Vegas is predicting us get beat by Florida as bad as UMass did? Ouch. No respect. But I fully expect we cover. Florida isnt anything special unless they were just hiding all of their weapons last week.
So you're telling me...
- Thread starter TTU/UK fan
- Start date
I wish UK fans would develop football IQ.
The line has nothing to do with what Vegas thinks will happen. It's what they need to do to get even bets on both sides. It has more to do with what fans think will happen and how they bet.
If 100 people are betting, Vegas wants 50 to bet on UK, 50 to bet on UF, and they collect 100% of the fees while taking the money from the 50 who lost to pay the 50 who won. In order for this to happen they have to set the "line" that will get half the gamblers to put money on UK and half on UF. The line moves according to how people are betting. So in reality the betting public determines the final line; Vegas just throws an educated guess out there to start with.
The line has nothing to do with what Vegas thinks will happen. It's what they need to do to get even bets on both sides. It has more to do with what fans think will happen and how they bet.
If 100 people are betting, Vegas wants 50 to bet on UK, 50 to bet on UF, and they collect 100% of the fees while taking the money from the 50 who lost to pay the 50 who won. In order for this to happen they have to set the "line" that will get half the gamblers to put money on UK and half on UF. The line moves according to how people are betting. So in reality the betting public determines the final line; Vegas just throws an educated guess out there to start with.
Some explains this every season on every board, yet the next season it has to be explained again.
Wouldn't that be "Betting IQ" as setting a line has exactly ZERO to do with football?
I tell ya, if Vegas is just taking a stab in the dark to generate equal bets on both sides, they sure as hell do have that point spread thing down to an exact science. Just sayin'.
UMASS probably has a much better run defense than we do anyways...
This part of your post couldn't be more wrong. Vegas does in fact set a line in accordance to how their experts see the game playing out. How often does Vegas typically end up spot on the line, within a score or so, quite a bit actually. It is balanced however with how the fans think the game go so you are partially correct, but to think their line has zero to do with how they see the game itself is false!!!!
The only thing it had to do with what Vegas thinks will happen is the initial line. From there they adjust it to keep even money. It ends up pretty accurate because you have a huge sample of people betting. "+17.5 yeah UK can cover($ flows in ok UK). +10 nope no way($ comes in on UF). +14.5 no they can't/yes they can"(balances out). Then if it's + or - 3 people are like "Vegas nailed that line" when in reality most people here could predict a 7 point window. All they are doing is influencing with the initial line and then taking the average of what the collective group thinks will happen.
Teams with poor offense and bad QB's usually find UK a game to cure all their problems.
Florida will score a bunch today and hold UK under 21 IMHO
Florida will score a bunch today and hold UK under 21 IMHO
I just don't think you can over estimate the effect the run has on us. We suck at stopping it to the point anyone, all the more a quality opponent, can take us down to china town and feed us what they want.
How do you explain the degree to which, say, Sagarin accurately predicts the betting line when his models couldn't care less about public sentiment?
I would think a spread is known by teams and to some extent predisposes them to think what kind of outcome 'ought' to happen and that's why we see so many game's final score hit that spread
oh my......... Im laughing but I get the feeling I should be crying. Thats such a sad but true statement
What you say is "true" but it overlooks 1 very important point...the opening line must reflect the point differential to "create" that 50/50 betting proposition. IOW, the opening line reflects how much better "the experts" think one team is than the other.
After that initial line there may be some line movement based on the betting trend. The current UK/FL line has dropped to UK +14 (from +16.5) due to bettors playing UK +16.5. Right now, according to one site that "indicates" actual betting action, about 60% of the money is on UK.
But not all games have equal betting action. For example, ND/USC game probably has A LOT more bet on it than say, the KY/SC game. Unless there is a very high handle on the game, the books may not bother to move the line, i.e., a game that has $100K action is not as important as a game that has $2M action on it.
Lastly, if the book strongly believes the bettors are on the wrong side, they may not move the line in hopes of reaping a big win from the bettors being wrong.
Peace
I don't want to argue with anyone but I think WildCard is 100% correct. The other posts are fairly accurate but Vegas crunches statistics and create lines that are generally dead on. And yes, bookies want the exact same number of bets on both teams so they collect the 'juice' and pocket a ton of $$$. These guys lay off money to other casinos / bookies that have a different betting ratio and all ends well. I feel really confident this is correct.
As bad as UK's run defense is, I seriously doubt the game will be as close as UMASS/FL. I mean I have never seen such as I saw last week with Southern Miss just laughing at us as they ran it up the middle for 5-7 yard gains on seemingly every play.