What You Must Know About Pointspreads
The pointspread - what it is, why it exists, how it's determined, etc., - is widely misunderstood, even by many very experienced gamblers. Say that Team A is set to host Team B and that Team A is posted as being favored to win the game by 3 ½ -points. (Written as 'Team A- 3 1/2) It's easy to regard this as a handicap, similar to a bowler's handicap or to a golfer's handicap. It might seem as though experts in the mysterious world of gambling have studied all the factors concerning the teams and the game itself, and have concluded that Team A should beat Team B by 3 or 4 points.
That's not what happens. Strictly speaking, the pointspread does not address itself to the relative talents of the teams. Regardless of a widespread belief to the contrary, it is not the purpose of the pointspread to predict the outcome of a game. This is a key factor that you must understand before you can expect to become a professional-level bettor. The purpose of the pointspread is to divide bettor opinion.
That's a vitally important difference, not only to you as a bettor, but especially to the bookmaker. If the opinion of the betting public is not divided to a reasonable degree, a disproportionate amount of money would be bet by the public on one team or the other. That circumstance would force the bookmaker to have an imbalance of action on one side of the bet. In effect, the bookmaker would be forced to bet on the game with his own money. That would be gambling, and that's not a healthy thing for a business to do. Bookmaking is a business, after all - a service business much like any other service business - and a bookmaker's profits come from charging a fee for his services. Bookmakers are not in business to gamble. Their function is to act as a broker. Their role is to handle transactions between bettors - to 'hold the money' - and their profits come from charging a commission for that service.
27 1/2 Points Away, & Still Not Enough
An excellent example of what a pointspread actually is, rather than what many people think it is, was the opening pointspread posted on the 1993 Super Bowl between the Buffalo Bills and the Dallas Cowboys.
Dallas opened as a 71/2 -point favorite, but won the game· in a rout, 52-17. The opening pointspread missed the mark by a whopping 27 1/2 points.
After the game, there was plenty of talk about how poorly the linemaker had done his job; about how 'wrong' the line had been. As a matter of fact, the linemaker did, indeed, misjudge the line on that game, but his line was not too low at all. In fact, the 71/2-point opening line turned out to be too high. The line proved to be too high because a big majority of the betting public thought the Bills were going to cover the 71/2-point handicap, either by winning the game outright or at least by losing the game by less than 71/2 points. A big majority of the betting public kept betting on Buffalo, taking the points, until bookmakers found themselves at risk.
It is not the purpose of the pointspread to predict the outcome of a game. The purpose of the pointspread is to divide bettor opinion about that outcome.
With a lot more money being bet by the public on Buffalo than on Dallas, bookmakers were forced to make betting on the Cowboys a more attractive proposition. The pointspread of 7 1/2 was moved down to 7, then to 6 1/2, then 6, and in some places the line finally went as low as 5 1/2 as bookmakers struggled to balance their risk. The opening line was so wrong, bookmakers had to risk being sided in order to draw more action onto the Cowboys. In many cases, since more money was laid on Buffalo than on Dallas, bookmakers still ended up at game time being forced to bet on the Cowboys. (See 'Straddle Bets' in Chapter 12 for more explanation of how bookmakers can get 'sided.')
But in the end, what could have been a disaster for many bookmakers turned out to have a happy ending -for the bookmakers, that is. When Dallas covered the pointspread, bookmakers not only collected their usual commissions, they were also 'forced' to win their reluctant bets.
...So that's why pointspreads move before a game. Bookmakers must protect themselves from having too much at risk on one side of a bet. To avoid such a potential disaster, they use the pointspread as a tool to balance their customers' opinions.
J.R. Miller.
How the Point Spread Works
When two teams meet on the playing field or on the basketball court, one team is typically better than the other. If all sports gamblers had to do was to pick the winning team in a game, everybody would simply wager on the best team and collect their money.
Using an example from Week 2 of the 2007 NFL season, the Atlanta Falcons were visiting the Jacksonville Jaguars. There was little doubt Jacksonville was the better of the two teams and if all one had to do was to pick the winning team, nearly every bettor would have taken the Jaguars.
What the sportsbooks and bookies did, however, was to create a point spread, to make both teams equally attractive in the eyes of bettors.
In this case, Jacksonville was installed as a 10 point favorite, which is commonly written as Jacksonville -10. Atlanta, the underdog, is commonly written as Atlanta +10.
If you bet the favorite, Jacksonville, the Jaguars have to win by 11 points or more in order for you to win your bet. Remember, the Jaguars are favored by 10 points, so we subtract 10 points from their final score for betting purposes. If Jacksonville were to win 24-13, Jaguar bettors would win their wager. If the Jaguars were to win 23-14, Jacksonville bettors would lose because they did not win by more than 10 points.
If you bet the underdog, the Atlanta Falcons, you win your bet if the Falcons win the game or if they lose by 9 points or less. Because the Falcons are the underdogs, we add 10 points to their final score for betting purposes.
If the Jaguars were to win the game by exactly 10 points, 24-14, it would be a tie or a push and all wagers are refunded to bettors.
Jacksonville did defeat Atlanta as expected, but the Jaguars failed to cover the point spread when they won by a score of 13-7.
