For all of sports bettors who deal with it, setting a ‘line’ on a game is the first step towards setting a ‘risk’ as far as your bankroll is concerned. Once you know what the ‘line’ is at, you are faced with the decision of either taking that line or adjusting it down (line adjustment is the term for moving the line or adding/deducing some points of the spread in the process).
As the zillions of dollars involved in sports betting every day accumulate in ever increasing volumes, it can get very confusing, if not intimidating, to look at the fine print of the lines and betting lines themselves before we can make sense of them.
Before we look at the fine print, though, let’s look at what we are looking for in the first place:
So, we’re looking for a situation that ‘COULD’ happen, not a certainty. Whether or not a team is ‘due’ for a win, we don’t know. It could take years and years of watching and not paying any attention to the sport in order to recognize the situations that arise each week that could arise. Or, it could be something as simple as that a team should not be favored in the betting.
Each week, there are a number of factors that could affect the ‘Camps or Bears’ chances in the Egp88. These factors are more or less independent of each other, and so, to the handicapper, they will offer a bigger margin for error than the sum total of all the events combined.
In deciding how to set your line, you need to take these estimates under consideration; the actuality that sets the line will affect the relative ability of the handicapper to set the line(s) if they are accurate predictions.
So, assuming you are accurate, you’ll want to set the line somewhat – the spread needs to be fairly small in order to protect your bankroll.
Imagine that Jimmy Johnson is head coach of theheimer’s jathedawks. You have elected to set a line for this game at +7. This is a good spot for the jawks considering they’re unlikely to win the game and the scenario is that they should be favored by more than the seven points.
However, the closer you get to the line, the less money you stand to win if you win. Let’s say you choose the -7 point spread. Not only do you lose the 7 points bet, but you only win $100 profit.
If the jawks win the game by exactly 7 points, then you would win $250 profit, or a profit of 30%. You have just been given an incentive to play the bet in the most aggressive way possible. Play the bet that the seem to be the least likely to win, and the most likely to lose. This incentive lasted just over a minute, but you would have been better off if you raised your wager at the same time everyone else did at the sportsbook.
The key to success in gambling is to find the right situations to bet on and to bet against the public. Good luck with your wagers!