Can money be made (Moneyline)?

[cPaxus]

Can money be made wagering only moneylines from -250 to -300?

Your feedbacks will be appreciated.

[bigboydan]

Depends on the sport really.

I feel that you can win using this method if your betting tennis.

[ShamsWoof10]

I was wondering something and maybe someone can advise.. How many times do favorates win and how many times does the spread matter..? My thought was if you bet every favorate and sell points to get a + getting odds as opposed to - laying them then you could go less then 50% and still win..?

Your thoughts..?

[Wheell]

Are you guys Shitting me? Look, If you find a team at -250 that should be -270 you are getting value and you will make money in the long run. Betting any number blindly will just make you pay vig and lose.

[Ganchrow]

Can money be made wagering only moneylines from -250 to -300?

Your feedbacks will be appreciated.

If you're asking whether money can be made blindly betting money lines from -250 to -300, the answer would almost certainly be no. The market just isn't that inefficient.

Nevertheless, there is compelling theoretical rationale as to why bookmakers might price money line markets to favor shorter (aka favorite) odds, just as spreads are often priced to slightly favor underdogs, and totals often to slightly favor unders. The argument runs something like this:

1. Betting $100 to win $25 isn't nearly as sexy as betting $100 to win $400. People want the big payout and so for this reason may tend to avoid favorites.
2. Betting shorter odds may require a larger capital outlay to achieve the same expected (dollar) returns. For example consider a money line of +1000 on an event that you expect to occur with 10% frequency. This would correspond to an expected return of 10%. Now consider a money line of -1000. For the bet to generate the same 10% expected profit, it would need to occur with 100% frequency, which is to say it would always need to occur. It should go without saying that +1000 events occurring 10% of the time are more common than -1000 events that never fail (not once) fail to occur. This means that if a player wanted to achieve an expected return of, say, $10 on his bet, this would necessarily require a larger outlay as -1000 versus at +1000 with 10% edge. Cash-dependent bettors will tend to want to avoid larger cash outlays and this, all else equal, tends to disincentivize favorites.
3. When a bookmaker misprices a dog line he opens himself to larger potential loss than he would were he to misprice a fave line. Bookmakers, being risk averse just like you and I, will endeavor to avoid this and will, all else being equal, lower price in relation to favorites and raise them in relation to underdogs.

So what we see is that compelling theoretical arguments can be made in support of the notion that relatively overpriced underdogs and relatively underpriced favorites may be fundamental to the structure of fixed odds betting markets. Indeed several academic studies have demonstrated phenomenon, notably within the international soccer markets.

Now this shouldn't be construed to imply that one should blindly bet favorites, or that one should avoid underdogs, rather it means that because the vig priced in to (money line) favorites may be lower than that priced in to (money line) underdogs, building a successful model off of a favorite selection strategy could potentially be easier (as the vig-hurdle rate would be lower).

I’ll also note that this may not strictly hold for every sports market. For example, over the past years underdogs have in general outperformed favorites in the baseball market. The difference does appear to be statistically significant. Why this might occur is unknown, although I personally suspect it may related to the fact that MLB money lines are on average considerably lower in magnitude than their counterparts in other sports, and so the so-called “public team factor" may dominate (meaning favorites under perform in the money line market for the same reason they do in many spread markets, namely that there is usually more money coming in on the favorite side). I have yet to meaningfully test this hypothesis.

[zootiehead]

Nice article Ganchrow.

[aceking]

2 words .... Roger Federer.

[Arilou]

You can get Federer in this price range? I'll take him!

There is to my knowledge no sport so inefficient that you can bet -250 to -300 teams blind.

[jjgold]

Long term you will get buried, 98% of bettors are not experienced enough to know that a line should be -270 and not the offered line of -240

[aceking]

Wimbledon should be around -200 to -250

[pags11]

I'm a firm believer that moneylines should be used one way only, at + money...have learned the hard way myself...

[cPaxus]

Thanks guys for the feedbacks. Much appreciated.

Don't forget to change the clocks.

[moses millsap]

You can get Federer in this price range? I'll take him!

Hell, I'll take Federer at -500 for every match flat for the next two years.