Mailbag: Why Do Many Point Spreads Stay Frozen With Unbalanced Action?

Feel Free to Ask Any Market Related Questions!

Thanks for the enthusiastic response to our recent discussion about a “Mailbag” feature here in this writing project. Many of you responded with great questions! I’ll be answering those questions quickly within the next couple of days. There wasn’t a chance to sit right down and answer ALL of them in a finger snap. I’ll start with the first one right here and now. I’ll either do one a day for the time being, or handle any with quick answers in one batch.

I wanted to start with a question from John Andrews. He was the subscriber who first suggested the idea (he’s granted permission to use his name). Happy to make sure his question goes FIRST! Great that it’s an important question that many of you have probably wondered about…and with an answer that I should have done a better job of explaining in the past.

“Looking at betting splits and line moves, I always wondered why the line doesn’t move, even though the splits are very imbalanced? I know that books don’t necessarily try to “balance “ both sides, but wouldn’t they want to even out their risk just a little bit on a small point spread? Are they that confident in their number, so no need to move?

For example, Team A is -3 and is getting 75 to 90% of the handle, but the line doesn’t move. I would think they’d move the line to -3.5 for a brief moment to at least get the handle down to 65 to 80%?”

I’ve had the good fortune to ghost-write market-related articles for many years, working with a variety of well-known oddsmakers. Ghostwriters’ code is that you don’t disclose their names unless they come out and tell people themselves. Most of you would be familiar with the names. If you’ve listened to THEM guesting on radio shows or podcasts, you can probably figure out which ones taught me how to read markets.

Most important thing here is the nature of the action. Oddsmakers care most about what SHARPS are betting. They’re worried about getting the best position at the “right” number rather than balancing the books.

Oddsmakers have always emphasized to me that it’s basically IMPOSSIBLE to balance the action on a game 50/50. The public almost always bets favorites, rarely dogs. And, in sum, public money is A LOT more voluminous than sharp money. (Even though sharps place big bets, the raw totals from THOUSANDS of public bettors is a lot more than that from a relative handful of sharps). The combination of those two things makes it hard to get 50% of the money on one side, 50% on the other. Sometimes it happens coincidentally if the public doesn’t care much about a particular favorite…or a high-profile super-team happens to be a small underdog in a blockbuster matchup.

With that backdrop, the oddsmaker’s first concern is “have I posted the correct number?” History has made it very clear that the 11/10 vigorish is a powerful edge afforded the house. If the number on the board is correct (or very close to correct), then the house will earn a big profit over the long haul. The public will win about half their bets…lose about half their bets…and sportsbooks will scoop up the vig as profit.