Reverse Line Movement

One of the other questions that has come up over on ML's blog is whether reverse line movement is a good indicator that a game should be played. The first question that needs to be asked is what constitutes reverse line movement? I've run numbers for anti-public teams that were originally on my Tuesday Leans lists and had Negative Line Movement of 1, 1.5, 2, and 2.5 points. The results are below:

One Point or more of Negative Line Movement

All Leans - Early: 35-25, Late: 33-27
Plays - Early: 24-17, Late: 22-19

One and a Half Points or more of Negative Line Movement

All Leans - Early: 25-12, Late: 23-14
Plays - Early: 19-8, Late: 17-10

Two Points or more of Negative Line Movement

All Leans - Early: 15-6, Late: 13-8
Plays - Early 11-3, Late: 9-5

Two and a Half Points or more of Negative Line Movement

All Leans - Early: 8-3, Late: 7-2
Plays - Early: 7-4, Late: 6-3

The two plays where waiting cost me were in Week 8, Rutgers opened as one point dog against UConn, closed as a three point favorite and went on to win by 2. The other game was in Week 6 when Stanford played Notre Dame, opened as a 7.5 point dog and the line closed at 5.5. The game ended up on 7.

Jonny and ML have been questioning whether all of the value is lost in a line that has already moved significantly. I think the results above say no. You are still winning well above 50% of your games when the line moves more than a point. In fact, the more it moves, the more confident I would feel in my play.

That isn't to say that you should play every reverse line movement you see. Remember what is being sampled here. If you liked the game already, the reverse line movement should be one more thing to tell you to go ahead and play the game.