An example of comparing lines....is this past week's game between the Ottawa and Edmonton.....I made an early line of Edmonton -6, and bookmakers made a line of -3-/-4.
Then the analysis process starts....why is this line so off? Ottawa had been mostly impressive until the last week or two and Edmonton hadn't done much at all, losing to the Peggers as big favorites one time and barely beating them another time on a last quarter bomb. They beat a terrible Saskatchewan by only 3 at home.
Were the bookmakers crediting Edmonton with last year's championship? What about the fact that all of the coaches of that were no longer with the team?
What about the quarterback situation with Ottawa? Harris was ruled out and Burris was questionable for Ottawa for this game on the back of Burris' terrible previous week performance versus the Argos.
In the end, I believe that the bookmaker shaded the line to encourage Ottawa money, as the on field performance of the two teams warranted Ottawa being more highly favored.
When the linemaker puts a line out that encourages one side....when the performance for the season and the line for that performance are not in sync....it means that the bookmaker is taking a side and/or there is an injury situation.
Perhaps it was a combination of both the bookie wanting action on one side and the qb injury situation.
In the end, covers consensus had the betting action at Ottawa 53% and Edmonton 47%, so the line attracted slightly more Ottawa action.
We should consider what the bookmaker is trying to get us to do, and think about doing the opposite...... sports betting businesses live in billion dollar casinos in Vegas,.....and we don't.
They didn't get to have a palace for a working situation by not knowing what's going on. Their agenda is to take the majority of the bettors' money, the majority of the time, which they are very successful at.
In the case above, I believe that they were attracting money on the favorite, which is not common. They normally shade to the favorite (the line is slightly higher than it should be based on actual performance) because they know the majority of bettors bet favorites and over the total. Look at any database of any league and if you look up how favorites do in totality, they cover between 46-49% of the time.
And, if you are living under a rock and haven't noticed, in the CFL this year favorites have been a bankroll killer, just as they are in most years. If you like betting favorites, you should not be betting CFL games.
Just to satisfy myself I looked it up....since 2008, favorites have covered 44% of the time in the CFL.
Add on the juice that bettors pay and the bookmaker is not too unlike a roulette wheel, they are extracting about a typical 5% commission on the totality of bets that bettors make.
Ask yourself what is the bookmaker trying to get you to do, if anything when deciding on who you will be betting on.