Yes mate that's exactly what I'm saying, it's poor form. If your lines are sharp then who gives a fukc if you have winning punters on your books. First of all they make up less than 8% (at most) of your total customer base. Secondly if you get the lines spot on then you should have close to a 50/50 split in the $$ wagered, and then who gives a shit who wins or loses because at -110 (average) juice a book wins regardless of the result.
Example - A medium to large sized sports book takes 1M on an NBA playoff game at -110/$1.90 odds - let's say NY +4 @ Indiana for example. Their opening line and pre match line adjustments are super sharp all the way through from opening to closing lines and they end up in a scenario where 51.2% of the money is on the Pacers (-4) ATS and 48.8% of the money is on the Knicks (+4) ATS. This means they are holding $512,000 on the Pacers and $488,000 on the Knicks, so yeah if you isolated this one game from the bigger scheme of things then the books would prefer the Pacers cover ATS, however in the bigger picture they don't give a shit because they make money no matter who wins and that is the goal. Get your lines right and make sure you end with something roughly resembling a 50/50 split and you can't lose (the exact % of money required as a minimum on any 1 team to ensure a guaranteed profit directly correlates to the juice or vigorish that is being charged to the customer). As long as they are in a position where they make money no matter which team wins or covers (which isn't always the case) then they don't care because in a 2 horse race everything evens out over time. For instance if you flip a coin 10 times you could easily flip 10 heads or 10 tails in a row - no big deal, however if you flip a coin a million times then the laws of mathematics say it is virtually impossible to end up with anything worse than 50.1% to 49.9% and even that scenario is extremely unlikely. Flip a coin 10 million times and the most outrageous scenario you would come up with is 50.01% to 49.99% - get the idea? It's mathematics and the books won't waste their time worrying about these things, all they need to do is ensure a guaranteed profit no matter who wins/covers and therefore if you are doing this correctly then why the fukc do you care if you have winning gamblers on your books. Winners/Sharp gamblers help you sharpen your lines to begin with and every decent sized book with a decent reputation that has been operating for 3+ years or so accepts that some of their punters will be winners. You cannot maintain a customer base of 100% losers - it is just not possible, however Paddy owned books (of which there are many) seem to strive towards this unattainable goal harder than most.
**The concept I have been talking about is the goal every sports book strives to achieve on every single ATS line that they release but of course there are many times when no matter what they do they end up with a lopsided scenario with anything up to 65-70% wagered on one team and 30-35% wagered on the other team and in this scenario the books will of course be rooting for the 30-35% team to cover and when they don't you end up in the sort of scenario will people will say things like "Vegas just got buried on that game". It does happen. If it didn't then the bookmakers would just be absolutely overflowing with pure profits and there would be far less of us gambling on sports...