The line moved. So what?

Let’s talk about line movements, odds movements, and so on. Do I actually look at them? Well, before, and I’m doing this for 20 plus years, before it was a very good indication most of the times.

Nowadays, the market is just so noisy, that it’s all these crazy movements, I mostly ignore them. Unfortunately, I’m a human being, and I have, you know, my psychological patterns for a human, yes? Doubt, risk. Stuff like that.

So, real example. Two, three days ago, I posted this pick on Blogabet, and maybe one day I should write an article, like, with real line movements from those odds checker platforms, and so on and so on and so on, to show you what happened. But, in a couple of words, a game is starting in 30 minutes in one of the leagues, and jjB!B, and jjB!B, my alert software, sends me an alert to Telegram, and I see that one team is missing its best American, and best here means one of the two. So, they can only play with two, and one is missing, and the other team has two very good players, returning after missing a couple of days, a couple of games. Very good players. And first, jjB!B gives me an alert that they are in the roster, yes, normally, because the starting lineups are not published yet. But then, some minutes later, I get another alert that those players are actually starting, which is already the definite confirmation that those players are playing. They didn’t play for some games before, but now they are starting, it means they are playing, they are most likely okay.

So, I have a situation where one team is missing, like, around 20 points in their best import, and the other team is gaining two good players that were missing for a couple of games. If they are missing for a couple of games, it means that the fact that they are not playing is already priced in. So, if they are playing today, you already gain an advantage in theory.

So, I see this, members of my team, see this, and we think to ourselves, this is like a very nice bet. Why are the odds like this? And this team is playing at home, and they are underdogs. So, why are the odds like this? The other team is arguably not better to start with, and now they are missing their best import, and we are gaining two good players playing at home. So, we start to talk about this, and we consider betting on the home team, yes? And then the funny part starts, the odds start to move, but they start to move in the opposite direction. So, it started from almost even odds, it was like, was about 2.0 on the home team, which itself was kind of strange.

And then it became plus 3.5, plus 4.5, and it’s, and I followed it live on Pinnacle, live, I mean, before the game, this move. Plus 4.5, plus 5.5, and the max bet on Pinnacle was about 200, I think, later it became 300. And the handicap became plus 5.5, plus 6.5, plus 7.5. Then it came back a little bit to plus 5, then to plus 6 again. So, this is like something crazy going on for us, yes? And the problem is, as we are human, obviously, this thing planted doubt in our heads.

And we started to doubt our own judgement and our own decisions to bet this game. I still bet it good, but I probably could have gone much more on it. But I just, I was hesitant because this line movement didn’t seem natural to me. And one more thing, it’s a country that I know can do some funny stuff with games. So, I was, that’s why I don’t like those funny stuffs, as I said many times before. So, I was hesitant.

And that’s what the line movement did to me. If I haven’t looked at it, I couldn’t haven’t looked at it because I needed to bet it. But if I wasn’t paying attention to it and I wasn’t giving it so much weight in my decision making, I would make more money. This is one example from one side, but I’m sure there are examples and probably even more examples on the other side when the line movement actually is correct. But I’m just saying that you can’t, absolutely can’t blindly follow the line moves, the odds moves. It doesn’t work like that.

Nowadays, there are too many factors you have to think about it and too many things you just don’t know about. And something can seem obvious when it’s not.

And on the opposite also. Something can seem stupid and not really smart thing to do. And it’s not, in the end it was wrong. So, whoever was betting on this game in the other direction lost big because it was a lot of money put there on the wrong side. And our team won, they were leading the whole game and actually in the beginning of the game you could still take, and I did, we did, could still take some nice odds and handicaps, pluses even on the home team. Even if they were winning in the beginning, two, three, four points, there were still pluses on them.

And my point is whoever was betting on the other side lost. We know that for sure. But what we don’t know, if it was the only place where they bet this game. Because these things happen, you know.

So, my point is, if you are new to betting and if you are just starting out and you think you can use odds movements to your advantage and be profitable, don’t even start. If you are more experienced bettor, you by now should probably know this, that odds movement is not a guarantee of anything. And even if you think that you got, oh, I got such a nice line, minus 2.5 in a soft bookie and now Pinnacle has plus 7.5. Oh, it’s so good, my bet is so nice. For me, when people say stuff like that, I say, I don’t care about the odds, what they are in Pinnacle just before the game even. It’s not an indication of anything for me.

It’s just an indication that somebody was betting there. We don’t know who, we don’t know why, we don’t know how much, we don’t know nothing.

So, one more time again. If you think that you can just start out and use odds movement and be profitable, DON’T EVEN START. If you are already using and betting these things, just be careful. It’s not so easy as it looks and it’s not always what it looks. Thank you and bye.