Betting Line Analysis II

This page has analysis and discussion on a few miscellaneous topics that have not discussed so far.

Bonuses vs. Reduced Margin

It is also important to investigate which are superior online bonuses or Pinnacle Sports reduced margins. Most sports books you have to bet three times your initial deposit plus bonus before your bonus is released. So if you take our 30% sign up bonus up to $150 at Party Bets your initial deposit plus bonus is $650. So by the time you clear your bonus you lose roughly fifty extra dollars by playing higher margins. So you come out ahead about $100 on your initial deposit. However most sign up and reload bonuses are 10% of the deposit so you come out about the same. There is usually additional cash out restrictions placed on bonus money, so even though you can wager with the bonuses money you can not cash it out. Pinnacle Sports still offers a 10% signup bonus even with there reduced margins. So if you can get a really good sign up bonus like the one we offer at Party Bets then you can come out ahead compared to Pinnacle Sports' reduced margins (without bonus). When comparing most bonuses to reduced margins you are splitting hairs as to which is better.

As noted above, Party Bets offers live online sports betting for a bonus of 30% up to $150.

Professional Handicappers and Sports Books

Professional players generally have multiple accounts with several sports books so they can get better odds for a given game. For instance the underdog may pay 2.35 on site A and 2.40 on site B. This does not mean that site B is superior it just means it is paying better for this game. Sports books adjust their lines as a result of extra money being placed on one side of the line. So site A may have already had some larger than expected bets placed on the underdog side so they have moved their line down slightly. As a result you would get slightly better odds for betting the favorite on site A. So Sports books can continue to profit even with professional players on their sites. Another skill professionals have is being able to predict witch way the line will move. By doing this they can place their wager early or closer to game time to maximize the payout.

Professional players spend time line shopping to obtain the maximum value so it is hard work and probably not as exciting as it sounds. In all likelihood the pro does not get near the same amount of enjoyment out of betting on sports as the casual fan. So depending on how much you bet you may or may not find it worth while to take the time to line shop. If it is something you are interested in we suggest you start with Pinnacle Sports reduced lines and then choose another room or two from our sports book review page.

Parlay vs Straight wagers

Some people find parlays more attractive because of the larger payouts when you win. However not only will you have much bigger swings this way but you will also have a lower expected value. On a 3 game parlay your expected value falls to -$7.03 on a $100 bet at Pinnacle Sports compared with -$2.40 with the straight wager for a -105 line. Your payouts may decrease even further since most sports books (off and online) use standard (fixed) parlay payouts for their neutral -110 lines; this is also referred to as ‘the flat 20 cent line'. You can view our calculations page for EV calculations or check out our tables section to see how your payout varies with different lines. Graphed below are the theoretical expected cumulative net results of $100 straight wager and $100 three game parlay wagers.

The way the graph works is for a straight wager you should win one in every two games; on the graph you lose the first one and win the second. For a three game parlay you will theoretically win one in every eight so you lose the first seven and win on the eighth. Canadians users may also have to deal with ties if they play Sport Select's Pro-Line. On a three game neutral line ticket with win, lose and tie with all results equally likely you should win only 1 out of every 27 tickets purchased. In this situation your EV drops to -$42.13 on a $100 wager for a three game ticket.

Previous Page - Betting Analysis I

*While all efforts are taken to ensure calculations are correct they are subject to error and change. All results on this site should be treated as estimates and used for entertainment purposes only. If you find any discrepancies between our results and their respective sources please contact us so corrections can be made.

Email This Page To A Friend