Why Wagerline?

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Back on Friday afternoon, an anonymous commenter asked:

Nice blog. Question: how reliable, exactly, is Wagerline? Isn't that site people just making their picks for "contests," i.e., they're not betting real money?

I ask because I came upon another site, which claims to track online betting:

http://www.thespread.com/mlb-baseball-public-betting-chart

They have STL/MIL as 50/50 action, while Wagerline has a 60/40 split in favor of STL.

Thoughts?
It's pretty simple, actually. I've been using Wagerline for a while and it is consistent. I really don't care whether it is accurate or not. What I do know is that the average game has about a 60/40 split on the favorite/over. When there is a significant deviation from that split, I can be reasonably confident that a game has a public side.

Most nights, unless I am pressed for time, I also check Sports Interaction. There, the splits are a bit different; a lot more games fall at the tails of the distribution. Moneyline ascribes this phenomenon to SIA having the squarest clientele. In any case, you'll often find anti-public sides at SIA having less than 25% of the action coming in on them.

These two are the most consistent consensus sites out there, in my opinion. Of course, it could also be that they most consistently show me what I want to see, reinforcing my beliefs that one side should be anti-public over another. More likely, they are the best at identifying the most anti-public sides.

9 comments:

LMQ said...

What do you think about Sports Insights? Like everything that's not Wagerline, there are questions about the accuracy of their data. But since they pull their numbers from multiple books, I think it gives a better view of the landscape (i.e., where people are betting actual money) than Wagerline or SIA.

This may be obvious, but IMO, Wagerline is especially terrible for evaluating games with heavy favorites/dogs. There's very little incentive for people who aren't betting actual money to take a huge dog.

am19psu said...

What do you think about Sports Insights?

I used them for a while when I started gambling, but went away from them in favor of Wagerline. This was the final straw.

This may be obvious, but IMO, Wagerline is especially terrible for evaluating games with heavy favorites/dogs.

This is my first season wagering on bases, so I haven't really properly evaluated its consistency.

Jonny said...

"There's very little incentive for people who aren't betting actual money to take a huge dog."

Huh? This doesn't make any sense. People do blindly take favorites, but I think you are missing the boat on here.

am19psu said...

There's very little incentive for people who aren't betting actual money to take a huge dog.

Keep in mind, these are tabulated from a wagering contest, so they are getting "units" based on the moneylines.

LMQ said...

"This doesn't make any sense. People do blindly take favorites."

Can you elaborate on this? In one sentence you're saying I make no sense and then agreeing with me in the next.

What I'm arguing is that despite the "units" that are won in the WL contests, without actual money on the line, people are more likely to take favorites because they don't have to actually pay the price to wager on them.

Jonny said...

"In one sentence you're saying I make no sense and then agreeing with me in the next."

No. I'm not agreeing with you.

"There's very little incentive for people who aren't betting actual money to take a huge dog."

A bigger "payout"?

"people are more likely to take favorites because they don't have to actually pay the price to wager on them."

I think you are giving people with real money more credit than they deserve.

Anonymous said...

"I've been using Wagerline for a while and it is consistent. I really don't care whether it is accurate or not. What I do know is that the average game has about a 60/40 split on the favorite/over. When there is a significant deviation from that split, I can be reasonably confident that a game has a public side."

maybe i'm misreading here, but how can you be reasonably confident of anything when in the previous sentence you just admitted you're not sure their numbers are accurate or not?

"Huh? This doesn't make any sense. People do blindly take favorites, but I think you are missing the boat on here."

the biggest point to take re: wagerline is that there's no real money involved on those "picks". pretty significant detail, imo.

good discussion here.

am19psu said...

but how can you be reasonably confident of anything when in the previous sentence you just admitted you're not sure their numbers are accurate or not?

I don't really care if the the normal Wagerline 60/40 split represents the true ratio of bets for a game. I only care if the ratio at Wagerline significantly differs from 60/40.

the biggest point to take re: wagerline is that there's no real money involved on those "picks". pretty significant detail, imo.

Why is it assumed that a player's betting pattern will change whether they are trying to win a contest vs. winning actual money? I can actually see a strategic answer that makes sense here, but I want to know what everyone else making this argument thinks.

Jonny said...

"Why is it assumed that a player's betting pattern will change whether they are trying to win a contest vs. winning actual money?"

It's the assumption people are responsible with their real money and are not when it is "play" money. Comical.