You cannot compare cards or dice or any other gambling arena that has a definte finite number of outcomes.
When lines and odds do not have a a prdicitive value then they are meaningless, and trying to determine what value is is nearly impossible.
Again it might be semantics. Sure if 75 books hav -5 on a game and 2 or 3 are offering 6.5 Then you can say that 6.5 has "value". But if the "true predicitive" line should be 7 then is +6 reallt valuable? Just because most places are offerinf 5 does it mean that it is the right line?
That is what gambelrs do, they ook at aline to determine value. Handicapping is the fundamental aspect in deterinng value. If you have no sense of what a team SHOULD be favored by then how can you determine value in the first place?
That is the issue I have. The better title might be "comparitive shopping". You can buy a product at Sears for $99.99, or you can buy it at WalMart for $78.86. You can say that Wal Mart's price has value. Same product at a 20% discount. But if the product is only worth 49 bux then you aren't gettting value at either place. You are just having to pay less for an overpriced product at one of the places you shop.
That is why, if you are betting games one way handicapping is the fundamental area you have. That is the VERY MINUTE adavantage one has (if one truly exists) in betting games one way. You don't know what value is unless you can determine it in the first place.
Also determining the lines and openers and closers and all in between is nearly impossible to determine, even after the fact. So to break it down into half point segments is also fanciful.
Basically in a lot of college games there is simply no way to determine a "market line". BECAUSE of the things said in this article. Lines are up and down, open here, move there, are cloned here, hedged there. So actually trying to figure out what line is the "maket" line is impssible, even AFTER the fact. So if you can't figure it out after, how the hell can you figure it out before, and use it to make a bet? You can't. What is that half point worth when it was available long ago? Or what is it worth if the line shoots way past it? So it als has a lot to do with timing just as much as shopping.
Even in the Superbowl when theline was hung for 14+days, it was hard to determine what the market line was. Was it Pats -7 -110, or Pats -7 at some other vig? Or was it something else? I saw probably 40 differing lines and odds scenarios at various books for that game, so who is to say which ones were value? Obviously now anything with Philly +whatever at the best odds would have been, since that is the winning play.
There is no true value when it comes to betting sports. It is all comparitive shopping, plain and simple. You can't say that you have about a 4-1 shot of making a flush flopping 4 suited cards in sports, nor can you say you have have a 5-1 chance of rolling a comeout 7 in sports like you can craps. Because sports cannot be given odds because the possibilities are endless. So there is no way to determine a true value based on mathematical probability.
All you can do is shop and compare and hope that by some stroke that you got the "right" side at some rogue book that offered you that half point you were looking for, at precisely the right time. Then for it to truly have plausible value, that half point or full point has to actually come into play and prevent you from a losing wager. If you wait a round for a half point and the team wins by 20 does it matter?
This is an endless argument that has so many angles they can't all be touched on in a written form, unless it is in a book.
I will agree that shopping around is a good way to go, as long as the odds are equal (I also do not think a half point is worth 7cents, but that is also another argument) Because you cannot put a value on something that has no value to begin with. That is definate theory.
But if you like team X at +6 -110 at Pin and Oly has them +6.5 -110, then obviously taking the +6.5 is the "correct" play. I don't think it hold anymore value than pinnacle, it is just abetter number. Value can only be determined if it wins or loses.
One last comment on the cards angle. Most professional payers will not chase a flush when they have a lot of chips, even if they are getting better than 4-1, if their opponent has equal to or more chips than them, because the know that if they do not get it on the turn their odds dramtically diminish, and they will be forced to commit all their chips to see the river, and by then they are pot committed. So even if a play seemingly has value, it is not always the correct move. Most guys that chase those flushes have their opponents massively outchipped or are on a major short stack, so basically hav little or nothing to lose. When they are in a positive position they will almost never do it.
