Reverse Line Moves
During the past month, we've made several allusions to reverse line moves on the site, but haven't really gone into much detail about them. We'll take care of that with this article.
When the sportsbooks post the opening point spreads, many times those numbers will change over the course of the day. The primary reason for line movement is money wagered on one side.
If the Bucks open at -4 against the Bulls and the majority of money is wagered on the Bucks, the point spread will likely move to Milwaukee -5, as the sportsbooks are trying to balance their books some by attracting bets on the Bulls. The point spread change makes the Bulls a bit more attractive and the Bucks slightly less attractive, which, in theory, should bring in a few more bets on Chicago.
In a reverse line move, the opposite happens of what should, in that the point spread in our example above would move to Milwaukee -3, even though the majority of bets are coming in on the Bucks.
In this case, the sportsbooks don't mind having the majority of bets on one side, and are actually trying to attract more wagers on that particular team. But while a sports bettors has to be correct 53-percent of the time to show a profit, sportsbooks only have to be correct 48-percent of the time to make money in the long run.
While the example we used above was for the point spread, reverse line moves also occur with the money line used in baseball and hockey betting. But instead of the point spread moving, the odds will change.
If the Yankess are -150 against the Angels and the majority of bets are coming in on New York, you would expect to see the odds change to New York -155 or New York -160. In a reverse line move, the odds would instead drop and the money line would become New York -140.
How Reverse Line Movements Have Fared
The obvious questions bettors would want to know is how reverse line movements have done and if there is an merit into following them. The short answer is they've done pretty well.
Using data on the Sports Insights website, we'll see that for football and basketball, reverse line movements have been correct roughly 57-percent of the time. There's certainly nothing wrong with that and those percentages will show a nice profit over time.
Followers of reverse line movements in baseball and hockey would have fared even better, although not in winning percentages, but in terms of units won. Reverse line movements in baseball and hockey will win at a rate of just under 50-percent, but show nice profits because the vast majority of your wagers are on underdogs.
Reverse line movements are one of those things that bettors should be aware of and look to take advantage of. If nothing else, staying away from those sides in which a reverse line movement has occurred, should boost your winning percentage a bit.
