Money Line Question

I have been told that books make attractive underdog opportunitys to compsenate for heavy betting on the favorite side.

Is it possible that this creates an inefficient market in favor of the underdog position, in relation to a more statistically derived payout? Especially in cases of +780 offerings (just to make a number up), for example?

Sports books handle the money line in the same manner they handle the spread. The idea is to open with a line that invites the exact amount of betting on each side that coincides with trying to guarantee a house win.

why would anyone risk 6000 dollars for a 500 gain if the seahawks probably will beat the rams....

its so hard to imagine that someone would bet on that side, and yet the supposition is that the book wants roughly even sides.

You would be surprised. You see it in college football a lot, like people putting down thousands of dollars for Alabama to win every week despite the insignificant win. The underdog wins every once in a blue moon, so the books still need to make sure enough players take the favorite so they don't take a critically devastating loss.

I think underdogs on the money line is about fair, depending on whose line.

Quote: charlestfuller

Sports books handle the money line in the same manner they handle the spread. The idea is to open with a line that invites the exact amount of betting on each side that coincides with trying to guarantee a house win.

Does a casino take this same approach with other bets they offer? Do they try to deal a roulette game allows them to guarantee a house win every spin? Or a slot machine that guarantees a house win every wager? No matter how hard they might try, most games will not have equal action. Often it will only take one max bet on a first half total for that proposition to have lopsided action. Just like in blackjack, where the house loses close to half the time, most books are perfectly fine losing on a lot of the games they offer. Sometimes the vig means they have a profit locked up before the game starts. Sometimes one sided action means they have a chance to lose, which happens often. But it also means they have a chance to win big, which also happens quite a lot.

Quote: Wizard

I think underdogs on the money line is about fair, depending on whose line.

Can the same be said of favorites?

Is this the same statement as "certain variations of blackjack are about fair", or is it perhaps more positive?


I suppose an analysis of historical results and respective lines would be the only method of answer? Not knowing of such a database, it seems a daunting task. for one to try to gather and calculate.

Thanks

The general rule in gambling is that the greater the payout the worse the bet is in terms of % in the long run. You can see it very easily in roulette where betting numbers costs the player more house edge than the even money bets (as long as the house has the "en prison" rule which I'm pretty sure most do.) You can see it in craps where hardaways bets cost the player more than placing the 6 & 8 in percentage terms. It's there in baccarat where the tie bet costs the player more than a bet on player or bank. In horse racing it has been shown that bets on extreme longshots to win are much worse bets than bets on lower odds horses again in the long run. The most extreme example is the state lotteries where a player might give up as much as 50% to the house. I would assume, but I don't know for sure, that this is the case also with the money line in most sports bets. If Washington plays Maryland in football and Washington is -1800 on the money line I would presume that that kind of bet would not attract much action but getting a huge payout by betting on Maryland would have many more interested. This, if true, might cause the books to adjust the line to make the bet on the extreme favorite a better deal to try to balance their books. The earlier poster mentioned people betting huge on Alabama no matter what and that is probably true but I don't think it is representative because Alabama is a special kind of team that has a national reputation as having a sensational program. It would require an awful lot of data mining to see if what I'm suggesting is true or not.

Quote: DingDingDing

I suppose an analysis of historical results and respective lines would be the only method of answer?

Not at all. If one book has the favorite at -300 and another had the underdog at +300, one of those lines must be either "fair" or better. (Think of "fair" as if you were playing on a no-zero roulette wheel).

Finding those sort of arbitrage definitely takes some work, but something like -300 online and +280 an Las Vegas is fairly common, especially on a big college Saturday. Most likely one of those bets is break-even or better. And most likely it is the underdog (I wrote why previously: https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambling/sports/26813-why-big-money-line-underodgs/)

For some reason people believe calculating probability based on true count in blackjack is mathematical law, but calculating odds in sports based on market price is voodoo. Just means more profit for those who understand it