How to keep tabs on the smart money
Sports betting is all about being on the same side as the smart money. You always want to be with the professional bettors, also known as the wiseguys, and never against them.
Why? Because pros win at a high rate, have long track records of success and have the respect of the sportsbooks. When they place big wagers and “get down” on a game, they force oddsmakers to take notice and adjust their lines. Smart money won’t win 100 percent of the time. But it will win far more often than it loses.
If you’re a true sharp, you are handicapping games based on your own models, formulas and power ratings in order to come up with your own line on a game. Then you’ll compare your lines to what the sportsbooks are offering and look for actionable discrepancies.
For example, a wiseguy might cap the Patriots as 9-point favorites against the Jets. If the sportsbooks open New England at -7, sharps will immediately bet New England because they’ve identified an actionable edge.
It’s often said that pros bet numbers, not teams. They bet with their heads, not their hearts, and are always looking for value. Sharps are fearless but disciplined. If value is there, they fire away. If it’s not there, they have no problem laying off.
Unfortunately, not all of us are as smart and talented as the pros. But we can still identify which side is receiving smart money if we understand the market and learn how to read line movement. Here are three tips on how to identify which side is receiving smart money, also known as sharp action.
Reverse line movement: Popularly referred to as “RLM,” this is when the betting line moves away from the popular side getting the majority of bets and toward the unpopular side getting the minority of bets.
For example, let’s say 75 percent of bets are taking the Giants-Eagles Over 47 points. With such heavy support, you would expect the line to rise to 47¹/2 or 48. However, despite this lopsided betting, you see the total fall to 46¹/2 or 46. This would indicate sharp action hitting the Under. Remember, if it looks fishy or looks too good to be true, it almost always is.
Steam move: This is when you see a sudden overload of smart money come down all at once causing uniform line movement across the board. The key is that nearly every book suddenly moves in the same direction. If just one or two books move, that might be an outlier. Maybe the Mets open -125 and in the blink of an eye they move to -140. This would be the result of pro money hammering or “steaming” New York.
Line freeze: Normally when a team is getting a lopsided share of tickets and heavy public support, the oddsmakers will adjust the number further toward the popular side in order to limit their risk and entice betting on the opposite side. However, sometimes a team is getting a heavy share of tickets yet the line stays the same. This is referred to as a line freeze.
Maybe 80 percent of bets are taking the Lakers -7 vs. the Jazz. However, the line refuses to move to Lakers -7¹/2 or -8. This would signal a reluctance on the part of the books to hand out a better number to the Jazz because that’s the side they have liability on.