Michigan-MSU Vegas spread increasing
After settling around 7 points Monday afternoon, Michigan is now a heavier favorite--8 points on the VegasInsider "VI Consensus" and 8.5 points at some offshore sites. On the offshore site I study the most, the line moved from UM -7 (-115) this afternoon to -8.5 (-110) this evening.
Line moves of a half point in a day or even a full point over 24-36 hours are not uncommon, but it is rare to see midweek line moves of this magnitude between the 12-hour period after the line is released and the 24-hour window between kickoff. My first thought when I saw the jump this evening is that it's injury-related, but that's based only on the line move. It will be interesting to see if any injury updates come out before Saturday.
October 13th, 2015 at 11:19 PM ^
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October 13th, 2015 at 11:20 PM ^
October 13th, 2015 at 11:22 PM ^
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October 13th, 2015 at 11:24 PM ^
If I'm not mistaken, that's the money line. When betting on the money line, you are picking the winner of the game. So, you wager $110 to win $100 or $115 to win $100, in this case.
October 13th, 2015 at 11:29 PM ^
October 13th, 2015 at 11:30 PM ^
October 14th, 2015 at 10:56 AM ^
You have to lay $350 to win $100 on Michigan straight up.
October 14th, 2015 at 1:25 AM ^
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October 14th, 2015 at 8:09 AM ^
exactly, or you could profit by just betting on both sides of every game
October 13th, 2015 at 11:21 PM ^
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October 13th, 2015 at 11:31 PM ^
Yep. Maybe I should've gone into more detail for our non-degenerate MGoBloggers. For most point spread bets, the bettor has to wager $110 to win $100. The extra $10 is the "juice", aka how the Bellagio can accessorize all their suites with gold-plated ashtrays. Occasionally, if the line is on a key number (almost always 3 or 7), and the bookmaker wants to entice more action on one side versus the other--but they don't want to move the spread off the key number and thereby encourage too much action on the other side--the bookmaker will move the juice 5-10 points instead of the spread.
For example, when Tampa Bay hosted Jacksonville last Sunday, the line was -3 Tampa Bay with the juice at (-110) on both sides. However, the book I study was (I assume) taking too many bets on the Jags at +3, so they moved the juice to Jags +3 (-120), Bucs -3 (+100). Almost all books keep a 20% juice on the 2 sides combined, so that the overall casino take projects to approximately 5% of revenue bet on the game (in a perfect world in the casino's view), but that juice isn't always spread evenly.
October 13th, 2015 at 11:28 PM ^
October 13th, 2015 at 11:20 PM ^
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October 13th, 2015 at 11:25 PM ^
October 13th, 2015 at 11:25 PM ^
This isn't a huge shock, and something many people predicted. Almost every computer model I've seen has the spread at ~15 points. Now, preseason expectations still tamper that a good deal, but this isn't something particularly weird either. In most cases (but certainly not all) the spread matches the computers reasonably closely.
October 13th, 2015 at 11:31 PM ^
October 13th, 2015 at 11:45 PM ^
Yes it does, but the timing of the move indicates that more bets have been coming in on Michigan in the past 12 hours, which is... Unusual.
Normally the pros bet the lines within 1-2 hours after they're published, which is why the line moved from -3 to -7 by Sunday evening. During the week, some public money trickles in, but not enough to move the spread more than half a point. Friday night/Saturday morning, both public and pro money comes in so the spreads will have some movement the last 12 hours before kickoff. In between though, practically nothing happens. The only other game on the board I've even seen a 1 point move on is the Bowling Green-Akron game, whcih moved from -11 to -12 today (although it's back to -11.5).
The point is--apparently somebody (or somebodies) with enough cash to move the line are coming in on Michigan. In the middle of the week. The timing and the magnitude of the move are, together, noteworthy.
EDIT: Notre Dame-USC also had a significant midweek move, but the reason behind that move is obvious, of course.
October 14th, 2015 at 12:07 AM ^
And in general, MICHIGAN is a very heavily wagered football team week in and out.
October 14th, 2015 at 2:38 AM ^
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October 14th, 2015 at 4:18 AM ^
I wasn't able to find betting trends on VegasInsider.com. I did find them via Google*, and they matched what was previously posted (actually, public money on MSU was up to 71%).
It's a common misconception that bookmakers try to balance the lines to decrease their exposure. When the public perception of a team is very different than the bookmakers' predictive models, the casinos are happy to take extra profits.
This screams exactly that. The only reason that the line would move toward Michigan, given the betting trend of 70% of the people taking MSU plus the points, is that the house is confident that it's a sucker bet.
One more data point; the current money line is -335/+280. Here's a simple calculation. Take the total payout, divide by the amount wagered, and you get the percentage of time that the event would have to occur for the wager to come out even in the long term. In this case: $335 wagered to win $100 -> $335 / $435 = 77%; $100 wagered to win $280 -> $100 / $380 = 26%.
If their plan were to break even, Vegas would need Michigan to be about 75% likely to win** (the fact that 77% + 26% > 100% is the house edge). Given the line movements, I'd say that the books must think Michigan has an even better chance than that...
* link not provided to prevent this blog/domain from being tagged as promoting gambling
** an alternative way to look at it: if you consider all of the games with similar money lines together, the books need about 3/4 of the favorites to win in order to break even.
October 14th, 2015 at 7:17 AM ^
I'll stick with the "common misconception" that the bookmakers balance their books for a guaranteed return in the form of the vigorish.
Seems like a better strategy than to google "betting trends", and view some pie charts from a business that wants to sell you information on how to make money by understanding what the "betting trends" are.
Having practiced as a criminal trial lawyer who represented several large bookmakers in federal prosecutions, I can tell you that their goal is to have you gamble, not for them to gamble. They all lost money gambling; that is why they become bookmakers.
Dealing blackjack is not gambling; it's a license to make money via mathematics. Believe in systems at your peril; there are no systems, only peoople who ride them to the poorhouse.
Small bookmakers will occasionally leave action uneven if they want to gamble, which inevitably reminds them of why they became bookmakers rather than gamblers, but large bookmaking concerns do not gamble. You do.
Lines move and vigorish percentages change to help keep the money even. There is no grand conspiracy to get you to bet one way or the other. They could not care less upon whom you bet, only that you are making one.
October 14th, 2015 at 7:34 AM ^
October 14th, 2015 at 8:38 AM ^
This guy (YoR2) is 100% right, and this response should be copied/pasted and repeated every time this topic comes up. Casinos don't gamble. They create games where they have very slight advantages (house 51% to public 49%, or the vig in sports) and know over the long run they'll make millions. So if this line is moving towards Michigan but most gamblers (in terms of % of population, not % of dollars) are picking MSU, that means one of two things only: some large $ bets are coming in for UM from pro gamblers and organically moving the line, or lots of mid-size bets for UM have come in and the bookies are trying to balance the $ on both side by moving the line and encouraging more folks to take MSU.
EDIT: Here is a simple, totally hypothetical example of what could be (and is probably) happening:
Assume that some bookie has taken bets from 600 gamblers on the UM vs. MSU game
Of these 600 gamblers, 400 have placed an average bet of $100 on MSU, for a total of $40,000. 200 gamblers have placed an average bet of $1000 on UM, for a total of $200,000. So 67% of the individual bettors have placed money on MSU, while only 33% have placed money on UM; in other words, 2/3 of this sub-population thinks MSU will win the game, or at least cover the spread as it existed when they placed their bet (somewhere from MSU +3 to MSU +8). However, 83% of the money is picking UM to win/cover. From the bookie's perspective, this is terrible news. He/she doesn't care who wins and does NOT want to gamble on this game, but as these numbers stand now, this bookie stands to lose his/her shirt if UM wins and covers, and will have to pay out roughly $160,000 (minus the vig, of course). The bookie does NOT want to risk that happening. So what can he/she do, as a risk-averse rational actor? Move the line even more towards Michigan, hoping that this will inspire even more gamblers to pick MSU and "balance the money". And this is precisely what we are seeing now (in all likelihood).
In the end, this moving line isn't really good or bad news for us UM fans, as it means very little about the outcome of the game, or even popular opinion about the outcome of the game. The ONLY good thing this might indicate is that the big money gamblers - those folks who study this and do it for a living, make lots of money doing so, and not because they are passionate about either team - MAY be trending towards Michigan. That's about it. <END RANT>
October 14th, 2015 at 9:15 AM ^
This is consistent with what I've heard, as the mantra in Vegas is "the house always wins". If they get the juice on the wagers, they should be indifferent to the outcome, so long as the wagers are reasonably balanced. And the more wagers, the more money for the house.
The bookmakers are making a guaranteed return based on math. The only "gamble" they make is in setting the initial lines, but they know a game like this will generate enough action to allow them to balance the wagers by tweaking those lines if necessary.
October 14th, 2015 at 9:25 AM ^
That's right. But even the initial line being way off-base can be overcome by moving it the other direction dramatically later.
OK, time for truth... I had a buddy that was a bookie in college. Fairly small time, of course. But that actually illustrates it better. He would set caps on bets, and use Vegas lines to open. But with smaller total sums, he would still get really out-of-whack bets on one side or another, precisely because the aggregate was smaller. So sometimes, just before games kicked off, he would offer his regulars "easy money" bets on some games, where the lines were no-brainers (i.e. the team you think will win by 14 at -10, when Vegas only has them at -3). Why do this? Because he wanted to balance the money and limit his risk. Again, he just wanted to make his 10%, not gamble on the games.
October 14th, 2015 at 11:11 AM ^
and applying it to the biggest sites. They can afford to take a loss on a game. Sometimes they take fairly big ones. The money doesn't always even out. A small bookmaker can even out his bets by laying off bets with a bigger book. That's not true with the big sites and moving the lines too far has its downsides.
When you're doing that volume of games and bets, it's not necessary to be overly defensive. They have deep pockets. Their best strategy is to make the most over the long term. If that involves setting lines so that most of the money comes in on the wrong side, why wouldn't they do it? They can afford a little variance.
October 14th, 2015 at 12:38 PM ^
"Betting trends" was the Google search I used to find information about how much money had come in on each side of the wager -- that's apparently what those percentages are called. I wasn't suggesting that you use them to inform a bet. :-)
If the "betting trends" are an accurate reflection of the money that's been bet so far, the books clearly are gambling, because they have a surplus of MSU money and they're moving the line further in Michigan's favor. They are either trying to take advantage of the public's lack of sophistication, or they are expecting a massive amount of money to come in on Michigan later this week and are proactively responding. (One assumes that sharps bet as late as possible in order to maximize the amount of information they may have about the game, including injury status and weather forecasts). Either way, it's a risk -- if money were to stop coming in on the game, the books would have exposure on this game.
Keep in mind, though, the sportsbooks are enormously well capitalized. They can afford to take a loss on one game as long as they're winning others.*
One note: As I attempted to find more information to provide a better informed opinion, I realized that some of these numbers refer to the number of bets, not the amount of money wagered. Unfortunately, the number of bets is nearly meaningless in terms of giving any insight into the way the casino operates, because one or two large bets can easily dwarf hundreds of people putting up $20 each. So, unless I can find information on the size of the take on each side (and so far, I haven't found anything that unambigously claims to be that), I'll have to stick with a slightly more obvious take: having the line move in Michigan's favor is clearly a sign that lots of people think we're all going to have a really good Saturday. :-)
* For example, see this article from ESPN: http://espn.go.com/chalk/story/_/id/13653044/las-vegas-sportsbooks-lose… . Here they're specifically referring to the amount of money bet; one quote: "We had 1.5 [times] more tickets on Seattle, but 2.5 times more money on the Rams. That was a game that was pretty much public vs. pro. And pro wins." So, either they weren't trying to set the line to get 50/50 action, or they didn't do a very good job. :-)
October 14th, 2015 at 5:18 AM ^
Florida?
October 13th, 2015 at 11:48 PM ^
October 13th, 2015 at 11:59 PM ^
where are you getting this info?
October 14th, 2015 at 12:12 AM ^
vegasinsider.com
October 14th, 2015 at 7:17 AM ^
October 14th, 2015 at 7:55 AM ^
Admiral Gial Ackbar
October 14th, 2015 at 2:47 AM ^
October 14th, 2015 at 5:02 AM ^
They all have software, statisticians and decades of experience at manipulating the lines to make as much money as possible. They know at the current line Michigan is very likely to cover, so they are allowing gamblers to throw their money at MSU, with worst odds than black jack for the better. If the line moves it's because they want to get as much action as they can on MSU.
October 14th, 2015 at 7:04 AM ^
October 14th, 2015 at 7:27 AM ^
Yes. There is a bar on Tropicana Avenue on the East side of South Las Vegas Blvd that serves a good French Dip where they all meet and make these trapping arrangements. They then send faxes or emails, all encrypted, to offshore sites on how to set the trap.
Then 18-to-22-year-old kids play a game with no certain outcome in order for the trap strategy to make money for the casinos.
October 14th, 2015 at 10:41 AM ^
The general argument your making is a straw man. I'm not arguing that the bookies set the line to make a profit, the "trapping" concept is an interesting idea that I hadn't heard before, which is why I queried.
More generally: no one is saying "the books set the line at 7, they think Michigan will win by 7." Everybody understands what you believe to be insiders only knowledge - they want even money on both sides. But to the extent that they believe what's required to get even money on both sides, the opening line is a representation of that. So what does even money on both sides mean? Market equilibrium. Is it a perfect indicator of game outcome, of course not. It should be a pretty good one. Same with stocks and bonds and all types of goods for sale. Sellers meet Buyers at the price where both think the transaction is fair.
So, is the market effiecient? On average I'd guess it is, and that a team that's favored by 1 point has historically won slightly more than 50% of games. As the line increases, I'd guess the win percentage increases accordingly. That's all most of us really care about. Does an increasing spread indicate an increasing "wisdom of crowds" belief that Michigan's chances of winning the game are improving.
October 14th, 2015 at 11:14 AM ^
They are FORECASTING a market equilibrium by gametime, not trying to have it constantly. They know they can't manage it that way (50/50 on both sides) because if they do the market can be exploited by large wagers.
Say they get 10K on both sides of a bet through a bunch of small wagers. Then somebody on Friday evening drops a 100K bet. What then?
To protect themselves from that kind of thing they stick to what they think is the most accurate prediction and only deviate a little bit to attempt to balance where they think the action will end up. That's why you see huge money on MSU right now but the line keeps moving UM's way. They know what's coming later in the week....big money pros betting on UM.
October 14th, 2015 at 12:23 PM ^
October 14th, 2015 at 9:00 AM ^
Vegas WILL 'gamble' and let the money go one-sided if it plays out that way to their advantage, but that's not their goal from the outset. They'd rather take the sure thing - but they're willing to gamble too if you're going to be a full TD off what they think the "real" line is...
What is happeneing right now is that Vegas excepts the sharps/pros to come in later in the week, bigtime, on Michigan. The reason for that is computer models.
The computer models (which are tools Vegas and pro gamblers use rely on heavily) all say Michigan should win by 2 TDs. (Obiously I don't know what they ALL say, but the ones that are out there for the public tell you that's the case, as does the big line/ despite public perception and recent history that says MSU is better.)
Vegas knows that - they know that Michigan should be huge favorite - they are just trying to balance public money against their best guess at what action the sharps will take later in the week. If the sharps DON'T hit Michigan hard late in the week you'll see the line bump down. They probably will though.
Expect this line to just keep getting bigger. I expect it to land around 9.5, a happy compromise between the computer models (which drive most of the $) and public perception (a small but still significant factor).
October 14th, 2015 at 9:09 AM ^
My guess is that more so than a trap, they are trying to anticipate what sharps will do later in the week.
October 14th, 2015 at 7:31 AM ^
Fast line movement like this means that sharps are on Michigan, sportsbooks won't move a line this quickly based on public money. On top of that, MSU is actually receiving more of the bets from the public, which would usually make the line move in their favor. This is a case of "reverse line movement" and it's a good sign for us.
October 14th, 2015 at 9:02 AM ^
It means the sharps are coming in earlier than expected on Michigan and they want to induce public action on MSU. They are adjusting how much they think sharps will put on MIchigan.
Most of the money is on MSU but the line keeps moving to UM...interesting stuff.
October 13th, 2015 at 11:23 PM ^
October 13th, 2015 at 11:32 PM ^
October 13th, 2015 at 11:32 PM ^
A lot of money dropped Michigan -7 so they pushed the line further to try and entice bettors to place MSU bets and even out the bets on both sides. And as long as bettors keep betting Michigan to cover then the spread will keep increasing (remember the BYU game?)
Either way MarkyMark will be enraged at the disrespect Vegas is showing his team and will seeth in silent rage over the injustice.
October 13th, 2015 at 11:43 PM ^
The reason is simple, yes, but the driver behind that reason is not so trivial. As someone who follows these things probably more than I should, midweek action this heavy is unusual, to say the least.
I'd love to hear JamieMac's thinking on this.
October 13th, 2015 at 11:54 PM ^
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October 14th, 2015 at 12:57 AM ^
I dunno man, our spreads have been doing this for weeks now. Hell, the last game it moved by something like 3 points on the very last day before the game. For someone who "follows these things", you seem unaware of recent history.