How Do Bookies Set Odds For Football

How Are Odds Determined? Odds are engineered to attract equal action on both sides of a betting line. In a perfect world, a sportsbook receives equal betting volume on both sides of a wager then, win or lose, they’ll make 5-10% on the juice (or ‘vig’).

1. How To Read Bookies Odds
2. How Do Bookies Set Odds For Football Games
3. How Do Bookies Set Odds For Football Game
4. Trump Bookie Odds
5. Bookie Odds Calculator
6. How To Read Bookie Odds

Pointspreads Explained

Spread betting was invented by Charles K. McNeil, a math teacher from Connecticut who became a bookmaker in Chicago in the 1940s. The bettor bets that the difference in the scores of two teams will be less than or greater than a value specified by the bookmaker.

1. When it comes to betting on football each bookmaker will have a dedicated team that sit and work out the odds of each market for each match. The odds are basically based on the probability of.
2. How do bookmakers set their odds? Betting sites set odds based on two things: Probability of each outcome (using experience, trends, current stats, etc). Let’s start with the probability of each outcome. We’ll use a football game as an example. England – 60% Drawn – 20% France – 20%. Total Probability – 100%.

For example, if a bettor places a bet on an underdog in an American football game when the spread is 3.5 points, he is said to take the points; he will win his bet if the underdog's score plus 3.5 points is greater than the favourite's score. If he had taken the favourite, he would have been giving the points and would win if the favourite's score minus 3.5 points was greater than the underdog's score.

As you all know, when you place a straight wager on the pointspread of a football or basketball game, you need to risk $110 to win $100. The $10 difference between risk and payout is known as the juice, or the vigorish, or “vig” and is the reason sportsbooks are in business. Sportsbooks essentially act as a broker between you and another player who wants to bet on the other team and collects the small commission as compensation for brokering the deal and handling the transfer of funds between the two of you. This is important to understand, because it leads me to the biggest misconception in sports wagering. The pointspread is not the handicapper’s predicted margin-of-victory, but it is in fact the handicapper’s prediction of what number will be required to split the wagering evenly on both teams. Understanding that little tid-bit is the first step towards taking advantage of the numbers.

'Linemakers,' says former BoDog chief Rob Gillespie, 'are divided into two groups, oddsmakers and bookmakers'.

Oddsmakers deal in a theoretical world because they don't actually take bets on the lines that they publish. Oddsmakers make their money by selling their lines to media outlets, sportsbooks, etc. These are the lines you see in your local newspaper or hear on the radio. The line from Las Vegas Sports Consultants is a good example of one of these. The LVSC line is the one distributed to Las Vegas Sportsbooks. The lines don't change very much from day to day, because there are no direct wagers placed on these lines, and as such, there are no line moves required to try and balance action.

On the other hand, bookmakers deal very much in the real world, as they take bets on the lines they publish. These lines then move as a result of wagering, because the books seek to balance action in an effort to minimize risk and maximize the vig collected. This fundamental difference is one of the main reasons that the lines you see in your newspaper are not the same lines you get when you deal with a sportsbook. It is worth mentioning that time is also a factor. The lines in your paper were probably accurate when they were submitted to the editor, but in the amount of time that passes from pre-production to when you read the paper, injuries, weather and other factors can dramatically shift the spread.

Linemakers use a variety of methods to calculate their idea of the pointspread. Some use complicated computer programs that factor in recent performance, injuries, player match-ups, etc. Others simply have a feel for the games and produce a number out of thin air. However, most line makers use power ratings or some derivation.

Power ratings involve assigning each team a numerical value based on performance and than comparing the ratings to generate a pointspread. For example, one set of ratings I saw this week had Miami rated 57 at home and Indianapolis rated 53 on the road, so the difference results in a 4 point line. Another set has Miami rated 77, Indianapolis rated 75, and gave a 3.5 point advantage to the home team so it predicted an opening line of 5. The actual line opened at 6 at some books, and was bet down quickly to 4.5, so it appears that 6 was too high. There are no standards for how to derive these ratings, and predicting actual outcomes with better accuracy than the majority of the betting public is your key to success.

Some sportsbooks base all their lines on their own internal linemaking, but the majority of books rely either solely on oddsmaking services or a combination of external service and their own handicapping. BoDog Bookmakers handicap the games themselves, compare these results to the opening lines out of Vegas and then adjusts for the historical action of their own player base before coming up with a consensus opening number for each game. From there, the numbers are moved only to balance action or to account for special circumstances such as weather, injuries or the like.

The key advantage bettors have is that they do not have to wager on every game, but can pick and choose wagering opportunities. The bookmaker however, puts up a number on hundreds of events each and every week. In a typical NFL week, there are 14 to 15 games for you to choose from and there are even multiple betting opportunities on each game. You may not have a good feel for every game, but you most likely see several games where you are confident that one team will cover with better than 53% probability. This is what handicappers refer to as an 'overlay' or 'getting value', which is the starting point of every handicap.

by: Winning Inc. - SpreadExperts.com - Email Us

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Educational

Damien

December 4, 2019

How bookmakers are balancing the book so no matter who wins, the bookie makes a profit?

The world of betting is a risky business. Customers definitely understand the probabilities that are involved in their betting to be profitable. However, bookmakers are also affected by the risks of betting. Bookmakers only make a profit by pricing their betting markets towards making sure that the odds offered are lower than the statistical and researched probability of the event. To successfully market their betting pricing, the bookmakers also channel their efforts towards keeping their markets attractive to potential customers.

To keep their success consistent in the long-term, bookmakers’ practice what is called overround. Overround is a practice where bookmakers factor in a profit margin on all the prices that are offered by the bookies. Overround is what helps bookies decide the odds on any market and how much betting profit they will make.

Explaining Overround

How Do Bookies Set Odds For Football Games

A perfect book in betting odds will round up the implied probability of all outcomes at 100% in total. However, bookies make use of overround to increase this possibility to be higher than 100% and this overload becomes the profit for the bookies. So, if a bookie has odds of 1.43 for Wolves to win against Burnley with odds of 2.7, then we will calculate the implied probability. Using this formula, (1/Decimal Odds) x 100, the implied probability for a Wolves win lies at 70% and the odds for a Burnley win are at 37%. This means that there is an overround of 7% which is the profit the bookmakers will gain from this event.

Why bookmakers use accumulators

How Do Bookies Set Odds For Football Game

Bookmakers like it when gamblers place accumulator bets and when you consider our explanation of overrounds above, it is highly understandable. Accumulators increase the betting odds and uncoincidentally solidify a gambler’s chances of losing. When a gambler places multiple bets, it increases the overround. If a bookmaker has an overround of 103%, and a gambler selects 10 matches on an accumulator with 103% overround, then the bookie’s overround is 30%. In other words, his betting profit is 30%.

How overround is determined

Because gamblers don’t equally bet on all outcomes, there is a high chance that they will back one outcome instead of another. This is the reason why bookies prefer to overround the shorter odds on one and lengthen the odds on the other. In the process of adjusting odds, bookies make the effort to protect the overround. This process will help ensure that gamblers will begin to back other outcomes due to the improved odds on offer.

With highly popular markets, bookies understand that their overround has to be lower in order to be competitive against their rivals. With the large volume of bets on football matches, for example, there will still be enough incentive for profit.

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How markets are determined when making a bet?

A market is something that allows people to trade their services or items in exchange for payment. Bookmakers allow their customers to only accept the price or buy on the outcome for a future event (except for exchanges with websites like Betfair) A market is only created in situations where the odds have been set by the bookmaker. These odds are only based on the gambler’s perception of chance relative to what the results of each event may be. Realistically, bookmakers typically do not bring up the prices of their markets in-house. Instead, their prices are received from third-party feed providers. Complex algorithms are applied by making use of the strength of the participants, previous data, audience betting predictions, or they get rid of the odds from the bookmaker and create aggregated prices. As a result of this, the bookmaker is given the choice to create a marketplace with odds that are competitive and less competitive.

With the amount of relative uncertainty with the outcome, a bookmaker will definitely lose confidence concerning the results of the bet. Bookmakers usually ensure that there is a large overround when creating odds for the market in order to fully ensure that there is a fully uncertain outcome.

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Controlling risks in bookmaking

When the event is getting closer, there can be less uncertainty than that which was originally present in the original pricing. This means that the risks can be mitigated and there will be increased confidence levels from gamblers which leads to fewer amounts of overrounds in total. A bookmaker confident in their preliminary evaluation should not move the odds. This might not always be the best option as sometimes, not moving the odds will make the results to be out of line with what other operators have, and there will be overly exposed results on an outcome. Instead of taking that risk, bookmakers commonly alter the odds based on the drift of money. More cash coming in for the effects in the odds shortening and the options lengthened.

How To Read Bookie Odds

From this, we can definitely infer that there is a lot that goes into the work of bookmakers to successfully create odds with good overrounds. It is because of this extensive research that beating the bookmakers is one of the best goals to achieve in the world of sports betting.

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