[Tommy]

The inside line from PinnacleSports by Simon Noble.

Year of the Square

A quick and dirty definition of a "Square" or public bettor is one that
likes to play the favorite at any price. For these bettors, 2005 has been
a good season. On the year, if you played every favorite against the
spread you would have gone an impressive 85-66-4. If you played them
straight-up on the moneyline, you would be hitting at a monstrous 114-40
clip (compared to an expectation of about 100-50). Underdog bettors
finally had a winning weekend last week going 9-7 ATS, but this has been
of little consolation.

In all my years of bookmaking, I cannot remember a single year where
public bettors following the favorites cleaned up like this. There were
plenty of years when dog players did well. In fact, that used to be a
basic betting strategy – bet on any team that is "bad". So what happened?
Where did all the good dogs go?

One possible explanation is that the sports betting market has finally
become efficient. In the early years of sports betting, most of the bets
placed were by recreational players and even large bettors were fairly
unsophisticated. A vast majority of bets were on favorites and overs no
matter what the line. Linesmakers could set the odds on "feel" and would
not worry too much about how accurate they were as most players were
winning fewer than 50% of their wagers betting inflated lines.

The betting markets had a reality check in 1984 with the beginning of the
first well-funded computer group. Billy Walter's group was the first to
blast the markets with statistically driven computer models. Although its
members eventually went their separate ways, it gave others a proven way
to beat sports – the computer.

Since that time, the Internet has revolutionized sports betting in several
ways. First, the ease that you can place a bet on the Internet has created
a true market in sports betting. For instance, at Pinnacle Sports you can
bet online for as little as a dollar up to $30,000 on a football game and
pay 60% less vigorish on NFL sides than at other bookmakers. As the sports
betting world behaves more like an efficient market, a book that offers a
price that is off-market will absorb a huge position.

Second, the Internet has made information far more accessible to bettors.
Both updated team news and gambling methodology has become far more
prevalent with knowledge shared. In fact, it’s now much easier to obtain
detailed information on a sports team than on most blue-chip stocks. As a
result, we are seeing more and more small computer groups (many led by
former stock traders) coming forward and betting their numbers.

Perhaps the biggest effect of the new sports betting market is that "Joe
Square" now has a fighting chance to win. He can play his favorites and
overs at will, knowing that the computer groups are keeping the numbers
honest. Perhaps the influence of sharp money is so strong that the market
has now over adjusted? Are favorites now under priced? If you were playing
the underdogs this year, you would certainly think so.

Consider the Indianapolis Colts who’ve been an amazing football investment
at 7-3 ATS this year. When the Colts cover the number, it's usually not
even close. If you bet Indy every game this year and gave up an extra 2
points they would still be 7-3 ATS. Are the Colts under-priced? If you
think they are, you can leverage your opinion by backing the Colts and
‘selling’ half-points to receive a larger payoff.

At Pinnacle Sports, we allow bettors to adjust the spread on any NFL game
with our drop-down point spread menu. For example, the price on the
Carolina Panthers is -4 -104 versus the Bills. If your analysis suggests
that the Panthers should crush the Bills, you could lay more points at a
better price: -4.5 at +100, -5 at +104, or -5.5 at +108. Sell three
half-points and Pinnacle Sports is paying juice to you on nearly any game
on the card!

Another time you might want to use point buying/selling is when the market
price on a game has moved, but a sports book or your local bookie is slow
to change the number. Any time a spread or total has moved at least 1.5
points you can scalp that number with Pinnacle Sports. There may even be
scalping opportunities against your regular book available now on our
featured games below where we’ve seen some early line movement.

Florida State (+4.5) at Florida

FSU is coming off consecutive losses against NC State and Clemson. After
averaging 40 points per contest in their first seven games, they’ve scored
15 points or less in the last two. In those two match-ups, the Seminoles
managed just 259 total net passing yards while throwing five interceptions
and allowing nine sacks. The Gators are also coming off a 30-22 loss to
South Carolina in a lackluster performance where they were penalized
eleven times.

We opened this game at Florida -6 and took nearly all dog money as Florida
State bettors outnumbered the favorite backers by a ratio of 4 to 1. Some
of our sharper players took the Seminoles, driving down on the price to
FSU +4.5 -112.

Texas (-27) at Texas A&M

The Longhorns at 10-0 have only had one tough game this year when they
beat Ohio State by 3. Since then, they’ve won by an average of more than
37 points per game and are just two wins away from a Rose Bowl berth. The
Aggies are headed in the opposite direction having dropped three straight
- with each loss by an average of 24 points – and haven’t defeated the
Longhorns since 1999.

This is a classic betting match-up between the sharps and the public. We
opened this game at Texas -26 and received four times as many wagers on
the Longhorns as on A&M. The outnumbered sharp players like the Aggies and
are betting far higher amounts on the game than the average public bettor.

New England (+3) at Kansas City

Priest who? Kansas City has nearly forgotten about the injury to starting
RB Priest Holmes with the solid performance of Larry Johnson, who rushed
for 211 yards on 36 carries last week. New England will be a tougher test
for Johnson as the Pats allow only 3.9 yards per rushing attempt (14th in
NFL). New England's real weakness is its pass defense, where they rank
31st.

We opened with Patriots +3 -120 and have seen moderate two-way action. The
sharps however are not in agreement and we’ve seen sharp money show for
both sides. Curiously, some of our sharper players are taking Kansas City
and selling down to -3.5 +118.

San Diego at Washington O/U 43

Drew Brees has led the second-ranked scoring offense in the NFL to an
average of 30 points per game, whereas Washington is in the middle of the
pack scoring 20 points per game. Both teams are average defensively,
allowing 20 points per game. With this information alone, you might be
inclined to lean on the over, but both teams are above-average rushing
teams. In a game like this, a lot of rushing could decrease the number of
offensive possessions for each team — perhaps to only 11 possessions each,
instead of a more typical 12.

We opened the total at 44 and received fairly balanced action from the
public. The price has drifted down, but we’ve had no real guidance from
our sharper players and our number remains based on a market price of
43-43.5.