The lines for a game do move similar to a stock price, people speculate on the direction that the line is going to move, and they make bets to take advantage of such moves.
Lets say the Cowboys are playing the Redskins, and on tuesday morning when the lines open for the sunday's football games, the line opens at Cowboys -6...
A wiseguy calls the book and bets 5 dimes on the cowboys at -6, so the line mover now has more money on the cowboys than he does on the skins... so he goes to -6 laying 115... let's say that people keep putting money on the cowboys throughout the week, after the lay 15, they go to lay 120, then to -6 1/2, and so on... lets say by sunday the line moved to cowboys -8 1/2 the same wiseguy calls and puts another 5 dimes on the skins at +8 1/2
The game starts... if the cowboys win by 10, he loses $500... in the cowboys win by less than 6 or even lose, he losses $500... but if they win by 7... he makes $10,000.
(it's a madeup example and I haven't seen a football game in 10 years, and its been even longer since I moved a line at a book... but you get the general idea)
Wiseguys usually do this on the football, on pros but specially on college (nebraska with its freaking 54 point spreads can move a LOT ) since the lines stay open much longer than basketball games (which usually come up a couple of days before the game, since they play so often). you can't middle the hockey since the lines don't move enough and they usually move on the money not the spread...
in order to do something like this, you need to get a Don Best screen, and pay for the realtime updates... so that you can see the line from all the books and hit the line when a mover needs to get hit on one side for the game... You can't just try to play middles with a single book, just like you can't seriously trade on free yahoo data...
Lets say the Cowboys are playing the Redskins, and on tuesday morning when the lines open for the sunday's football games, the line opens at Cowboys -6...
A wiseguy calls the book and bets 5 dimes on the cowboys at -6, so the line mover now has more money on the cowboys than he does on the skins... so he goes to -6 laying 115... let's say that people keep putting money on the cowboys throughout the week, after the lay 15, they go to lay 120, then to -6 1/2, and so on... lets say by sunday the line moved to cowboys -8 1/2 the same wiseguy calls and puts another 5 dimes on the skins at +8 1/2
The game starts... if the cowboys win by 10, he loses $500... in the cowboys win by less than 6 or even lose, he losses $500... but if they win by 7... he makes $10,000.
(it's a madeup example and I haven't seen a football game in 10 years, and its been even longer since I moved a line at a book... but you get the general idea)
Wiseguys usually do this on the football, on pros but specially on college (nebraska with its freaking 54 point spreads can move a LOT ) since the lines stay open much longer than basketball games (which usually come up a couple of days before the game, since they play so often). you can't middle the hockey since the lines don't move enough and they usually move on the money not the spread...
in order to do something like this, you need to get a Don Best screen, and pay for the realtime updates... so that you can see the line from all the books and hit the line when a mover needs to get hit on one side for the game... You can't just try to play middles with a single book, just like you can't seriously trade on free yahoo data...
