I was listening to the radio this morning, and they were doing their weekly football predictions. Anyway, I’ve never gambled on sports before, nor do I intend to, but I’m curious. What’s up with the point spreads? Two stuck out more than the others. Somebody to win by 5. 5!? Who the hell came up with that? Sure it’s possible to win by 5, but how often does it happen? The other was a win by 3 1/2. How do you get 1/2 a point? I understand beating the spread, but the rest of it confuses me. Please help.
The half point would help avoid a “push”, or a tie, where no money is won or lost. That’s the real point in setting spreads - for a bookie (legal or not) to win money. In games that are going to be very tempting to bettors, the line maker wants the spread to be just tempting enough that people bet it evenly both ways. Invariably, bookies are guranteed “juice” money.
Juice money goes like this:
You have to bet 60 to win 50. 10 bucks is juice money. Bookies pay out 50 to winners, but collect 60 from losers.
In games where a group of people are going to bet one team when the point spread is very temtping, it would suck for the bookies if the game was a push. Bookies prefer some resolution to the game (half-points do this), it guarantees juice money.
Also, if one team is being bet heavily, the line is adjusted to tempt bets the other way -to get a more 50/50 split, thus ensuring juice money.
Lines differ in markets too. In Philly, where everyone is blindly loyal to the Eagles, the bookies will give fewer points to the Eagles than in other markets. Why give away points when everyone is betting the Eagles anyway?
Believe it or not, some bettors make decisions based on half a point, especially in games where the point spread is 3 1/2. Some bettors won’t give up more than three points period, and some will stay away alltogether.
Let’s just say that bookies know their clients right down to the 1/2 point. That’s why they are so succesful. You don’t need to know football, as much as you need to know the whacky bettors.
I second what Philster said. A point spread isn’t really how much a team is going to win or lose by, it’s a way to make betting equal for both teams. A bookie doesn’t want to collect money on people betting wrong, they only want to make money on the juice. In a perfect world, All winners pay 10% juice, and the rest of all the money bet goes from losers to winners.
Enright is correct- the point spread is NOT a prediction, but millions of people don’t seem to grasp that.
When the bookies make, say, the Rams a 14 point favorite over the 49ers, you can bet the 49ers will get riled up, and start complaining that “they (whoever “they” are) don’t respect us.” And if the 49ers manage to win, they’ll be crowing in the locker room, “THey said we’d lose by 14, but we showed THEM, huh?”
In reality, NOBODY said the 49ers would lose by 14. The bookies simply made a rational estimation that a 14 point spread was what it would take to get equal numbers of people to bet on both the Rams and the 49ers. And THAT’S all a bookie wants: an equal number of bettors on both sides of the spread.
THink about it- if there were no point spreads, virtually EVERYONE would bet on the Rams, virtually everyone would win, and the bookie would have to pay off all of them. How could he possibly make a profit that way? He can’t.
What a bookie WANTS to do is get a LOT of people betting a LOT of money on both teams. That way, he can pay the winners with money put up by the losers, and keep a percentage of the take for himself. The bookie uses that 14 point spread to make that happen. Fact is, the bookie knows at the moment of KICKOFF whether or not he had a good point spread. IF, at kickoff time, he has a large pile of money bet on both teams, it was a good spread… even if the 49ers end up winning by 50 points.
Sometimes a great point spread can be a lousy prediction. Back in 1969, Jimmy the Greek made the Colts a 17 point favorite over Joe Namath and the Jets. Some people STILL ridicule the Greek for that, but it was a great point spread. That was PRECISELY the spread needed to get people to bet on the Jets.
On the other hand, in 1979, a GOOD prediction was a DISASTROUS point spread. The bookies started by making the Steelers a 3 1/2 point favorite over the Cowboys (since the Steelers won 35-31, that was an excellent prediction, right?). At that spread, the overwhelming majority of bettors put down a fortune on the Steelers. The bookies panicked, and jacked the spread up to 4 1/2 (STILL a good prediction, right?). But at that spread, the vast majority of bettors put a fortune on Dallas. In the end, the bookies wound up having to pay off virtually ALL of their customers- and THAT’s the one thing a bookie can’t afford to do!
I cannot emphasize how important that 1/2 point is. Last years SuperBowl some books were posting the Rams as a 7 point favorite while others laid 7 1/2 vs Tennesssee. I took the Rams -7 because it was a better price. I ended up with a push instead of a loss- all because of 1/2 a point. (Final score 23-16)
Pointspreads are a public opiniopn, nothing more. The best time to bet in my opinion is right before kickoff because traditionally the more expreinced handicappers place their bets on Sunday morning. Though in some instances you can spot a wacky line Tuesday morning that you know will move and take it, and hope your QB does not get injured.
Ugly just made an important point. If you call up the book on Sunday morning there’s a chance that every now and then you’ll get a last minute gimme.
Don’t expect it and don’t try to get rich off it. Just be pleasantly surprised when it shows up.
What happened: the betting on a particular game went heavy to one team and the book has altered the spread at the last minute to attract money to the other team. Remember, the book doesn’t care who wins or loses. He just wants both teams covered.
That makes more sense now. The idea that the point spread was a direct prediction of the score bothered me. Thanks guys.
Already answered, but yes, the line isn’t a prediction, it’s just a number which - thanks to their knowledge of bettors tendencies and moving the line in either direction as the bets come in - ensures that about half the money will come in on the favorite and half on the underdog. The bookie makes his or her profit with the “vig” - short for vigorish, or juice as someone else referred to it as.
Someone on a Usenet group I go to once complained about how our team was an underdog. I explained that if he wanted them to be favored, he should just fly to Vegas and lay down several million dollars on the OTHER TEAM!
Similarly, bet enough money on the biggest longshot at the track and it will become the favorite.
Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions
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A smart gambler (usually an oxymoron, I know) can “play the middle.” This happened once during one of the Super Bowls between the Steelers and the Cowboys in the late '70s. The spread started out at 3 1/2 and people bet on the Steelers. The Steeler money helped raise the spread to 4 1/2. The game ended with a 4-point Steeler win. Smart gamblers took the Steelers -3 1/2 and the Cowboys + 4 1/2 and won with both wagers! (Hence, “playing the middle.”)
Sports book oldsters still refer to this particulat SB as “Black Sunday.”
Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions
*I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
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*“I’m a big Genesis fan.”-David B. (Amen, brother!) **