Disclamer- I know very little about sports betting.

I live in a state where sports betting is newly legal. One of the books seems to be very slow at moving their lines with the national average. Everyday I scour all the lines looking for anything that seems off from the national average (I usually use Pinnacle as my baseline). If it is far enough off, I fire a unit. If it is extremely off, I fire 2 units. I also look for middle opportunities with other books (usually I would bet 5 units on each side). For a -110 bet, I have been pulling the trigger if Pinnacle has it at -128 or higher. Usually -140 or higher is my baseline for a double unit.

My question is, how much of an advantage am I at? Do you think -128/-110 is a reasonable cutoff spread to fire a bet? My unit is $55 and my bankroll is up to $6,700 from $3,000.

Thanks for you advice!

If you are betting US sports, I would use Betcris/Bookmaker as your guideline. Pinnacle is best for tennis and soccer.
If you see -110, and the market is -125/+105, the -110 is probably good.
At -120/100 vs -110 at your book, I'd pass.
If you get -110, and you see -130/+110, I'd put 2 units locally at -110 (unit = 1% of your bankroll).

In that last example, your theoretical edge is about 4%. Do this 1000 times, you'll probably hold a little less -- maybe 3% if you are betting into liquid markets. But you'll get kicked out long before that.

Good stuff. Thanks.

if you want the math you can use the vig free calc here: https://sportsbettingcalcs.com/betti...ree_calculator putting the sharp line then using the kelly calc (0,5 kelly at most) and putting the soft odds in with the implied probability from the vig free calc to generate "optimal" bet sizing assuming it actually closes at this price.

You're doing fine and with a 6.7k roll your unit is too small, you shouldn't have worse than 30u or so swings regularly with your edge and 50 units would be very very once in several years rare

Google half kelly with regards to kelly criterion for improvement with bankroll management (it's a rare thing to say but you're being too conservative with your bankroll)

gl

In general if you're getting arb price vs Pinny (eg -110 if the other side is +110 on Pinny and your side is about what you said) you'll win at 3-5% or so depending on the sport, assuming you're with the overall steam side

You're doing the right thing sizing up on larger edges and sticking with a single unit on smaller edges

Keep at it - if you're just taking good prices against the sharpest book/exchange on whatever sport it is you'll do well

Update-

After an incredible August and September, the profit total is up to $46,000 (have taken a small amount out so the current bankroll is right at $40,000). Have been backed off from all bonuses at one book and limited to 25% normal limits at another. Still have full limits at the best spot though.

I am still being rather conservative with bet sizing. My minimum bet is now $200 but I am not afraid to take a $1,500-$2,000 position on the better numbers.

Again, I'm not using any knowledge of the sports. I am purely taking advantage of bad numbers. It baffles me that this is still possible but here I am.

Hopefully this lasts through another basketball season. Although soccer has been pretty incredible this Summer. Football is okay but weekdays will be pretty slow going this Fall now that MLB and NBA are done.

Thanks for the tips!

What you're doing is how most of us got our start in sports betting for profit, myself included

Best of luck

Is this somethign where you only bet the moneyline? It'd be fairly easy to use the vig-adjusted win probability from the sharp book and calculate your edge against the soft book if so. How hard is it to do with bets that include a spread or total? At that point I'd think you'd need domain knowledge and a model?

Sounds like an interesting project. I'm curious how this works operationally? Do you sit in the casino with your phone and manually compare the sharp books line to the casino's?

Why would it only include moneylines

If the number on -3.5 is -130/+110 and you're getting -110 on the -130 side on your local on the same number obviously that is just as profitable as getting -110 on the ML on a -130 ML at a sharper book/exchange

It's quite easy to price up altlines (or if you don't know how just use a sharp book/exchange's prices) and if you're beating the sharp books no vig line by a few percent, especially if it's a steaming market on the sharp book, you're going to do pretty well

Yeah, when the spread is the same across both books, that makes perfect sense. But what would you do if the spreads are different AND the price is different? For example, one book has -3.5 -110 and the other deals -3 -115? I'd think at that point you'd need to know what a half point is worth (where the domain knowledge comes in)? FWIW, I'm even more of a novice than OP lol

Yeah, there are lookup tables for that kind of thing. Iirc -3.5 to -3 is like -110 to -125.

Interesting. Any good material on how these tables are generated? Do they just look at a ton of past games and see the distribution of the point differentials?

Just quickly looking at the web requests for some of the big market maker books like betcris and pinnacle, it seems like the level of effort to scrape them continuously isn't too high. From that point, if you're just putting the info somewhere along with a calculator for bet sizing, it seems like a neat way to beat local casinos. I'd imagine a lot of people do this? Is this essentially what Spanky does, just on a much larger scale?

I don't know who Spanky is.

Web scraping etc is a lot of effort to reinvent the wheel here. Most of the time Pinnacle will do the work for you and has a drop down menu with alternative lines for the games.

Wow, great work! Just out of curiosity, at what point did you get backed off from those sites? After winning X amount? Or after cashing out more than your initial deposit? (i.e. no longer a net depositor?)

I'm starting to get limited using similar strategies as the OP. Although at my most profitable book, I curiously got the following message:

Lower Wager Amount Offered

Accept offered amount to bet now.

To be considered for higher wager amounts in future call us at xxx-xxx-xxxx

What should I offer to maximize my chance at getting limits reinstated?

The only thing you can do is the following. Completely close your account from the bookie and try to open it again after 5-7 years. I am not sure it will work but it is the only way.

bet NFL sides right before gametime for a few weeks, maybe do some 3 team parlays. (do what a rec bettor would do) Then call them. I don't know if it will work but it might.

At one book I was basically only betting bonuses and so that didn't have a very long shelf life. At another, I am limited to 25% of normal action across the board. I started in December and got limited around June I would say. Made it through CBB season with full limits though and I was up a decent amount then.

Thanks!

The positive variance continues. Holding about 9% in soccer right now (way above EV) and 5.80% overall (probably also above EV) with 1.1 million total handle. Total profit is about $64,000.

November is looking like a slow month with no more baseball/nba/hockey and soccer slowing down as well. Excited for college basketball though!

Soccer slowing down? Yeah there's a break this weekend but then EPL, UCL, Europa etc get back into full swingo! Also there are how many other European leagues? Maybe 50?