#180 Posted: 12/5/2008 4:08:31 PM QUOTE Originally Posted by bird_fidrych:
Disco,
Regarding the Indy/Cincy game:
There are plenty of "sharps" who are blindly jumping on double digit dogs this year. They bit on the chance to take Cincy at 14 early because they didn't see the public ever pushing it to 14.5 with Indy having trouble covering smaller spreads this year. It's interesting that LVSC released the line at 14.5, which definitely would have attracted a lot of action from the pros in vegas who love big dogs. No vegas or offshore books were gutsy enough to open it higher than 14 as far as I can see.
So you're getting mixed signals here. Yeah, 65-70% of bets are coming in on Indy so far and the line has dropped basically everywhere except BetEd and Bodog (very square books), but it looks like the smart linesmakers wanted to set a line high enough to entice some early action from the sharps, only to have their books balanced out by the public on Sunday morning.
The public will think they're getting a good Indy price at 13 or 13.5 on Sunday since the game opened at 14, and that might entice even more action on the fav.
This game is the second or third most popular game to bet on so far, which is strange considering Indy is laying so many points and has a bad ATS record this year. Obviously Cincy is not a popular team to bet on either. It looks like the lines have been set to entice as much balanced action as they can get in this game and it's playing out perfectly for them.
This game is just an example of good linesmaking, imo.
bird - very solid take! All good points...I'm glad you wrote on this.
Van - Also, it's hard to create an exact science out of this because it also depends on when you get the numbers. I've been trying to keep it as consisten as possible and just do it on Friday afternoons when I know I'll always have the time. However, I always take it for what it is...considering the fact that the SI board does not reflect the entire betting market, and especially does not reflect the entire smart or sharp betting market (as smart dog players would wait as long as possible to try and get the best line)
This is why I think it's useful to a certain extent, but asking for some1 to prove there is a system or exact science you can use it with to create and blindly follow which always produces winners is just plain crazy. If some1 does it, props to them & tonnes of respect...same as if some1 created a system of simply looking at trends or stats and creates a system that always produces winners. Props if they do. |