Making Late Plays Based on Line Movements
by Nick Douglas
We all like to imagine ourselves as sharp handicappers rather than just gamblers. We research while gamblers bet on first impressions. We study value while gamblers just pick a winner.
We handicappers are not all alike, though. Some of us have ultimate trust in themselves. Those folks handicap the games, play their own plays all in one shot each day and eschew the temptations of late plays, make up plays, buy backs and the like. In a way, I wish I had the discipline to be one of them.
Most of us, however, are more fluid in our wagering. We soak up information from other handicappers, we make late plays and, most importantly, we watch line movement.
Line movement is a funny thing. Generally it is the result of a group of handicappers betting heavily on one side of a game. By following line movement, a handicapper is basically admitting that the originators of the line movement have a more keen eye for handicapping than they do. Difficult though that may be to admit, the results of following line movement sharply are often strong, so that little ding to your pride is easily compensated by the extra cash that is made.
Making plays throughout the day based on line movement is tricky. Books may make slight moves one way or another that are more the result of following the lead of other books or bluffing steam players. Once you get close to game time, however, there seems to be more truth in line movements. Books know that the hottest time for action is the last ten to fifteen minutes before game time, so if a move is heavy as the opening faceoff nears, you can probably be more sure that the line movement is truly the result of a large wager coming in from a sharp player.
In general, the best book to look for these plays is Pinnacle. Pinnacle offers dime lines on their hockey plays so generally no matter which side you are taking you will get a pretty favorable line. They also cater to large players (though sharp players are given 20 cent lines rather than dime lines) and have a clientele from all over the world.
To give an example of how to watch for these plays, I will look at what happened yesterday with Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Philadelphia had a line of about -1/2 +139 most of the day. Pittsburgh had a line of about +1/2 -112 most of the day. Both lines fluctuated up and down a bit since Pinnacle moves one or two points at a time sometimes, but both were around those numbers.
Less than an hour before the opening faceoff for each respective game, both of those sides were hit. Pittsburgh went up to about +1/2 -123 and Philly went down to about -1/2 +126 if memory serves. The point is that both games had line movements of at least 10 points in the last half hour or so leading up to game time.
If you bet the moneyline on both plays yesterday, you had a nice profit of slightly over one unit. If you bet the puck line, you had a push. These are the results for one day, but I can tell you that over the past week or so that I have been tracking this, these late line moves have been hitting more than they have been missing.
Now, the drawback. Unless you have inside information on what groups are causing these moves or which games are going to be hit, you are getting the short end of the move. The actual players that hit the game ten points before you do are obivously getting better ROI. Is it then worth it to even follow these plays if you are losing out one those 10 points of value or more with each play?
We all know that 10 points is the equivalent of about 4.5% ROI. Generally these moves will be at least 10 points, so you will probably lose more like 5% or 6% ROI.
So what, you say? Well, to give an example, if you wager a total of 10% of your banktoll hitting just under an 8% ROI for four years starting with $1,000, you will have a bankroll of $1,000,000. A former poster here named Never Caught Up once tried it and gave it up less than six months into the experiment.
The reality is that even great gamblers will probably hit an ROI of maybe 5% or so over the course of their lifetimes. That is why having multiple books to find the best available lines is so important.
It all comes back to the logic of certain books wanting large players. If a player plays large, there is a decent chance that the player makes good money wagering on sports. On the surface it would seem like books would want to stay away from players like that at all costs. The reason some books like those players are 1) many high rollers eventually go broke, too and 2) they get a jump on steam and can move their lines fast enough to get steam followers to bet at a worse line. That bad line then becomes the difference between winning and losing money long term.
I am no expert on steam moves. I know there are many people who post on this board that know a lot more about it than I do. What I do know however, is that books aren't in the business of losing, especially books like Pinnacle. Pinnacle knows there are plenty of steam players out there and they know that when they make a late move, there will be plenty of handicappers trying to cash in. The best bet if you are going to follow these late line movements and make plays on them is to get an account at a "square" book and use them to make your actual wagers.
I know that books like Sportsinteraction, Gameday, Infinity and VIP cater to a more recreational gambler so there is a better chance of finding a better line if you catch a late line move at Pinnacle right as it happens.
One final thing I would like to say is that information only has value when very few people know about it. I know that about 40 or so people in this forum will read this and maybe half of those, if that many, will actually try to use it. If those 40 use it for themselves only, it will stay useful information. If those 40 tell every gambler they know about it and then in turn those people they told tell all of their friends, enough people will eventually catch on and the books will find a way to correct this and take away any advantage handicappers like us might have.
Some folks may be skeptical that a little ol' message board like Mad Jack's can make a difference but if you look at parlaying +1 1/2 games with 5 1/2 lines in hockey or NBA moneyline dogs, you can see that books will adjust whenever they find that the player has the advantage. That really hit home to me in January when I visited the MGM Grand and saw that their NBA moneyline dogs were significantly higher than anything that is available online.
by Nick Douglas
We all like to imagine ourselves as sharp handicappers rather than just gamblers. We research while gamblers bet on first impressions. We study value while gamblers just pick a winner.
We handicappers are not all alike, though. Some of us have ultimate trust in themselves. Those folks handicap the games, play their own plays all in one shot each day and eschew the temptations of late plays, make up plays, buy backs and the like. In a way, I wish I had the discipline to be one of them.
Most of us, however, are more fluid in our wagering. We soak up information from other handicappers, we make late plays and, most importantly, we watch line movement.
Line movement is a funny thing. Generally it is the result of a group of handicappers betting heavily on one side of a game. By following line movement, a handicapper is basically admitting that the originators of the line movement have a more keen eye for handicapping than they do. Difficult though that may be to admit, the results of following line movement sharply are often strong, so that little ding to your pride is easily compensated by the extra cash that is made.
Making plays throughout the day based on line movement is tricky. Books may make slight moves one way or another that are more the result of following the lead of other books or bluffing steam players. Once you get close to game time, however, there seems to be more truth in line movements. Books know that the hottest time for action is the last ten to fifteen minutes before game time, so if a move is heavy as the opening faceoff nears, you can probably be more sure that the line movement is truly the result of a large wager coming in from a sharp player.
In general, the best book to look for these plays is Pinnacle. Pinnacle offers dime lines on their hockey plays so generally no matter which side you are taking you will get a pretty favorable line. They also cater to large players (though sharp players are given 20 cent lines rather than dime lines) and have a clientele from all over the world.
To give an example of how to watch for these plays, I will look at what happened yesterday with Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Philadelphia had a line of about -1/2 +139 most of the day. Pittsburgh had a line of about +1/2 -112 most of the day. Both lines fluctuated up and down a bit since Pinnacle moves one or two points at a time sometimes, but both were around those numbers.
Less than an hour before the opening faceoff for each respective game, both of those sides were hit. Pittsburgh went up to about +1/2 -123 and Philly went down to about -1/2 +126 if memory serves. The point is that both games had line movements of at least 10 points in the last half hour or so leading up to game time.
If you bet the moneyline on both plays yesterday, you had a nice profit of slightly over one unit. If you bet the puck line, you had a push. These are the results for one day, but I can tell you that over the past week or so that I have been tracking this, these late line moves have been hitting more than they have been missing.
Now, the drawback. Unless you have inside information on what groups are causing these moves or which games are going to be hit, you are getting the short end of the move. The actual players that hit the game ten points before you do are obivously getting better ROI. Is it then worth it to even follow these plays if you are losing out one those 10 points of value or more with each play?
We all know that 10 points is the equivalent of about 4.5% ROI. Generally these moves will be at least 10 points, so you will probably lose more like 5% or 6% ROI.
So what, you say? Well, to give an example, if you wager a total of 10% of your banktoll hitting just under an 8% ROI for four years starting with $1,000, you will have a bankroll of $1,000,000. A former poster here named Never Caught Up once tried it and gave it up less than six months into the experiment.
The reality is that even great gamblers will probably hit an ROI of maybe 5% or so over the course of their lifetimes. That is why having multiple books to find the best available lines is so important.
It all comes back to the logic of certain books wanting large players. If a player plays large, there is a decent chance that the player makes good money wagering on sports. On the surface it would seem like books would want to stay away from players like that at all costs. The reason some books like those players are 1) many high rollers eventually go broke, too and 2) they get a jump on steam and can move their lines fast enough to get steam followers to bet at a worse line. That bad line then becomes the difference between winning and losing money long term.
I am no expert on steam moves. I know there are many people who post on this board that know a lot more about it than I do. What I do know however, is that books aren't in the business of losing, especially books like Pinnacle. Pinnacle knows there are plenty of steam players out there and they know that when they make a late move, there will be plenty of handicappers trying to cash in. The best bet if you are going to follow these late line movements and make plays on them is to get an account at a "square" book and use them to make your actual wagers.
I know that books like Sportsinteraction, Gameday, Infinity and VIP cater to a more recreational gambler so there is a better chance of finding a better line if you catch a late line move at Pinnacle right as it happens.
One final thing I would like to say is that information only has value when very few people know about it. I know that about 40 or so people in this forum will read this and maybe half of those, if that many, will actually try to use it. If those 40 use it for themselves only, it will stay useful information. If those 40 tell every gambler they know about it and then in turn those people they told tell all of their friends, enough people will eventually catch on and the books will find a way to correct this and take away any advantage handicappers like us might have.
Some folks may be skeptical that a little ol' message board like Mad Jack's can make a difference but if you look at parlaying +1 1/2 games with 5 1/2 lines in hockey or NBA moneyline dogs, you can see that books will adjust whenever they find that the player has the advantage. That really hit home to me in January when I visited the MGM Grand and saw that their NBA moneyline dogs were significantly higher than anything that is available online.
