Check this out on the RX home page. It's called "Anatomy of a pointspread." I think you will find it interesting. www.theprescription.com. Any posters comments would be cool too!
ANATOMY OF A POINTSPREAD (PART 1) 09/24/03 - Jeremy Martin
For the purpose of this article, we have decided to examine two games: Arizona at Purdue in the NCAA and Cleveland at San Francisco in the NFL. We spoke with Bob Scucci from the Stardust, Bert Osborne from Coast Resorts and Rob Gillespie from BoDog to find out how they set their line and where it went through the week. In today’s Part 1, we will report on the Stardust
STARDUST: PURDUE (-21) against Arizona
SAN FRANCISCO (-7) against Cleveland
If a pointspread was a newborn baby, then it would be given birth at the Stardust Hotel and Casino where the opening line in football is released every Sunday at 5:30 p.m. PST. Although several offshore services release their lines prior to the Stardust, it’s the Las Vegas opening number that sets the tone for the betting action for the week, both offshore and in the “city that glitters.”
While some bookies set their line completely in-house, Stardust race and sports book manager Bob Scucci prefers to use outside consultants, especially since he has an increased vulnerability from the sharp bettors as a result of posting the first Las Vegas line.
In order to determine his numbers, Scucci starts off by consulting the power and ability ratings that he keeps for each team, college and pro. When examining a game, he comes up with a base number, which is established by those ratings in addition to statistics and win/loss record.
The previous week’s results and public opinion are not taken into account when coming up with this base number, said Scucci. Once the base number is down on paper, it’s time to see what his consultants think. The Stardust uses the services of Las Vegas Sports Consultants and Ken White.
“We basically look at the three numbers that we have and decide (where to set ours),” said Scucci. “Sometimes they are all the same and that makes for an easy line. If everybody is at -14 ½ then that’s an easy one. Sometimes we come up with a -4 on one side, a -5 on the other and a ‘pick’em. So we could open up anywhere in the middle.”
The Purdue/Arizona game was one of those situations when Scucci was looking at three different numbers when trying to set his opening line. He said the reason there was so much discrepancy was that Arizona had looked much worse than initially anticipated, as displayed in blow out losses to Louisiana State and Oregon the previous two weeks.
Purdue was hard to gauge because the school opened with a loss to Bowling Green. However, the Boilermakers came back the following week with an impressive win at Wake Forest. As of 5:30 on Sunday, Scucci hadn’t pinned down an exact spot where the teams should be.
Hence, an opening line of Purdue -21 that quickly shot up to -24 Sunday night due to heavy action by the sharp bettors during Stardust’s lottery session (bettors are allowed to bet into the opening line at the Stardust in the order of numbers drawn during the lottery).
“Sometimes it takes two or three weeks to get the number to where it should be,” said Scucci. “Sometimes we over adjust and sometimes we keep adjusting and adjusting until it comes back the other way, and then we end up losing because we adjusted too much.
“So I think that’s the case with Purdue; that we are still in the process of adjusting. (Arizona and Purdue) are volatile right now. Purdue was supposed to be one of the teams in the top-20, and they were supposed to cover a lot of spreads. Yet, they lose to Bowling Green straight up. So now the number gets adjusted a little too much the other way.
“Against Wake Forest, Purdue comes out at ‘pick’em, which, if they would have played them the week before they played Bowling Green, they would have probably come out -4. That made Purdue a little bit of a play. With Arizona, we are still in the process of adjusting. Because (last week), apparently, we didn’t adjust enough.”
In the NFL, the San Francisco/Cleveland game opened at 49ers –7. During the lottery, heavy betting took place on San Francisco. Scucci eventually moved the line to -7 ½ for a short time in the hopes of getting two-way action.
It didn’t happen, however, and the manager decided to bring the number back to seven in order to limit his liability. The key numbers for the bookmaker are seven, three and four, so it usually takes a lot to move them off those digits.
“Seven is a critical number, so the difference in hanging a 7 ½ and a seven can be a lot of money,” said Scucci.
He added that a limit bet will usually move the line in most games (Stardust limits are $10,000 for NFL sides and $5,000 for college sides) but that on the “key numbers” it usually takes at least two or three limit bets to move the number.
We will have Part 2 on Wednesday.
http://www.therx.com/nm/templates/article.asp?articleid=1272&zoneid=2
For the purpose of this article, we have decided to examine two games: Arizona at Purdue in the NCAA and Cleveland at San Francisco in the NFL. We spoke with Bob Scucci from the Stardust, Bert Osborne from Coast Resorts and Rob Gillespie from BoDog to find out how they set their line and where it went through the week. In today’s Part 1, we will report on the Stardust
STARDUST: PURDUE (-21) against Arizona
SAN FRANCISCO (-7) against Cleveland
If a pointspread was a newborn baby, then it would be given birth at the Stardust Hotel and Casino where the opening line in football is released every Sunday at 5:30 p.m. PST. Although several offshore services release their lines prior to the Stardust, it’s the Las Vegas opening number that sets the tone for the betting action for the week, both offshore and in the “city that glitters.”
While some bookies set their line completely in-house, Stardust race and sports book manager Bob Scucci prefers to use outside consultants, especially since he has an increased vulnerability from the sharp bettors as a result of posting the first Las Vegas line.
In order to determine his numbers, Scucci starts off by consulting the power and ability ratings that he keeps for each team, college and pro. When examining a game, he comes up with a base number, which is established by those ratings in addition to statistics and win/loss record.
The previous week’s results and public opinion are not taken into account when coming up with this base number, said Scucci. Once the base number is down on paper, it’s time to see what his consultants think. The Stardust uses the services of Las Vegas Sports Consultants and Ken White.
“We basically look at the three numbers that we have and decide (where to set ours),” said Scucci. “Sometimes they are all the same and that makes for an easy line. If everybody is at -14 ½ then that’s an easy one. Sometimes we come up with a -4 on one side, a -5 on the other and a ‘pick’em. So we could open up anywhere in the middle.”
The Purdue/Arizona game was one of those situations when Scucci was looking at three different numbers when trying to set his opening line. He said the reason there was so much discrepancy was that Arizona had looked much worse than initially anticipated, as displayed in blow out losses to Louisiana State and Oregon the previous two weeks.
Purdue was hard to gauge because the school opened with a loss to Bowling Green. However, the Boilermakers came back the following week with an impressive win at Wake Forest. As of 5:30 on Sunday, Scucci hadn’t pinned down an exact spot where the teams should be.
Hence, an opening line of Purdue -21 that quickly shot up to -24 Sunday night due to heavy action by the sharp bettors during Stardust’s lottery session (bettors are allowed to bet into the opening line at the Stardust in the order of numbers drawn during the lottery).
“Sometimes it takes two or three weeks to get the number to where it should be,” said Scucci. “Sometimes we over adjust and sometimes we keep adjusting and adjusting until it comes back the other way, and then we end up losing because we adjusted too much.
“So I think that’s the case with Purdue; that we are still in the process of adjusting. (Arizona and Purdue) are volatile right now. Purdue was supposed to be one of the teams in the top-20, and they were supposed to cover a lot of spreads. Yet, they lose to Bowling Green straight up. So now the number gets adjusted a little too much the other way.
“Against Wake Forest, Purdue comes out at ‘pick’em, which, if they would have played them the week before they played Bowling Green, they would have probably come out -4. That made Purdue a little bit of a play. With Arizona, we are still in the process of adjusting. Because (last week), apparently, we didn’t adjust enough.”
In the NFL, the San Francisco/Cleveland game opened at 49ers –7. During the lottery, heavy betting took place on San Francisco. Scucci eventually moved the line to -7 ½ for a short time in the hopes of getting two-way action.
It didn’t happen, however, and the manager decided to bring the number back to seven in order to limit his liability. The key numbers for the bookmaker are seven, three and four, so it usually takes a lot to move them off those digits.
“Seven is a critical number, so the difference in hanging a 7 ½ and a seven can be a lot of money,” said Scucci.
He added that a limit bet will usually move the line in most games (Stardust limits are $10,000 for NFL sides and $5,000 for college sides) but that on the “key numbers” it usually takes at least two or three limit bets to move the number.
We will have Part 2 on Wednesday.
http://www.therx.com/nm/templates/article.asp?articleid=1272&zoneid=2
Interesting, but it pretty much covers stuff I've already read here on Rx. I think it was no accident that the NFL opening number turned out to be more accurate than the NCAA number. I think it's long been known that there is little confidence in college opening numbers compared to pro sports.
