Sports betting odds line movements

What they are, what causes the odds changes and what does it mean for the individual sports bettor? We are going to dive into all these questions today. Let’s get started.

What are line movements in Sports Betting?

It’s early On a Tuesday morning and we are sitting having our coffee. Looking through our favorite sportsbook on their IPhone betting app we see our team is +100 on the moneyline to win. (let’s go with Iowa for the sake of this article) Is there edge in taking Iowa at these odds? It’s a tough decision. We’ll spend some time thinking it over and researching when we get to work. Bob with quality assurance needs that TPS report, but it can wait. We have more important things to do this morning. After messaging our friends for thoughts, pouring over ESPN stats and scores, checking the newswires for any injuries or other news we have decided. IOWA it is! We go to login to the sportsbook and remember work has the site blocked. Damn. No problem though. We’ll walk outside, log-off the Wi-Fi on our phone and hit up the app. A very quick and easy solution to work blocking betting sites. We get to Iowa and go to place our bet. -110… what just happened? The line is no longer at +100 as it was before.

Now we have to bet $110 to make $100. Before we only had to bet $100 to make the same amount. That’s 10% more we now need to bet. A novice sports bettor may say at this point, “I think they are going to win anyway, what’s the difference?” This mentality is what keeps sportsbooks in business. As a more informed sports bettor we avoid betting this and we go back to the drawing board. Poor Bob in accounting will not be getting those TPS reports today I guess…

Looking for ways to avoid problems from betting odds line movements…Check out the suggestions here.

What causes the line changes in sports betting?

In our earlier example the line has changed and there's not much we can do about it now (unless you read our suggestions below…one may stand out). Why did this line change happen? There are a number of reasons this could have happened. The main reasons can be set in 2 categories.

• New information has come into the market place.
• The specific sportsbook has hit risk thresholds for their book handle.

New information coming to the market place.

New information can be injury news, weather condition changes, coaching changes…any number of things. Really any information that was not available in the morning when Iowa was @ +100 but is now known, whether public or not, could be placed into this category. Maybe the starting QB for Iowa was injured in practice. One would have to make the assumption that would impact the Hawkeyes chances of winning in a positive way. This will bring down the line. Don't forget that American Odds and Probability of success are inversely related. If Iowa's chances (probability) of winning go up, the American Odds line will go down. Such as the case here.

The specific sportsbook has hit risk thresholds for their book handle.

At some point every book, no matter how big they are, has to move the line if they get too much money on one side. They will call this an unbalanced handle. Imagine being a sportsbook owner who has $100 million capital to work with. If you get 1 million people betting $100 on Iowa and no bets on Iowa's opponent this can be disastrous for your business. $100 x $1 million bets = $100 million. This means you will lose your entire capital base if Iowa wins. No more money and you are out of business. Is that something a smart business person puts themselves in a position for? Place their entire business on the line for a flip of the coin? Likely not.

The way to avoid this as a sportsbook operator would be to entice other people to bet against Iowa, and keep the Iowa faithful from betting anymore money on their beloved Hawkeyes, us in the earlier example How is this possible…move the line. Informed bettors will now see an attractive offer to bet against Iowa and they will take it. This will balance out the books handle. If the sportsbook now gets 550 informed bettors to bet $2,000 on their opponent at -110 (before they were -120), the book has balanced their handle and locked in a profit. While book making can get complex the general concept of book making is that simple.

What does it mean for the individual sports bettor?

Well in this scenario its quite obvious to see what it means. We missed out on our chance and no longer have the opportunity to bet at what we concluded to be favorable odds. Perhaps the sportsbook moved the betting line because of category 2 - "The specific sportsbook has hit risk thresholds for their book handle". In this case we could reasonably expect to find Iowa's original line at another book. Using a tool like SportsBettingIntel's game breakdown (mentioned below) can quickly help us figure this information out. While me may never know exactly why that line moved, we could check the newswires and see if anything stands out. No news, other books have held their lines. Maybe this is a prime time to join the informed bettors and take advantage of the relative mis-pricing to bet against Iowa.

Not me. I'll join the dumb money on this one and hammer Iowa. Albeit using the best line possible. If you can't have a little fun making money, what's the points?! GO HAWKS!!

Suggestions to avoid sports betting line movement issues.

Use SportsbettingIntel.com and their tool suite.

• Check out SportsBettingIntel.com for the SBI fair line.
• Join the SBI discord chat to confer with like minded bettors rather than waiting for your friends to wake up.
• If the line does move check out what other books have the current betting line at using SBI Game Boards for a quick look at the current betting odds.
• Follow SBI on social media to be informed about current betting news.
• Inquire about SBI Sharps Package to see how we can help you predict line moves.

Join SB Intel, get your informed bet in before finishing your coffee and get Bob that TPS Report.