Betting strategies we’ll use at Stealing Lines
Techniques you will see from us at Stealing Lines
In our other introduction post, I covered some Betting 101 terms and concepts. In this post, we’ll talk about some strategies to employ when betting.
Using CLV to our advantage
In many markets, our main goal when it comes to making bets is to get lines early after they open on various sportsbooks. By making sharp bets before lines move, the size and likelihood of generating Closing Line Value increases.
By generating CLV, we have an advantage on the closing market odds, which gives us the flexibility to do a couple of things. For information markets such as the NFL draft, the gain in CLV can be absolutely massive, and can generate strong ROI simply by being updated on correct news and information throughout the process.
Arbitrage
When we gain CLV on a two-way market, the lines may move enough to eventually bet the other side and guarantee a profit. This is called arbitrage.
Also, by using multiple sportsbooks, there may be opportunities to guarantee a profit with absolutely zero risk by taking both sides of a bet at mispriced odds.
Middling
Middling is a strategy we won’t implement a ton, but there may be opportunities to consider it.
Let’s start with a quick hypothetical scenario. Let’s say that Justin Herbert’s season-long passing yards prop line dropped at 4100.5 for a price of -110, and that we as a group decided to bet the over on that line. Let’s also say that since that line was so egregious, it ended up moving all the way to 4600.5.
We’ve locked in a bet on Herbert over 4100.5 yards for $110 to win $100, but we now have the option to bet the under at 4600.5, also for -110. This would leave us three scenarios.
First outcome: Herbert passes for under 4100.5 yards
We lose our first bet of $110 dollars but win the second for $100. We lose $10.
Second outcome: Herbert passes for anywhere between 4101 and 4600 yards
We win both bets and profit $200.
Third outcome: Herbert passes for over 4600.5 yards
We win our first bet for $100 but lose our second bet of $110. We again lose $10.
In two of these scenarios, we actually lose money, but it was minimal. This strategy creates the potential for big gains with limited risk.
Hedging
The example I’m going to use here is a futures market.
Let’s say we bet $20 to win $1,000 on Tee Higgins at +5000 to have the most receiving yards this year. Heading into the last week of the season, Higgins and Justin Jefferson are the only two realistic candidates to take home this title. Both are +100 to win.
We have now gained massive CLV on Higgins. We could let it ride, where we will either win $1,000 if Higgins wins or $0 if Jefferson wins. Or we could hedge with a bet around $500 on Jefferson to win $500, and guarantee a profit. If our goal was a perfect hedge, we would actually bet $510 on Jefferson and guarantee $490 in profit.
By betting some of our potential winnings from Higgins on Jefferson, we are able to decrease the variance and realize our actual Expected Value (EV) in this scenario.
It will be much more common to see us use this type of strategy in futures markets like this to try to guarantee profits while we bet changing lines.