as well versed with the sports book as I am with Table Games or Poker, but aren't the lines set more to even out betting, as opposed to actually figuring out what the scoring will be like? Yes, I understand that the these objectives usually converge, but I was under the impression that the former was more important than the latter.

And with that logic, is there really a greater than 10% chance that the final score will be within this window?

Quote: kaysirtap

I'm not as well versed with the sports book as I am with Table Games or Poker, but aren't the lines set more to even out betting, as opposed to actually figuring out what the scoring will be like? Yes, I understand that the these objectives usually converge, but I was under the impression that the former was more important than the latter.

And with that logic, is there really a greater than 10% chance that the final score will be within this window?

I would say in a game like Washington St. / Idaho that the line is going to be set as a prediction of the scoring. It's not like a game between Duke and Clemson, where people get excited about betting on Duke, so the line is a couple of points off prediction. Also, it's an over/under. So in this case, I think we can go under the assumption that the over/under is set at the most likely amount of points that will be scored.

My guess is that if we ran a simulation with the over/under amount as the mean, we'd find that it's a normal distribution. Now we just need to know the standard deviation....

Yes, with sports bets the casino just wants to find that ground where they make 10% off the losing bets. Along those lines, my question really comes down to what is the actual odds or likelihood that I would catch that middle? How big does that window need to be before you start thinking about trying to hit the middle. Since I follow sports consistently, a 4 point window is a considerable line movement for any given game. Usually you can expect .5pt to 1.5pt movement on any game, but 4 points is a pretty big move.

Final Score of the Game: 66 64 Washington State winning in the last seconds to narrowly avoid overtime, which would have likely meant all under bets regardless of whether you had Under 137 or Under 132.5 would have been losers. Luckily all UNDER bettors won regardless of the line.