Posted this in another thread, but thought it deserved its own. I love reading the opposing teams forum for an understanding from their side. At least for a few days. Good reading can be found here:
Overall, their fans do not like the spread.
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Imma gonna look at that forum and tell them that we’re #1 and we’re gonna kick their ass.
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Interesting… they are questioning the -10 on the road… see, Vegas knows something y’all!
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Yeah, they have paid for the refs.
The point line in this game is designed to get people to put some money on the Lions side of the bet. They know most people are going to take the Bills on the moneyline (straight up bet) so they want to divert some of the money that would be going to the Bills on the spread if it were lower. That would have too much money on one side, which “Vegas” doesn’t like.
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So trying to entice bets for Detroit, and hopefully the lions keep the game within a TD or 3 points… but, at the same time they could be taking in all those -10 point bets only to see the lions win…
I hear what you’re saying and have no clue about betting but that makes sense. Although I have started finding the lines interesting from a “who’s gonna win” perspective…
I know I’m slow when it comes to that stuff. I think we can stick within 10 but I still don’t think we win.
Until we blow the ever living â– â– â– â– â– â– â– doors off the Buffalo bills and eat Buffalo for thanksgiving! Ooohhhh yeah!!!
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Here is another way to look at it, for anyone who is interested. The spread will typically have a -110 value. Using round numbers for simplicity sake, that means if you bet $100 you would win $90. Guess who keeps the other $10? The sportsbook. That’s looking at it from a perfect 50/50 split of the bets, which you can also look at as a 1 vs 1 bet. If they set the line correctly the book can take $90 out of the other person’s pocket and hand it to you for winning, then take $10 of the losers money and put it in their bank account. The more money that is sitting on one side of the bet, the less losing pockets the book has to take the $90 from to pay the winners. Hence why they don’t want to be too heavy on one side.
But part of the game they play isn’t just the spread bets, obviously. The moneyline is the straight up bet. But it changes what it pays out, where as the spread bets generally pay out about the same for winning…its just the points that change. As I said earlier today the moneyline bet for the Bills was around -450. That means you would have to bet $450 to win $100 on the Bills. Or again keeping the money round and simple, if you bet $100 you would win around $25. On the flipside the Lions moneyline is somewhere around +400 right now. That means if you bet $100 you would win $400. You would have to weigh the risk of a straight bet with a higher reward vs getting 10 points and winning $90 instead of $400.
So now imagine 2 scenario’s. In the first one the Bills win. If that happens the highest payout between the spread and the moneyline is definitely the spread. So that’s where the risk is. If the Lions win, the biggest payout is in the moneyline. So in trying to play “matchmaker” they would possibly find a game line that entices Bills bettors to shy away from the spread and take the moneyline, and Lions bettors to shy away from the moneyline and take the spread. So if the spread were small…Bills bettors would flock to the spread and Lions bettors would take the moneyline.
As the week goes on and money starts coming in, they recalculate each line. If too much money is being put on one part of the books they will move the lines to entice money to go in a different direction. There are a million more moving parts than what I described but I hope I gave you some insight that was useful.
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Well hot dog… that was incredibly insightful thank you! And especially thank you for laying that out so clearly. I don’t bet but am always mildly intrigued by the spreads, just started to understand moneylines… so the way you laid it out is they cover themselves on both ends in a way…
I know I’m still not grasping the intricacies but you really explained that well, thank you!
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Great post @Mr.Peabody… This is why I don’t gamble. It’s very detailed and complicated. It’s all about sucking as much $$$ as possible out of the fans/viewers/gamblers and then we have the refs, lol
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