While various civilizations and cultures around the world have been engaged in some form of betting for more than 3000 years, the point spread, or ‘betting line’, is a relatively new invention and has only been in use for the better part of 70 years. Its impact in this relatively short period of time is undeniable and as an un-named bookie quoted in a 1951 book by sports journalist Charles Rosen put it: The spread has easily been ‘the greatest discovery since the Zipper’. Without question, it has had a huge part to play in today’s popularity of one sport in particular–the game of American football.
While most certainly an American invention, the true origin of the point spread is cloudy. Some experts believe it was introduced in the 1920’s while others claim it wasn’t widely used until the 1930’s in the New York area. Regardless of its actual birth-date, this much is known–In the years following the 2nd world war, the point spread became the dominant form of wagering for both American football and basketball. It was a bookies dream, helping to make the underdog much more attractive and assuring sports books and bookies a 10% profit on the ‘vigorish’ shaved off the top of winning bets.
Originally set in the early days by a consulting firm out of Minneapolis run by Leo Hirschfield, spreads are now more of a consensus originated by managers from sports books inside Vegas’ casino’s, as well as offshore establishments. For the purposes of my research, I have relied on the lines provided by the Don Best Sports Information Service, a consensus of roughly 25 sportsbooks (17 offshore and 8 Las Vegas).
For the majority of games, the point spread is initially set in the hope that wagers will fall fairly evenly on both contestants. Sometimes the bookmakers will misread public opinion and you may see a 2 or 3 point move in the point spread from early in the week until the close of betting action. In other situations, the bookmakers will purposely set a skewed line in an attempt to sucker the public into taking predominately one side–a team that those in the ‘know’ will stay away from. While this might appear to be a risky position for the sport books to take, having 80-90% of action on one side where the line value greatly favours the bookmaker is a good situation for sports books (and individual bookies) to be in over the long-haul.
While the Internet age has certainly helped to sharpen the betting skills of the average bettor by providing an abundance of high level handicapping info, a large percentage of bettors can still be classed as ‘squares’–meaning, they will bet on the well-known favorites week after week, no matter what the circumstances. It’s this group of novice and intermediate bettors that Vegas and the off shore books will prey on over the course of each season. Evidence of this is shown in the fact that over the past 14 years, a strategy of betting all favourites has turned a profit in only 2 different years (1998 and 2005) and since 1994, favourites are a dismal 1543-1652 (48.3%) against the number.
Contrarian betting methods have always worked well in the NFL and by using services that track where square money is flowing each week, sharper bettors can put themselves in a position to ‘cash-in’ on sucker lines and play against the majority. This is a strategy that works in most years (1998 and 2005 aside), but, this kind of information does not come cheap