The misunderstanding of "beating the closing line."

[acw]

All this has been discussed 8 years ago already:


By the way Pommy bookmakers simply look at BetFair's market at the time of betting to judge if a bet was smart or square.

[trixtrix]

it was also far more effective 8 years ago

[Peregrine Stoop]

just need square outs
betting an easy game

[antifoil]

if the bookmakers intentionally put out bad lines which is sometimes the case in CBB games. i think earlier this week pitt was favored by 7 against an undefeated uconn team. this is also the case in some nfl home dog games. are this markets considered to be efficient when a linemaker errors on purpose?

[LegitBet]

Fascinating,... Truly
Black swan?

[Peregrine Stoop]

if the bookmakers intentionally put out bad lines which is sometimes the case in CBB games. i think earlier this week pitt was favored by 7 against an undefeated uconn team. this is also the case in some nfl home dog games. are this markets considered to be efficient when a linemaker errors on purpose?

why would they intentionally put out a bad line?

[antifoil]

Because of the bettor bias, the bookies can set spreads so that home underdogs cover the spread more than half the time without losing any of the public betting that they would have won.

[Salmon Steak]

If you bought a side at -120 and it moved to -110 at close should you buy more at -110 to cancel out you getting a bad price? You still would not beat the closing line but will end up with a better price. Should you just eat the bad price you originally bought it at and try to beat the line on the next game?

Why does SBR not have beat the closing line tourneys if it is so important?

[antifoil]

i think to have a question answered in this subforum you have to insult the other poster as evidenced in this thread. thats the only way these neckbeards will respond

[trixtrix]

in case you didn't notice, this thread contains no questions

[antifoil]

this page alone has 5 questions


oh yeah forgot to add

for a guy living in parents basement you should be familiar with a question since your mom is always asking you to massage her feet.

[trixtrix]

lol, good putdown, as soon as i understand wtf you're talking about i'm going to get my panties all twisted into a bunch

[antifoil]

actually i think i agree with you that market efficient doesnt equal the beating the closing line. its my understanding that some of the ones on the other side of the argument suggested that every line is individually efficient, but i was asking under the circumstances i mentioned above the lines won't move to a fair line because of the books knowledge of public behavior. the line will be skewed.

assuming its true there is the case of a so called "fixed game" where participators are going ensure a certain side wins. would these games be covered under the strong form efficiency. however, using your definition, there is no risk neutral position but the winner is predetermined.
using your definition of the term, market efficiency: the process of which lines move toward a risk-neutral implied fair line that is indicative of the true percentage of the actual outcome.

[FourLengthsClear]

I have just read this thread from its very start.
Great reading although as was, indirectly, stated in the OP a lot of this debate is quite circular in nature.

[Peregrine Stoop]

the debate is silly

The Wisdom of Crowds by Suroweicki is best book on gambling everzzzzzzz

[Full Time Hobo]

I read through the first few pages and found it a good read... thanks?
A lot of back and forth bickering though and it was pretty funny that no one is on the same page throughout most of the thread

[sportyla]

generally I agree with you, but something...ok, I'll talk more when completely smooth in my head. anyway a good analytic post

If you've been banned from books without winning, for BTCL, then, yes, as I said, BTCL has value from the books POV in profiling players. So, with that, you're agreeing with me.

You say we're being paid in EV. Again, you're agreeing with me.

You err when you say BTCL should be used as an indicator of whether your bet was EV. Unline poker, where we can sometimes figure out exactly what a wager's EV was without regard for the actual result, we can never do that in sportsbetting (scalping/middling aside, obv).

For any single given bet, we have no measure of EV, except the result, which is a pretty poor measure for a single wager, but there's no getting around it. Truly, in sportsbetting, we never get to know, shortterm. Some guys will break a game down and say they should have covered, or were lucky to cover, but that's illusory. Part of any wager should be acknowledgement that there will be a lot of luck involved, not just in the ball's bounce, but even in the player's performance. After the wager is made, it just doesn't matter how or why you won or lost (except in terms of prepping for the next wagers). There's no running out the deck a million times to see if the bet was +/- EV.

So, in the short run, there is no measure of EV. In the long run, actual returns are the measure of EV sports arbitrage
In between, if you want, you can cling to BTCL. But if you're only betting for fun (and thus only care about this game's results) it doesn't matter, and if you're doing this seriously (and thus are in it for the long run), it's only actual returns that matter. So BTCL, at best, is a waystation, and even then the actual betting skills that lead to GENERALLY beating the CL should be measured.

If you want comfort, notice that you picked up a 1/2 point over the market average by line shopping. Notice that if you'd bet earlier, you would have lost a 1/2 point. Things like that. Even, if it provides consolation on a losing play, notice that your team fumbled 5x and surely would have covered otherwise. But BTCL? That's a pathetic consolation, imo, and yet that seems to be all it is: consolation for bad stretches, for non-handicappers. Because in the long run, it is only winning that counts. You might get banned for BTCL, but you won't get paid for it.


Then there's this quote of yours:
I think you misunderstand EV basically. In efficient markets on average the closing line will be far more efficient than the opening line, obviously there will be times this is wrong but this is just noise. If you had to pick 100+ NBA/NFL games and you got the opening line and I got the closing line I would be more than happy to book this.

You really, really think I misunderstand EV? And you really, really read so poorly that you concluded that somewhere in my post I'm saying the closing line isn't generally more efficient than the opener? I just double checked and can't find it. Point it out.

It might make more sense to assume that you had an emotionalistic reaction to the thread's title and stopped thinking before even beginning to read. That happens.

But of the sentence of yours in which you essentially wrote, "In efficient markets ... the market will be efficient," I can only say "Brilliant."

[Tommy_de1st]

Interesting subject, a lot of reading.
Thanks guys

[Inkwell77]

Thanks!

[podonne]

Interesting. I had never read this thread before, so great bump, Inkwell.

I went through the first couple of pages, but all this argument seems to have happened despite what I think is a decently clear explanation of BTCL versus +EV.

If you assume that the closing line is the most effecient, then BTCL must always provides incremental EV. But, that doesn't mean that it makes a bet +EV, just that it makes any given bet more EV. Sharp players look for every possible way to increase the EV of thier placed bets, and BTCL is one of them, but so is handicapping, steamchasing, and all the methods mentioned previously. But if you have a -.30 EV bet and BTCL is worth +.10 EV, you still have a -.20 EV bet.

I wonder aloud if someone has done any actual research in this area to quantify the value of beating the closing line by x%? That question is what BTCL proponents must answer, how much incremental EV does it provide, and is it more than any other particular handicapping factor\method?

[antifoil]

even after a year of reading about this stuff on a regular basis, i still don't understand why a book wouldn't use bettor perception and bettor bias on a team when creating a line. wouldn't this make the line inefficient and not a 50/50 proposition? i guess i don't see why a book would care if professional bettors are picking off bad lines so long as the majority of the money is on the wrong side. aren't the books just in it to make money?

i also remember reading or hearing that books will try to limit exposure on some games based on teasers and parlays by moving the line. if this is true, doesn't this make an inefficient line?

[durito]

the professional bettors have the majority of the money

[Pokerjoe]

A Bookie, a Sharp and a Yankees-fan Square are in a bar to watch a game.

Sportsbetting God says aloud: "The fair no-vig price on this game is Yankees -125!"
The square, who wasn't listening because he's a square, says, "Huh? Hey, Bookie, what's the line on this game?"
The Bookie says "-135/+125."
The Square says "Gimme the Yanks!"
The Sharp mumbles.

Another Square walks in, Square #2, a Yankees-fan Millionaire.
The Bookie drools.
Square #2 says to the Bookie, "Hey, gimme the Yanks for the max. What's the line? Gimme the Yanks for the max."
Bookie says to Square #2, "-145/+135."
Square #2 says, "Yanks for the max!"
The Sharp says "-145/+135? Gimme the dog for ..."
The Bookie says "GTFO."

At square shops, substitute for "Sportsbetting God," "Pinnacle/Greek/CRIS/Grande/Hilton/Cantor/SBObets."

At "Pinnacle/Greek/CRIS/Grande/Hilton/Cantor/SBObets," substitute for "Sportsbetting God," "The collective action of its sharps."

That's modern bookmaking as simply as I can sum it.

(The particulars of "Pinnacle/Greek/CRIS/Grande/Hilton/Cantor/SBObets," can be debated, but that's not the point.)

[podonne]

A Bookie, a Sharp and a Yankees-fan Square are in a bar to watch a game.

Sportsbetting God says aloud: "The fair no-vig price on this game is Yankees -125!"
The square, who wasn't listening because he's a square, says, "Huh? Hey, Bookie, what's the line on this game?"
The Bookie says "-135/+125."
The Square says "Gimme the Yanks!"
The Sharp mumbles.

Another Square walks in, Square #2, a Yankees-fan Millionaire.
The Bookie drools.
Square #2 says to the Bookie, "Hey, gimme the Yanks for the max. What's the line? Gimme the Yanks for the max."
Bookie says to Square #2, "-145/+135."
Square #2 says, "Yanks for the max!"
The Sharp says "-145/+135? Gimme the dog for ..."
The Bookie says "GTFO."

I dunno, wouldn't the bookie want some action on the dog? At that point he is holding a whole lot of cash on the Yankees, and no matter what the odds are, if the Yanks won that bookie has no money to pay off his Yankee bettors. With the Sharp's money, he's more balanced. Isn't the whole point of moving the line to draw money onto the other side of the bet? Why would the bookie turn it down, then?

Or was your point that books give different lines to different players? I didn't think they were allowed to do that.

[Scooter]

All this has been discussed 8 years ago already:


By the way Pommy bookmakers...

"Pommy" - 1st time I've come across this word.
Googled it.

[Pokerjoe]

I dunno, wouldn't the bookie want some action on the dog? At that point he is holding a whole lot of cash on the Yankees, and no matter what the odds are, if the Yanks won that bookie has no money to pay off his Yankee bettors. With the Sharp's money, he's more balanced. Isn't the whole point of moving the line to draw money onto the other side of the bet? Why would the bookie turn it down, then?

Or was your point that books give different lines to different players? I didn't think they were allowed to do that.

If he's properly rolled, no. If he offers the dog, in my example, at anything over +125, he loses money, he's taking a -EV bet.

Any properly managed, funded book is essentially, by definition really, infinitely rolled, relative to the bet sizes it takes.

What he wants to do is charge the most juice possible. In my example, for Square #2, he's got the guy laying -145 on a -125 favorite. If he has sharps, he has to keep the line -135/+125, because they'll hit him hard if he goes over +125. By booting the sharps, he can move his line to -145. He's got such an EV edge on Square #2, if he's at all decently rolled, variance is a trivial threat, and he doesn't need balancing action. He doesn't want it.

This is where BTCL is useful, and where it originated: as a bookie's customer-appraisal tool.

If you knew nothing else about a customer except whether he line-shopped or not, whether he was on the lookout for weak numbers, you'd be well on your way to knowing who to boot.

If the broad market has the game -126/+124, and you, to fleece your squares, move from -135/+125 to -145/+135, those of your customers who suddenly bet the dog are your sharps. That's why book's can boot players before they even win, sometimes after they make only one bet.

And when I say juice, I also mean the spread. SIA doesn't jack up their overt juice, they just make a fave -7' when everyone else has it -7, that extra half point being, essentially, added juice to their fave players.

This is not to defend such bookmaking, btw. It's to understand it.

[Pokerjoe]

I should add, that's just one reason to boot sharps. What is actually the more common reason is that sharps expose bookmaker's incompetence, especially in Vegas.

[That Foreign Guy]

PokerJoe is knocking it out of the park in this thread.

[chunk]

Generally speaking, locals are more likely to want two-sided action.

[statictheory]

the professional bettors have the majority of the money

This

[statictheory]

A Bookie, a Sharp and a Yankees-fan Square are in a bar to watch a game.

Sportsbetting God says aloud: "The fair no-vig price on this game is Yankees -125!"
The square, who wasn't listening because he's a square, says, "Huh? Hey, Bookie, what's the line on this game?"
The Bookie says "-135/+125."
The Square says "Gimme the Yanks!"
The Sharp mumbles.

Another Square walks in, Square #2, a Yankees-fan Millionaire.
The Bookie drools.
Square #2 says to the Bookie, "Hey, gimme the Yanks for the max. What's the line? Gimme the Yanks for the max."
Bookie says to Square #2, "-145/+135."
Square #2 says, "Yanks for the max!"
The Sharp says "-145/+135? Gimme the dog for ..."
The Bookie says "GTFO."

At square shops, substitute for "Sportsbetting God," "Pinnacle/Greek/CRIS/Grande/Hilton/Cantor/SBObets."

At "Pinnacle/Greek/CRIS/Grande/Hilton/Cantor/SBObets," substitute for "Sportsbetting God," "The collective action of its sharps."

That's modern bookmaking as simply as I can sum it.

(The particulars of "Pinnacle/Greek/CRIS/Grande/Hilton/Cantor/SBObets," can be debated, but that's not the point.)

and Matchbook

[antifoil]

yeah but you aren't allowed to offer dual lines in vegas and unless you are bodog no one does it, at least to my knowledge. i guess there are locals that could do it.

under that assumption, if the sharp bettor would even take +134, lets say for, 500, but the millionaire took -145 for 2000. why wouldn't the bookmaker offer that line since he is only giving up 9 cents to gain 20 cents? unless what durrito says is true and that in practice the professional money is greater than novice. i find that surprising for the NFL which is the most popular bet sport.

[roasthawg]

unless what durrito says is true and that in practice the professional money is greater than novice. i find that surprising for the NFL which is the most popular bet sport.

For a game like the Super Bowl you'd be right... too bad there aren't more games like that.

[Winner_13]

one thing is: THE BEST PRO BETTOR THAT WE KNOW OF : BILLY WALTERS

YOU WILL NOT KNOW WHO HE IS BETTING ON MORE THAN THE AMOUNT NEEDED TO WIN IF U GET THE BEST # BY COMPARING THE OPENING LINE AND CLOSING LINE

IN FACT HE FUKS AROUND JUST FOR FUN HE HATES MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS FORUM WHO DO NOT BET BASED ON THIER OWN MODELS AND I DONT THINK THE PROS IN HERE BESIDES MAYBE 10% IN THE POOL BET THIER OWN PLAYS.

if everyone was doing the same thing there wouldnt be anything to bet on he fuks around just for fun he gets a thrill out of it.

its other syndicates that like to pound their chest and show off and dont mind people knowing..not walters and he wins more

[Patrick McIrish]

PokerJoe is knocking it out of the park in this thread.

One of my favorite posters through the years. Even when you don't 100% agree he still usually gets you thinking, gets people talking, gets the opinions rolling in. That's why we're here.