Do Sportsbooks Accurately Price Money Line Odds?
Kevin Krieger & Corey A. Shank
What the paper says
Employing a unique NFL gambling dataset that includes both spread and money line data, we examine the disconnect in profitability between similar betting strategies across the two markets. If a naïve bettor wagered $110 on the favorite in every game against the spread (money line) he or she would, on average, lose $4.50 ($4.53) per game. Conversely, if the same bettor wagered $110 on the underdog every game he or she would, on average, lose $3.11 per game in the spread market, but lose less than 1 cent per game in the money line market. Further examination shows that a bettor could earn a 2.17% return betting the money line on the underdog if the closing spread was 7 or less and greater than 3, and 6.55% if the spread is 3 or less. As such, our results challenge the market efficiency of the NFL betting market and have important implications for sportsbooks and bettors.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.