Last Saturday, we had a thread going here talking about who was placing bets on Mizzou to cover the spread against Kentucky. Most of you probably could care less about that stuff, understandably. However, tracking sports betting lines is one of my absolute favorite things to do, so I thought I'd share some of the ways I look to see where sharp money is landing on Mizzou's football games each week. If you want the Sparknotes, I'll leave a TLDR at the end of my post.
One of the most important things to remember with sharp money is that it virtually always comes in right when lines open (Sunday afternoon/evening the week before), and public money comes in on gameday all the way up to kickoff. Professionals want to get to the lines before they are affected by other sharps, and the public usually doesn't even remember who's playing who until the morning of the games. In last week's case, Mizzou opened at a +6.5 point underdog to UK and stayed there until gameday, when they closed at +3.5 underdogs. This was almost certainly because the public woke up that morning and decided it liked Mizzou (smart choice). Another indicator that it was public money was the fact that a majority of BOTH total bets placed AND the total dollar amount wagered were on Mizzou. When sharps have a lot of action on a game, you'll see that something like only 35-40% of bet slips have Team A to cover, but 65-70% of the total money is on Team A.
This week, Mizzou opened as a +12.5 underdog Sunday afternoon. That number has stayed relatively stable on soft books (FanDuel, DraftKings, Bovada), floating between +12.0 and +12.5 most of the week. However, when I checked some of the sharp books (Pinnacle, 5Dimes), Mizzou was sitting at +13.0 or even +13.5 in some cases before coming back down to match up with everyone else. What is the difference between a "sharp book" and a "soft book"? Sharp books are exactly what they sound like: sportsbooks that allow professional sports bettors (sharps) to place large wagers on games. Soft books are tailored to the casual sports bettor in a number of different ways that make it nearly impossible for professionals to make a profit by using them. Usually, when there is a discrepancy in a line between these two types of sportsbooks, that's a decent indication that some sharp money has been placed. In this case, we would read this discrepancy as a relatively large professional bet placed on Florida to cover the spread at -12.0 or -12.5, which would force those books to give more points to Mizzou in an attempt to balance out their risk position.
Lastly, a rare but accurate giveaway to where sharp money is going is when something called Reverse Line Movement (RLM) occurs. There is a case to be made that this is happening with this week's points total so we can use that as an example. The over/under for MU @ UF opened at 63.5. Since it opened, anywhere from 80-90% of the bets placed on the o/u were for the over, which is really one-sided. If a book wanted to get that number closer to 50% in order to minimize their risk, they'd want to raise the number higher to make the under look more attractive. However, as of right now, the o/u has done the opposite of that and dropped down to 61.5. In other words, the line has moved in the reverse of what would make sense. It's reasonable to assume that most sharp bettors took the under and the books pulled the number down to try to get the public to take the over.
All of this is an inexact science and there is no real way to know exactly what the professionals think unless you either pay them to tell you or pay for expensive software that will tell you. However, you can get a pretty good idea of what they're thinking by checking for one or all of those indicators. The way I've seen the lines move this week, I'd guess the professionals definitely think the game is going to end up with less than 63.5 total points. There is a chance they also like Florida to cover, but with how little we know about the state of Florida's roster and the fact that there was only about a half-point difference between the sharp and soft books, I'd guess they largely stayed away from the spread. Everything I talked about is common practice, and if you want a professional to explain it in more detail you're just a Google search away. Hope this was insightful/interesting/helpful for at least some of you!
TLDR: See how the lines change early in the week leading up to the game, check for line differences between sports books like Pinnacle and FanDuel, see if a majority of the total bets placed and the total money wagered are congruent or not, and watch for lines to move in a direction you wouldn't expect relative to where most of the action is.
One of the most important things to remember with sharp money is that it virtually always comes in right when lines open (Sunday afternoon/evening the week before), and public money comes in on gameday all the way up to kickoff. Professionals want to get to the lines before they are affected by other sharps, and the public usually doesn't even remember who's playing who until the morning of the games. In last week's case, Mizzou opened at a +6.5 point underdog to UK and stayed there until gameday, when they closed at +3.5 underdogs. This was almost certainly because the public woke up that morning and decided it liked Mizzou (smart choice). Another indicator that it was public money was the fact that a majority of BOTH total bets placed AND the total dollar amount wagered were on Mizzou. When sharps have a lot of action on a game, you'll see that something like only 35-40% of bet slips have Team A to cover, but 65-70% of the total money is on Team A.
This week, Mizzou opened as a +12.5 underdog Sunday afternoon. That number has stayed relatively stable on soft books (FanDuel, DraftKings, Bovada), floating between +12.0 and +12.5 most of the week. However, when I checked some of the sharp books (Pinnacle, 5Dimes), Mizzou was sitting at +13.0 or even +13.5 in some cases before coming back down to match up with everyone else. What is the difference between a "sharp book" and a "soft book"? Sharp books are exactly what they sound like: sportsbooks that allow professional sports bettors (sharps) to place large wagers on games. Soft books are tailored to the casual sports bettor in a number of different ways that make it nearly impossible for professionals to make a profit by using them. Usually, when there is a discrepancy in a line between these two types of sportsbooks, that's a decent indication that some sharp money has been placed. In this case, we would read this discrepancy as a relatively large professional bet placed on Florida to cover the spread at -12.0 or -12.5, which would force those books to give more points to Mizzou in an attempt to balance out their risk position.
Lastly, a rare but accurate giveaway to where sharp money is going is when something called Reverse Line Movement (RLM) occurs. There is a case to be made that this is happening with this week's points total so we can use that as an example. The over/under for MU @ UF opened at 63.5. Since it opened, anywhere from 80-90% of the bets placed on the o/u were for the over, which is really one-sided. If a book wanted to get that number closer to 50% in order to minimize their risk, they'd want to raise the number higher to make the under look more attractive. However, as of right now, the o/u has done the opposite of that and dropped down to 61.5. In other words, the line has moved in the reverse of what would make sense. It's reasonable to assume that most sharp bettors took the under and the books pulled the number down to try to get the public to take the over.
All of this is an inexact science and there is no real way to know exactly what the professionals think unless you either pay them to tell you or pay for expensive software that will tell you. However, you can get a pretty good idea of what they're thinking by checking for one or all of those indicators. The way I've seen the lines move this week, I'd guess the professionals definitely think the game is going to end up with less than 63.5 total points. There is a chance they also like Florida to cover, but with how little we know about the state of Florida's roster and the fact that there was only about a half-point difference between the sharp and soft books, I'd guess they largely stayed away from the spread. Everything I talked about is common practice, and if you want a professional to explain it in more detail you're just a Google search away. Hope this was insightful/interesting/helpful for at least some of you!
TLDR: See how the lines change early in the week leading up to the game, check for line differences between sports books like Pinnacle and FanDuel, see if a majority of the total bets placed and the total money wagered are congruent or not, and watch for lines to move in a direction you wouldn't expect relative to where most of the action is.
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