Quote:
Originally Posted by TomG
nice man how are the rugby markets these days? i really don't follow the sport nor the betting so i'd love to hear an update on what things are like now and how they've evolved.
It's interesting. A lot more games are offered than there used to be. You get all the 7s series now and you also see a lot of "Tier 2" 15-a-side matchups offered. It's not unusual to find games off by 10+ points in the latter and you can see the line moves to match.
Also, the market is still quite slow to react to injury news in these matchups. I'm not convinced it would react at all on some of these matchups if it weren't for me. There was an example a couple years ago where the US played Canada in a Rugby World Cup qualifier. They had tied the first leg in Toronto and the second leg was in San Diego. The line was USA -5, but a couple hours before the match, two of Canada's best players were announced to be out with injury. And injuries to the better players for countries like Canada and the US are huge, because they occasionally have good players but there is little depth. So in this case you were taking two professionals playing at top European clubs and replacing them with amateurs who have day jobs and frankly are nowhere near as good. It'd be like Pascal Siakam and Kyle Lowry going down with injuries tonight and having to replace him with some random PG and SF from a college team with a Kenpom in the 200s. Anyway, I saw the injury news probably a good 30 minutes after it had been announced and the line hadn't moved a cent. So it's definitely not on the level where an injury gets announced in the NBA and everyone instantly moves the line (LOL at Embiid's injury/non-injury news crushing me this playoffs).
Rugby makes up probably less than 1% of my total handle these days, though (possibly why I also feel comfortable sharing the above). Limits are fairly low and I've been much more into props, derivatives and general steam chasing/off market lines for awhile now. Although now that I've discovered Fairlay (assuming you're familiar with them), it might make up a little more.
On another note, how do you think Bitcoin has impacted the industry? Do you think offshore will survive in its current form with state after state legalizing sports betting?