Evaluating Public Perception
All sports bettors know, or should know, that the books set game lines on what they perceive to be the best line that will draw equal action on both sides. The common myth is that the lines are set to what the books think the final score will be. While that may sometimes turn out to be the case, the lines are set to get an equal amount of people on both sides so the books can rake in the juice. With this in mind, there are a couple strategies in evaluating public perception of games that sports bettors can implement into their repertoire to sneak out a couple more wins a year (or avoid losses by laying off).
Any seasoned sports bettor usually checks the public betting percentages of certain games they’re leaning towards while looking over the card on any given day. Tracking the public and watching the line movement is an invaluable asset to sports betting. If you don’t do this already, it’s a good tool to start using. Why? For example, a game this year featured Wake Forest at Duke in mid January. At the time, Duke was 14-2 (2-1) and Wake Forest was 12-3 (2-1), two pretty similar records that would indicate to the average bettor that this would be a semi-close matchup, regardless of Duke’s home court advantage. However, the line opened up at Duke -16. While glancing over the card I could remember thinking that this was totally absurd. I had seen Wake play a couple times, including their win over my beloved Musketeers of Xavier, and didn’t think there was any way they would get beat by more than 10, let alone 16. The public agreed with me, as more than 65% of people were on Wake to cover the 16 points. I remembered thinking how weird it was that the line didn’t move to 14 or 15 before tip because of the large amounts of people on Wake. The result? Wake looked like they’d cover and were within the number the whole game, but a late hot streak from Scheyer and co. put the Deacons away and sunk the public in a 20 point Blue Devils win.
This game epitomizes why you can’t out think Vegas. If 65+% of the public was on Wake Forest and the line didn’t come back down to encourage action on Duke, Vegas was pretty sure Duke was going to cover and they were gladly going to continue to give the points. I got suckered into betting on Wake Forest with the thinking that they would keep it a lot closer than 16. I tried to convince myself that Vegas put out a bad line and they were in for a bloodbath. Little did I know, they were laughing as I sent my bet in. With this example in mind, here are a couple tips for evaluating public perception…
· If the public is heavily on one side of a game and the line doesn’t move, it’s a red flag. Either stay away from the game, or fade the public. Don’t be stubborn, Vegas always knows more than us.
· If the public is overwhelmingly optimistic about a certain game, also reconsider. Not that fading the public always wins (nothing always wins), but ALWAYS remember that Vegas NEVER puts out bad lines.
· Reverse Line Movement- If Team A is favored by 5 and the majority of the bets come in on their side, the line should move to 6, right? A reverse move would be the line moving to 4, actually enticing the public to continue to take Team A, rather than trying to even the numbers on both sides. Again, this is a red flag. Research anywhere on the internet will show you that playing the reverse line movement angle has been successful about 55-57% of the time. With the reverse line movement, Vegas is clearly telling you that they think Team B will cover the spread.
Just remember before placing your bets: While we all want to beat Vegas, it’s never a bad thing to be on the same side as they are.
