2nd Half Lines

[AGENT99]

i was wondering if someone can answer this question for me.How do books set a 2nd half line. does an oddsmaker sit there on a saturday and watches 40 some odd games and sets a 2nd half line on each one within minutes? how does it work? i thought they have some kind of formula but i doubt it as each game and scenario is different.

[dwaechte]

It's mostly just set using the game spread/total and the current score, and then fine tuned by the market within a matter of a minute or so for most games. This means that for most 2nd half bets that a book takes, they can be pretty confident in the numbers they're giving.

To some extent, depending on the profile of the game, they'll normally also fine-tune it using data from the 1st half before releasing it on the open market, but they can generally get pretty close to the number they want without looking at any in-game data(apart from the score).

[AGENT99]

thanks man so you think one person sits there for each game being played for example on a saturday? what happens when the qb gets injured? somebody has to be watching the game right?

[AGENT99]

anyone got anything to add? im surprised i thought alot of guys would know the answer to this?

[rm18]

They do not have the info often, I remember one time McGrady was hurt in pinnacle days juice on one side of the bet got bet up to like -180.

But with both football and basketball it is based on margin. Like last night Portland is favored in the second half because they are way behind even though the Lakers are big favorites pregame.

Also the spread is based upon specific score. LIke if Cardinals are up 4 at half Panthers may be favored by 6.5. And if Cardinals are up 7 then Panthers by 3.5 this is because 3 is a common number so sometimes if it is like this then a team that is farther behind is favored by less.

Same thing in basketball a team down 7 at half might be favored by 10 points, but then if they are down 11 they are only favored by 8.5 or something like that. That is because it is a little less likely that it is because of late game strategy.
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[rm18]

I love betting second halves a lot of stuff that is never accounted for not just injuries, but team that gets ball first as well as foul trouble, oddsmakers do not care if a star player is in foul trouble.