[Tommy]

The Inside Wagering Line From Pinnacle Sports Book By Simon Noble.

The college football season will reach its climax with next week’s BCS
Bowls. On premier games such as these, players have an additional tool to
make money at Pinnacle Sports: live betting. On all of the BCS Bowl games,
Pinnacle sportsbook will offer live betting with reduced juice wagering
that offers up to 50% better value to the player than other sports books.

Live betting can be very lucrative for two reasons. First, the line is set
on the fly by one linesman. Whereas a normal NFL line is the product of 20
different odds makers, you are testing your wits against just one linesman
in the hot seat. Second, the public often misunderstands live betting,
which creates even more opportunities. When these two factors interact,
you’ll frequently find great opportunities in live online betting at
Pinnacle Sports.

If you want to be a winning player at live betting, you do need to
approach the game differently from how you would normally handicap. First,
you must decide what you think the fair spread and total for the game is,
so most of your analysis should still be completed before the game kicks
off. We usually assume that the closing betting lines at Pinnacle Sports
are accurate, but your handicapping could improve on this number.

Second, you need to estimate the probability of a team scoring on each
drive. There are two key pieces of information you need to know - a
typical football game has about 12 possessions per team and a scoring
possession yields an average of 5.6 points in college (or 5.4 in the NFL).
This means a little over 60% of offensive scores are touchdowns in college
football. With these two pieces of information combined with the game
spread and total, you can estimate the odds of a team scoring on each
possession.

Consider the Rose Bowl: Texas versus USC. At the time of writing, the
Pinnacle Sports betting line is USC -7.5 with a game total of 71. The line
suggests an outcome of 32-39 in favor of USC – this score comes as close
to tying the spread and total as possible. If you assume the Longhorns
will score 32 points in 12 possessions, you can expect Texas to score
about 5.7 times (32 pts / 5.6 pts per possession) or on about 48% of their
possessions. Similarly, the Trojans would be expected to score 7 times
(39/5.6).

Once you have done this initial homework, you can estimate a fair line at
any point during the game by estimating how many possessions are left for
each team so you can set your own reasonably accurate line. This will
allow you to attack any odd spread a book chooses to throw at you during
the game.

For example, assume Texas is up 31-24 at the start of the 4th quarter.
What would the fair line be at that point? Using the lines above, Texas
has an expected score of 8 points for the 4th quarter, while USC has one
of 9.5 points. While USC is a small favorite in the 4th quarter, they are
still a large underdog for the game at this point. The public will often
bet heavily on the team that is “supposed” to win, even late in the game.
If you saw Texas -4 -108 for the game offered at the start of the 4th
quarter, you would recognize this as a value bet against the public.

Regardless of the approach you choose, there are a few adjustments you can
make to improve your accuracy. In general, favorites tend to score more
points in the first half – which is why the first half lines are typically
more than half of the game spread. If a team is up from 8-13 points in the
4th quarter, it tends to score less while running the ball more.
Similarly, a team down 9-14 points in the 4th quarter is more likely to
score on each possession – the opponent is trading time for yardage. If
the game is truly a blowout with a team up by 17 points or more, the
scoring distribution doesn’t change as much. In high profile games such as
Bowl games or playoffs, a team won’t hold back when up by 21 points as
they might do during a regular season game.

At Pinnacle Sports we will be offering live betting on the Bowl
Championship Series. Take a look at how the sharps are playing them before
the game starts to help you adjust your line.

Rose Bowl – Texas (+7.5) v USC

This year’s National Championship game features the only two undefeated
Division I teams in the country. This type of match-up bodes well for the
BCS given the controversies in recent years. Last year four teams finished
undefeated, which renewed calls for a college football playoff. In 2003,
two different national champions were crowned when LSU finished 1st in the
BCS rankings and USC finished 1st in the media and coaches’ polls.

We opened this game at USC -6.5 and saw a flood of public money on the
Trojans as the line pushed out to -7.5 when it was announced that there
may be possible suspensions on the Texas side. Although we are accepting
twice as many bets on USC, the larger bets have been on Texas. Although
the sharps are in disagreement on this game, they slightly favor Texas.

Orange Bowl – Penn St. (-9.5) v. Florida State

This match-up features Div I-A’s two most winning coaches: Penn State’s
Joe Paterno with 353 wins and Florida State’s Bobby Bowden with 359 wins.
Penn St.’s remarkable season has been led by its offense, which averages
35.2 points per game. It won the Big 10 with the help of tiebreakers over
Ohio State. The Seminoles path to the Orange Bowl was less direct – FSU
finished 5-3 in the ACC Atlantic, which was enough to advance to the ACC
championship game where they upset Virginia Tech to secure this bowl
berth.

We initially opened the game at Penn St. -7.5. Some of our sharpest
players played the Nittany Lions early, buying the favorite down to -7.
The public also favored Penn State, forcing the line to creep up to -9.5.
At this point, we’ve started getting buyback from sharps, which has
stabilized the line.

Sugar Bowl – West Virginia (+6.5) v. Georgia

The Sugar Bowl has been held in New Orleans since 1935 but in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina, the Superdome will be closed until early November. With
the site moved to Atlanta, the Bulldogs will travel just 70 miles from
Athens for this game.

After opening at WVA +8.5, we have once again seen the sharps divided on
the game. Our early players took the Mountaineers, buying them up to +10.
We also had a surprisingly large number of early bettors taking Georgia
-8.5. The market has crept downward and now stabilized at West Virginia
+6.5 -105.

Fiesta Bowl – Ohio St. (-4.5) v. Notre Dame

Notre Dame backers have had a good year, as the Irish have gone 7-4
against the spread, but when will the Bowl drought end? Notre Dame has not
won a post-season game since 1993, when it defeated Texas A&M in the
Cotton Bowl. Since that time, it has lost seven consecutive bowl
appearances. These teams have played four times in the past with the
honors split evenly.

After opening the Buckeyes at -5.5 -116, we have seen heavy two-way volume with the sharps clearly favoring Ohio State. The public likes Notre Dame, which caused the market to drift down to OSU -4.5. Despite the movement, we find ourselves in the enviable position of having taken a larger volume on Ohio State at the worse number.

Detroit (+13.5) at Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh has three ways to advance to the playoffs. The most
straightforward is to simply win at home. San Diego hosts Denver a full
day before this game and a San Diego win would also advance Pittsburgh due
to tiebreakers. If both of these fail to occur, a Kansas City loss at home
against Cincinnati would suffice.

Therefore pay very close attention to the San Diego game. If they pull off
the upset, Sunday’s game becomes almost meaningless for Pittsburgh. While
they are still at home and will play for their crowd, expect the line to
plummet.

In our highest volume NFL game of the week, we opened the Steelers at -15.
The public favored Pittsburgh, while the sharps favored Detroit. Our best
players always get the best number and this game was no exception with
some of them taking Detroit +17. Despite the public favoring Pittsburgh,
the market has shifted down to Detroit +13.5.


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