how does vegas come up with the mlb lines. like how do they come up -150 for the favorite. i noticed the underdog is usually 10 points less than what the favored is so it would be +140. but how do they come up with a number? is there some table or trend info they use? also are there any trends that can be based off of those numbers? thanks
-
-
Obviously a very difficult and complicated question to answer. Every moneyline corresponds to a probability that they attach to each team's chance of winning. For instance, a team with a no-vig line of -150 has a 60% chance of winning. That means that if you bet an event with a 60% probability of winning over a large sample size at a price of -150, your expected value is 0.
The 10 cent difference you noted is the vig.Comment -
thanks, yea im just wondering how vegas or whoever comes up with those numbers? like is there a big dif betwen -144 or -145 you know what i mean?Comment -
i actually think the line doesn't always have anything to do with the outcome at all. Think about it: the whole purpose of betting is so the books make money. Therefore, the lines are created in whatever way will make them the most money. This means 3 options for me. 1) They want the public to be 50/50 on both sides so they collect money purely off the juice. 2) They will create a line merely for enticing purposes, to try and generate as much action as possible. or 3) they skew a line to make it look like there is a steal to take one team, when in actuality, they know something that the public will overlook, and that team will lose (see michigan state only giving 1.5 to illinois yesterday). All three of these aspects and possibly more is put into account, but I'm pretty damn sure it's about one thing: $$$$. To beat the book, you've got to think like the book. hope this helpsComment -
Excellent point ... Just because a team is -200 like the yankees or red sox at home would be doesn't mean the books think they will always win yet they always seem to have this crazy line against a weak team... They are trying to get a lot of action on the game and they usually have important insider info that results in the book usually winning ... They make lines so intriguing so the public bites hard on a line that looks too good to be true... When in reality we are all figuring out hat it usually is!!! Any other ?'sComment -
thanks guys. yea that was what i was thinking too. why are the lines -144,-145-146, ect... and not just like -141 -150 -160, ect. is there really a difference and whats the meaning for each point?? thanks, i have learned the past fews yrs to look at the lines very carefully what they are set at and what the public is doing because the books always win. and what seems to be too good is. i am just trying to figure out the dif between each little point in baseball juiceComment -
i think the reason you'll see lines at 144, 145, and 146, etc. to keep the lines 50/50 on both sides. The difference between -144 and -140, although only .04 units, could actually sway the betting public in an uneven manner that the books wouldn't be to fond of. I just thought of an interesting hypothesis: what if the line ending in 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9 is indicative of say a "50/50 wager" (where the public is even on both sides), and the insider info trap bets will be consistently ending in 0, say -170, because the books know that the line doesn't matter, the public will trip themselves up anyway. i wonder if theres anyway i could research this....any thoughts?Comment -
rainman... thats what im trying to figure out myself, you knows those numbers have some kind of meaning to them. the books are very smart and they make lines for a reason. they have to mean something in one way or another, now we just got to figure out what the might meanComment -
hmmmm. i'm not really sure if there's anything we can do to figure it out. I mean, lines move based on the betting publics reaction to the opening line, but i think that this trend would still apply even for the books "trap games," disguising them altogether. I'm gonna set this idea aside for now, i dont think there's really any conclusion to drawComment -
yea hopefully someone that might know something can come on here and help us out. i know the public is usually always wrong especially when the line moves opposite of the favorite.Comment -
really? we need some numbers to back that up. it's very interesting. I'm definitely going to be keeping track of units gained when the betting public is heavily favoring one side. I think i'm going to look at if 80% of the public is on one team for the moneyline. I think that seems like a good cut-off point for a public opinion landslide.Comment -
im looking at every game from past 2 years and so far the public blows especially when they are betting on the underdog.Comment -
are you talking about line movement or the actual percent that the public takes one side vs the other? quantify that a little for me hahaComment -
i look to see what way the lines move. when the public is betting for the underdog...( example the fav was at -160 and now its at -145, that means the public is on the underdog) when the kind of line movement happens i noticed the favorite usually wins anyway and usually at a very good rate too!Comment -
interesting. i'll start getting some data on that today (i'm all about finding angles with data, the more units/per game an angle turns, the better)Comment -
you look into or consider looking into when the public favors the favorite?Comment -
i am i am up to the all start break of 09 and through may of 08 for underdog and favorite now. i will get back to you later with the numbersComment -
awesome, let me know. i'll give you an angle of mine when you're finished. good teamwork hahaComment -
so i got a little impatient and did some number crunching this afternoon looking at how the favorite does when the lines moves in favor of the dog 10 cents in the range of -110 to -199, 20 cents from -200 to -299, and 30 cents and -300 and up (or down?). here's what i got:
April 2009: 27-25, -4.3 units
June 2009: 31-44, -22.77 units
August 2009: 56-30, roughly +18 units (i was too lazy and discouraged to calculate units here, so i estimated with the average favorite loss costing 1.25 units, which was the average from the other two months)
Total calculated: 114-99, -9.07 units
I'm ready to throw in the towel on this one, unless the other numbers your acquired showed the june was a really weird flukeComment -
yea im breaking down the lines lie between 100-110, 111-120, and so on when the final number ends in one of those categories based on the public when they are on favs and underdogsComment -
interesting. so you're taking the games in which teams that are relatively evenly matched to start, then seeing if the public was correct with the choice they made because it's their choosing that makes the favorite? i worded that crappy, but am i understanding this correctly?Comment -
im taking every game no matter what the line is! i just used 100-110 as a n example of how im breaking it down. im breaking it down by 10s. and yes im seeing how the public was when they bumped the juice up on the favs and how they were when the lines dropped when they were on the underdog. you know what i mean??Comment -
haha yeah, now i got it. i didn't separate it out by tens, but as a whole it seemed like there wasn't a correlation anywhere. hopefully broken down into smaller segments a pattern will emergeComment -
i got aprils number from 08 and 09 on the favs, i will post for ya in a hr. i came up with -$4000 something if you tailed them! not good!Comment -
i know its only from past 2 years so it isnt much for date but this is what i found just for april so far from 2008 and 2009 on the favorites and this is laying the juice to win 100 on each game. As you can see juice really kills you if you lose even with a winning record. Seems games between 100-150 you should fade the public!
100-150
08=55-52 -$1024.00
09=31-48 -$3071.00
total = 86-100 -$4095
151-200
08=31-22 +$41.00
09=32-17 +$379.00
total 63-39 +$420.00
201+
08=6-4 -$300.00
09=8-2 +$340
total 14-5 +$40.00
TOTAL=163-144 -$4183.00Comment -
here is may, its completly the opposite but overall the public is still down on favs
100-150
08=77-57 +$504.00
09=81-57 +$552.00
total = 158-114 +$1056.00
151-200
08=43-25 +$230.00
09=41-24 +$34.00
total 84-49 +$264.00
201+
08=5-4 -$425.00
09=9-3 +$230.00
total 14-7 -$195.00
TOTAL= 256-170 +$1125.00
so through april and may of 08 and 09 the totals are...
April 163-144 -$4183.00
May 256-170 +$1125.00
TOTAL 419-314 -$3058.00
i cant believe how much juice hurts when you do lose a game. i mean a winning record and be down that much still, damn!!Comment -
yeah, i'm not seeing any correlation with anything. bummer. it's real tough to find angles that benefit the favorite consistently, they need such a high winning percentageComment -
yea i know i was all excited about how bad teh public did in april and then they did good in may, damn that sucks, i will see if anything works out for the underdogs if not i guess we will call it a cabosh on it!Comment -
dealComment -
yea i did the underdogs and the public had a bad record but one year they were plus 2000 and last yr they were negative 1000 so i guess im callng it quits too. maybe i'll break the numbers down even more and see if i can find something but so far nothing! damn!Comment -
too bad. check your messagesComment -
The number corresponds with a win %. You can determine win % from a moneyline number by using the following formulas:
Underdogs: 100/(100+ moneyline price) = Win %
-Example for +140 dog: 100/ 140+100= 41.67%
Favorites -moneyline price/ (100+ -moneyline price) = Win %
-Example for -140 fav.: 140/ 140+100= 58.33%
So to answer your question, once the book determines their opinion on a team's chance of winning, they'll do the opposite of the calculations presented above, and then add the juice.
Hope this helps.Comment -
I do not believe you can say that if a line moves from -150 to -140 that the public is wagering on the underdog. Public could continue to wager on the favorite at say $100 per person (for example) and then sharps could be wagering say $500 or $1000 per person on the underdog, thus creating the movement. 50-50 means even money not necessarily people.Comment -
good questionComment -
whatever spread gives the book the exact same amount of money on both sides of the bets!Comment
