Professional Players Outlook for 2005 - 2006 Basketball Season

[wadadli]

Do any professional gamers have any opinion of what basketball middles might be like this upcoming year or comments on your experience last year?

From what I have heard, last year was outright miserable for basketball middles. The sole other professional gamer I know of had his worst year middling in over a decade in 2004 - 2005. The season started off with a bang in the first week of November but quickly turned south: I was lucky to break even by the end of the month. As for the rest of the year, I had an up and down year and managed to eke out a gain at the end. But it seemed as if I had more miserable losing streaks punctuated by big wins here and there than vice versa. If I had missed one or two big days last year, I would have lost overall. I wasn't sad to see basketball season end in April--I was actually quite happy.

Good Luck!!! I think we'll need it along with alot of reduce-juice shops

[bigboydan]

i don't know if we will get a good feel about middling til we get a little bit closer to the start of the season. injuries are always have to be factored in, especialy if it's a star player because, it's hard to say how much the bettors will move a line.

[fabric86]

Whats middling again?

[onlooker]

Like the suns. Lets see if the books will adjust the lines for the injured Amare. Im sure they will, but lets see how that plays out with him gone for 4 months.

[BuddyBear]

Whats middling again?

It's when you bet both sides of a game or both totals at different numbers. Let me give you an example of a middle I did this weekend on the UCLA/Wash St game that didn't hit.

UCLA -4.5 (+105)

Wash St +5.5 (-105)

If you look at this example you have 0% of losing any money because one of those outcomes is going to hit. Now, the catch is, if the game ends exactly with a UCLA 5 point win you've won both sides of your bet and profit handsomly...if it doesn't hit, well no harm no foul...just your money gets transfered from one book to another.

So what you'll want to do is make sure you have multiple books funded to make such plays. You'll also want to put as much as you possibly can because you know your money has 0% risk and that if you win it would be a really big payoff.
For example:

UCLA -4.5 (+105) $500/$550

Wash St +5.5 (-105) $550/500

If you middle this and win this bet you'll win $1050.

It's a no lose situation

[wadadli]

It's when you bet both sides of a game or both totals at different numbers. Let me give you an example of a middle I did this weekend on the UCLA/Wash St game that didn't hit.

UCLA -4.5 (+105)

Wash St +5.5 (-105)

If you look at this example you have 0% of losing any money because one of those outcomes is going to hit. Now, the catch is, if the game ends exactly with a UCLA 5 point win you've won both sides of your bet and profit handsomly...if it doesn't hit, well no harm no foul...just your money gets transfered from one book to another.

So what you'll want to do is make sure you have multiple books funded to make such plays. You'll also want to put as much as you possibly can because you know your money has 0% risk and that if you win it would be a really big payoff.
For example:

UCLA -4.5 (+105) $500/$550

Wash St +5.5 (-105) $550/500

If you middle this and win this bet you'll win $1050.

It's a no lose situation

Regular middles do, however, involve juice risk. Normally, you risk the juice at favorable odds. So if both lines are -1.10, you are laying $550 to win $500 on each with the most that you can lose is $50. But you will win $500 if you side a bet or $1,000 if you hit the middle. For example, if you had the Bulls -4 and the knicks +6. If the Bulls win by 4 or 6, you will push one bet and win the other with a net win of $500; if the bulls win by 5, you win both bets with a net win of $1,000.

Usually, you try to get reduce-juice shops in the mix so that instead of laying 20/1 ($50 to win $1,000) for the middle to hit, you may lay 40/1 if you have $525 to win $500 on both the Bulls -4 and the Knicks +6. If you have a mixline, $550 to win $500 on one bet and $525 to win $500 on the other, then you are laying, on average, about 27/1. The difference in odds is critical: you have a much better chance of breaking even if you need to hit 1 in 40 rather than 1 in 27 or 1 in 20.

[BuddyBear]

Juice is crucial...have to play at Pinnacle if you want to middle

Right now for MNF...Over 51.5 (+103) and Under 52 (-105) at another book...waiting for it to hit +105 or higher to middle (possible scalp) as well.

[bookie]

The UCLA-WSU example is of a protected middle where you find different enough lines that you're getting a free roll. In my experience, though, it's rare that you are going find lines just sitting there that are going to give you a juiceless middle. To get those you're going to have to be taking leads, and that's going to involve you in some hits and misses.

Wadadli refers to his "miserable losing streaks" playing middles, and that's more like what happens. Let's say you had UCLA +4.5 -105 and WSU -3.5 +100. Risking five dollars to win $200 on an ATS margin of 4 is an advantage play, but you're going to go through a lot of miserable losing streaks to get it especially when you factor in middles opened that you're not able to close profitably (aka "Polish middles).

I haven't middled in years, but if I knew that I could get $2000 orders at Mansion filled by offering them at the market line +100 I think I would be interested in testing my lead hawking skills again. Everybody I've talked to who has put up orders at Mansion seems to only get them filled once in a while, and you wouldn't want to leave them up for long cause you could get blacked out. It seems like if you could get the market line at -101 (the price including commission) people would do it but I guess not. If any body starts having experience to the contrary I'd like to know about it.

[BuddyBear]

Just got it

Over 51.5 (+105)

Under 52 (-105)


Wish me luck fellows...last night ended exactly on 52 let's make it two nights in a row!

[pags11]

buddybear's a middling wizard...