Intertops & Olympic two of the best

[thegreek]

BBUSTER as I was putting up the line for the NCAA final game, a freind of mine who I have a great deal of respect in basketball handicapping called and asked what is the line on the game. I myself liked the under (now you understand why I can,t make up a
number) and so I quoted him 135 on the total. He bet me under 135 for a dime. If you were loking at the Don Best Screen you would have noticed the line went down before it went back up. When the Stardust line opened much higher everyone started betting over and ofcourse my number kept rising. We all know the final outcome, I was wrong and paid for it, about 20D. What did you make that total BBUSTER? There's a few Baseball games going down right now, I'll answer your other questions later. Take care.

[bbuster]

Spiro- Often in college baskets it is very tough to make a good number on a total on games involving a team that can play both ways, run up and down and fastbreak or run clock and play halfcourt. Alot of teams only play one way(Florida), Mich st on the other hand had demonstrated an ability to do both and be succesfull. I had a bias to the over in the game, I thought Mich st would break the press and get some easy buckets and if Florida got behind alot of points couls be scored. Honestly it was a very weird game to bet because I honestly thought that Florida had a chance to win the game and they could also just as easily lose by 20 which is weird in tournament games, most games are closer to the vest and have lower volatility in the expected outcomes. After the last Final four game ended I went to your site because often you are the first to post a number in these situations(for those that dont know, to Olympic's credit they had a bettable line on the superbowl when the championship games were still going in the 4th quarter.) I was going to bet over 145 or less(I thought the number would open 148-151) I know thats pretty wide but I often dont get involved until the numbers are ironed out so it is not my specialty, I saw 133 1/2 which I bet for my an average to medium play for my account. :d Then I saw the Vegas numbers and saw your number go up then go off the board and then come back at I think 138 and watched it climb pretty much 1 pt increments until 144 1/2. I have a soft spot for the greek so I didnt take as much advantage of this opportunity as I could have for 2 reasons. First most books will honor a bad number if a player plays it once for a standard play, but if a dollar player bets 2 dimes on it then it seems that gives them cause to cancel or if I would have multiple punched it I thought that might give you cause to cancel. Also I respect you because you are willing to gamble and often do things that others don't and in the situations when you are massively wrong I dont think you should get torched to bad, if you did you would stop doing it.

P.S. its been nice chatting with you Spiro, take care. GL in baseball, with a 20 cent line I dont get to bet much with you but every now and then I get to make an overnight bet.

[krackman]

Intertops or Olympic???? C,mon hands down olympic is the place to be if you like to gamble. I transferred $7000 today to 2 different books without any problems . This is a first class operation....

[Hamhog]

Sort of like saying "Ostertag & O'Neal two of the best"

[alec]

The more I read about the offshore books, the more I get an impression that they are not very different from those in Ukraine.

I mean only the creation of the line.

There were just three of us involved in odds making. We took some numbers from other books (Vegas for American sports) with some adjustments. And we created some numbers by ourselves by using our "opinions".

The situation described by Spiro is exactly the one that we experienced a lot of times. We had put up a line based on our opinion, then somebody opened with 12 points difference. It sounds so familiar.

Then I just have read the article by Samantha. A very interesting one. But the same thing. When I was reading about how Jason quoted a baseball line in progress, just by himself, I could not help thinking about this procedure taking place in our book. It would be exactly the same.

May be I messed up once again and in fact creation of the line is much more complicated in offshore books. Please, clear it up for me.

[thegreek]

ODDSMAKER:BBUSTER, as we all know, the best line for the bookie is the one which will attract two sided business with minimum exposure to getting sided or middled. This is what I think an oddsmaker should be trying to accomplish when making up a line. I think all the things you mentioned are important (math,stats,injuries etc.) but equally as important is being able to sense which way the public is going to bet. When I put up my overnite NBA, I have four players who I respect to open me up. The first handicapper is more of a gambler and after he makes his bet he tells me what he made the number.He is an opinionated winner and his number is based more on the all the things you mentioned and does not consider which way the public will be betting. The next two handicappers try to predict the direction the line will move when betting, so possibly they can buy some back if the line moves enough in there favor. The first handicapper's line, I feel is the true line, but I found out using his line creates large decisions and exposure to many numbers. A good oddsmaker, in my opinion, is one who utilizes all the stats and other info available together with a good sense of which way the line will move.