I was in Vegas this past weekend betting on football. I used to do this a lot in college for spare money, but keeping up with players, news, stats (especially stats), was way too time consuming (eventually finding out that I made more money/hour at a real job) – like studying for classes!
Anyway, I was checking out the spreads and doing a shortened version of my routine research before I put my bets in. I know in an ideal world that odds makers want a 50-50 split on who people bet for, and they make money off the vig. However, my question is more basic than that. How do odds makers come up with the spreads?
Is it really that somone says, “oh I think the Chargers are going to beat Oakland, but every one knows that, so let’s make it interesting and let’s spot Oakland 2 points, because I think more people will take Oakland and some points (+2),” and, then everyone else follows suit?
Here’s an article from the Vegas paper that should answer some of your questions.
Note especially the role that the Stardust plays, putting up an “outlaw” line on Sunday evening, letting the wise guys bet in to it, then using that information to do any adjustments before releasing the line to the general public.