Doug addresses a common believe that a point spread adjusts to generate equal money on each side of a game.
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Mariah: we’re just another form of Mythbusters okay because it’s time for mythconceptions which is betting misconceptions Doug’s going to write the ship here for us so let’s look at this one sports books want an even amount of money on both sides of the game so they essentially just win no matter what
Doug: the point spread is not designed for equal money the point spread is there in the over unders as well to sort of split the odds of the outcome where it’s 50/50 so the point spread moves and gets to a point where it’s equal chance to land on both sides or at least that’s the perception and I always like to make the comparison to the casino so like we know the odds of the roulette wheel and the craps table like that math is fixed well the math of a point spread everything is not fixed there’s obviously a million outcomes that can occur throughout the course of let’s say a football game but the point spread and the market ultimately determines what sort of that fair market value where the line is the same is the sort of splits it down the middle and that’s all they care about so when there’s 97% of the money on one team and 3% on the other or something like that they don’t move it they do not care now they can’t take an avalanche of money so for the Super Bowl they would move it but other than that when the when the volume of money bet on the game is not crazy like the Super Bowl they’re fine because they believe if the point spread is the 50/50 the house is getting plus 110 right so they’re getting the margins of the best like they’re they’re making the money much like in roulette when red and black whatever color you pick they’re getting the other color plus green they’re getting the two other colors so they’re going to the math is
going to win in their eyes and so if they have plus 110 on 50/50 chance they’re going to let you bet as much as you want and they never get worried that the public is betting so much on one side because even if the public wins they’re going to bet again and as long as the house is getting plus 110 eventually they’re going to win much like if a guy’s betting red on the roulette wheel every dime and every spin there’s eight spins in a row that gone red they don’t change the odds of red or they don’t take one red number off the wheel they know the math is in their favor and ultimately they’ll win out over the course of all the money that’s being bet and all the you know every the minute or however long each spin of the wheel is so that’s the same concept in sports they’re not too worried when it’s overwhelming and all that stuff we see it when there’s major sports teams play like Patrick Mahomes plays on a Sunday night or Monday Night Football or things like that they don’t overreact because they know the math is in their favor so they do not move the number to try to get more money on the other side of the percentages are skewed
Mariah yeah so regardless of what happens the books live to see another day they’re not too worried so rest your pretty little heads that’s our mythconceptions
