I tried to make a reply about this in the Outkick the Madness Contest, but it wasn't going through, maybe was too long. But this seems like a better place to debate it anyway so wanted to know what others think.
Personally, I prefer contests not allow $ lines to be bet (or maybe restricted to small $ lines like between -200 and +200). I don't know if the software makes the latter possible but again just wanted people's views.
Why do I think so? Well if say 100 people in the contest each bet two underdogs at +1000 or so odds, statistically at roughly one of those 100 will get both right and be +20 units (assuming base of one unit bet). And someone who bets only spreads/totals will have to win at least 20 more picks than they lose to equal that feat - which obviously, whatever the sport, is extremely difficult.
So in essence, the person who does the big $ line dog play will occasionally strike it lucky in two games and get a lead which is nearly insurmountable to those who are betting -110 lines. And that seems silly to me, because I always though the contests were about overall handicapping skills, doing well over a large sample size of picks - not getting very lucky in a couple games and riding that through.
Obviously if one were making actual bets that would not necessarily be a good strategy, but in these contests whether you finish in the middle of dead last makes absolutely no difference so why not take this very high variance approach and see if you strike it lucky and finish high?
I presume that's part of the reason why Beat the Prick (obviously SBR's biggest contest) does not allow $ lines - I have a feeling this same thing would happen there, there would be likely be a few +20 or +30 units early on (considering over 1000 people enter that, imagine several hundred tried that strategy especially with the double best bet), and +30 is roughly what won the whole contest last year! Just feel like that would be silly, take the long-term skill out of it. Perhaps SBR agrees with this and thus does not allow $ lines there for that reason. But if so, why allow them in any contest? I mean sure allowing them in baseball, hockey makes sense since the $ lines are pretty much always between -300 and +300. But why allow them in sports with +1000 or even higher underdogs?
Just my opinion again, but would like to here others' views on this.