This is fundamental. Every successful Sports Investor working with the Sports Executioner manages their bankroll using the following simple formula:

 This is fundamental. Every successful Sports Investor working with the Sports Executioner manages their bankroll using the following simple formula: 

Divide by 12 every week

Your bank roll is $1320 & you Win $400

• You divide by 12= $110/game 

• You win $400 this week

• Your new bankroll is $1720

• Divide by 12

• Your bank roll allows you to bet $1720/12= $144/game next week

Your bank roll is $1320 & you Lose $440

• You divide by 12= $110/game 

• You lose $400 this week

• Your new bankroll is $880

• Your bank roll allows you to bet $880/12= $73/game next week

 With the laws of diminishing returns even  if you lost 4 games/week with no winners, after making 32 bets you would still have $50 left. Incidentally if you are using a sports handicapping service that goes 0-32, change services. Ha!

The point is with the Rule of 12 as your bankroll grows, you become more successful. That’s’ pretty simple. The key here is when you have a bad “patch” where you might lose 3-4 games more than you win over couple of weeks, you still have a bankroll to work with when things turn around.

The mistake bettors make:  They take their bankroll, and they divide by 3:

• So you Have $1320/3= $440/bet

• You make 3 bets and you lose $1320 

• So after one week you are done betting, and the rest of the season the Sports Executioner goes 36-12 and you missed out on making $5000!

• DIVIDE BY 12 EVERY WEEK!!!!   

Forget all the other betting schemes that other handicappers try and sell you! The rule of 12 will consistently help you make $, and when things go tough, you will still have a $ left because you are now a “Sports Investor”, not a just a bettor! 

As former money managers we understand about supply & demand which drives the price of stocks, bonds, and commodities around the world every day. If investors think that Apple Stock is going to go up from $150/share they will drive the stock to maybe $160/share. If conversely investors think that Apple is overvalued at $150/share they will begin selling the stock and the share price may quickly drop to $140/share. It is the flow of $ from either buyers (stock goes up), or sellers (stock goes down) affects the price of Apple by the minute, by the day, by the month.  

Similarly, after the bookmakers sets the line on college football games (earliest lines come put on Sunday’s) and betting begins the “betting line” begins to move almost instantly and will continue to do so right up until “kick off” (or “tip off”).

Who is Moving the Betting Line?

The answer to this question is simple. There are two groups that move the “betting line” on each and every game. 

1. You are (General Public)  

2. The “Sharps” (Professional Gamblers).        

As a general rule the public bets the favorites, which inflates the betting line. drives the line up. 

• Example from last season UGA @ UK

• UGA opened as -14.5 point favorite on Sunday Oct 25th

• UGA ended as -17.5 favorite

• The Sports Executioner as a general rule likes to pick “Underdogs” vs favorites, so we love the public and the Sharps taking the line higher

• We took Kentucky +17.0 at home, they covered easy  UK-3 UGA-14    

The Sports Executioner follows the line movement in all of the plays we are making. Generally we release our selections every week on Wednesday night for Thursday-Friday games, and Friday night for Saturday games. If we see lines “moving against us” (going in the wrong direction) we may release games earlier. 

Make no mistake. The betting line matters. Worship the line, when you make a bet if you have options where you bet, get the best line you can. It does matter.

Yes of course you are making a bet at the sportsbook with the hope of picking the correct side and winning the bet. But please remember this major rule; The Sportsbook doesn’t really care who wins the game!!!!!!!

What does that mean? Like the market makers that set the price of stocks based on the flow of cash, the Sportsbooks move the line based on the flow of cash on either the favorite or the underdog. In a perfect world since the Sportsbooks only pay out $100 to winners, and they keep $110 from losers they want the same amount of $ bet on the favorite as well as the underdog. They are then guaranteed a 10% profit on every contest.

Also since the “public bettors” generally bet the favorites, the sportsbooks really make good money when the underdogs win. This happens a lot!

The Sports Executioner in effect makes our on “betting line” on every contest. So in the example above we thought UGA should have been favored by -10.5 over Kentucky. Since the line ran up to +17.0 that was an easy play for us. 

As a Sports Investor all you have to do is let us do our work. We will tell you which teams to bet.

As we have said before. The Math Matters.

Related: What Vigorish Means in Sports Betting

Oddsmakers do not set their line based on which team they think is going to win and how much they are going to win by. They don't really care about that. The line is set at the point in which they think that an equal amount of money will be bet on both teams. And the lines don't move because one team has become more or less likely to win, or the game has somehow changed. The line changes because action on the game isn't balanced, and they hope that by changing the line they can drive more action on the team on which less money has been bet.

The Opening Line Explained: NFL and College Circa Sports

The opening line can be a term that is thrown around pretty loosely when it comes to sports betting. You will often hear media outlets say “Vegas” opened the line this or “Vegas” has the line at that. But what does that really mean when we hear these expressions?  Is there one sportsbook in Las Vegas setting all the lines? Do all the sportsbooks get together and agree on what the line should be? Does Las Vegas even really set the line at all?

The History of Setting the Line 

There was a time many years ago when most of the betting lines did in fact originate from Las Vegas. Years ago, the legendary Bob Martin opened what came to be known as the Las Vegas Line during his stints at Churchill Downs and the Plaza. This line was gradually disseminated all over the country and more often than not tweaked based on anticipated regional action.

The tradition of Las Vegas helping to establish the opening lines continued years later as the Stardust Line became a respected number with the assistance of Roxy Roxborough and his company LVSC. In the mid nineties as the internet rose to prominence and the most talented bookmakers migrated offshore, a new breed of oddsmakers emerged who set the lines from various island locales and were looking to deal higher limits than ever before to their growing customer base. This led to certain offshore sportsbooks becoming the gold standard as far as the opening line was concerned. Much of this had to do with liquidity and the fact that more money was being bet into these numbers than any other lines in the world.

The important thing to remember when discussing the opening line, is that it is just a jumping off point. It serves as a starting place for professional bettors to enter the marketplace and hammer the line out to where they believe it should be. Gambling markets are like all other markets in that they absorb information and reflect it. In the largest markets such as NFL, information is accounted for in the betting line in almost real time

In theory, professional bettors will make a wager when they believe the current line does not accurately reflect what the information available suggests it should be. Bookmakers will react to these wagers looking to find the number that either divides the professional bettors or stops them from playing altogether. In the end, the most respected professional bettors will dictate what the betting line is, not the bookmaker. When recreational players make large wagers these wagers are often ignored due to the fact that they have no bearing on what the actual point spread should be and therefore have no reason to be reflected in the line.

How are Betting Lines set today?  

So this brings us to how the line is set today. Depending on the sport, an oddsmaker at a sportsbook will decide that he wants to open the first line. For a majority of the major American sports such as the NBA, NHL, and MLB, this still happens offshore. For college football, Circa | Sports sets the first weekly line every Sunday during football season. Once that first line is posted, if the bookmaker is taking fair limits that are enough to attract professional bettors, these lines will be wagered into somewhat aggressively depending on whether or not the bettors see value. When lines are opened, the limits are usually lower and the book that opens them is willing to be first, either for the value they see in getting this early information or for the sheer notoriety of being the sportsbook that hangs the opening line.

Once other sportsbooks see these lines being bet into and feel comfortable hanging their own lines, they will usually open lines that are relatively close to what’s already available in the market. The reason they will hesitate to open too far off of the other sportsbooks’ lines is due to the proliferation of arbitrageurs in the marketplace looking to bet both sides of a game with little to no risk. If Circa | Sports has opened Alabama -3 vs LSU, other sportsbooks would hesitate to open too far off this number knowing that they would be forcing arbitrage bettors to make a wager strictly because of any difference in the point spread.

The more time goes on and the longer these lines are bet into, the more sportsbooks around the world feel comfortable with recognizing the consensus line of the opener sportsbooks as the line they will utilize to do business. As sportsbooks around the world hang their lines, more and more bets begin to pour in, further solidifying what each book will utilize as their betting line.

When people refer to “Vegas” and what the line is they are usually referencing a consensus line from whatever they recognize as the most respected sportsbooks. The conversation regarding what are the most respected sportsbooks should always revolve around the sportsbooks that take the largest limits and don’t ban or limit players based on skill. In reality, the opening line is not as important as most people believe it is. It is the bettors who truly set the lines, not the oddsmaker.