3.5 and 7.5 Football Lines

[parlayin]

Anybody have records on how 3.5 and 7.5 favorites have done in both NCAA and NFL? Since books don't really want to move off key numbers, would it make sense that if they did spot the hook (to entice dog bettors), favorites at these numbers would cover at a decent rate? Thanks

[count zero]

Using CSW data, I get the following ATS results (unverified) for the NFL since 1983:

Favs by 3.5: 157-177 47.0% (Home 101-116, Road 56-61)
Favs by 7.5: 064-059 52.0% (Home 039-041, Road 25-18)

[pokerjoe]

Right off, I have a problem with such attempted precision at saying what the line was. As we all know, there is no single "line." There's the open, the publicly available open, the close, and points in between. And almost always, it's "3-20, 3.5" or "3.5, 4" and so on.

I think reading the line is still best kept intuitive. If most books have it 3.5 most of the week, but it settles on 3 at the finish, maybe that's exactly what they wanted: to suck dog money out of the market, meaning, the week-long 3.5 was an indicator of favorite strength. OTOH, if it opened across the board 7, and it's a MNF game that goes up to 7.5 just pre-game, then maybe it just reflects squares betting faves money.

[KingOfTheSquares]

...folks need to get a grip on the fact that a market is open for roughly a week before an NFL game...and the price moves like prices on the stock market. Where we have a difference is, except for interactives, market stops at game start, and for the interactives, at game end.

What I'm always surprised at is: how little movement there has been in the NFL "market" over the years. I attribute this to the fact that there are very astute lines makers in the NFL (and perhaps the consistancy of the sport).

[GM]

I also believe, as pokerjoe mentioned, that this is difficult to measure due to the fact it's hard to determine which line exactly to use.

However, I've been keeping my own stats on various CLOSING lines for a few years now (lines used come from covers.com data), for every half point increment. I can tell you that from one year to the next there are very few patterns at ANY of the half point increments. However, patterns emerge when you break it into larger, logical groups. IE. I keep track of games that went off at Pick, 1 to 2½ pts, exactly 3 pts, 3½ to 6½ pts, exactly 7 pts, 7½ to 9½ pts, 10 to 13½ pts, and 14+ pts. These categories provide something a little more meaningful. I use 3 and 7 in their own categories because of the importance of these numbers.

The following data, for what it's worth applies to NFL only (no college, CFL, or anything else) and is my own personal count....

Favorites of exactly 3½ points at close:
2001: 4-4 ATS @ home, 2-5 ATS on the road
2000: 10-9 ATS @ home, 1-2 ATS on the road
1999: 6-7 ATS @ home, 5-3 ATS on the road
1998: 2-3 ATS @ home, 2-2 ATS on the road
1997: 5-5 ATS @ home, 1-6 ATS on the road
1996: 4-7 ATS @ home, 1-2 ATS on the road
Overall: 31-35 ATS @ home, 12-20 ATS on the road.

If anything, that says take a home dog getting 3½.

Expanding this:
Favorites of 3½ to 6½ points, at close:
I won't bore you with the year-by-year breakdown (too much typing!)....but I can tell you over this 6-year period, they have gone 154-181 ATS @ home (46.0%), and 60-81 ATS on the road (42.6%). Now THAT'S data I like. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] A word of caution though....in 2001 Fav's in this range went 39-38 (home and road combined), and the year before it was 38-41. Maybe the linemaker has already adjusted for this? Take these last two years out and you had a KILLER dog cover rate.

.................................................. .........................

Favorites of exactly 7½ points at close:
2001: 2-3, 2-1
2000: 2-3, 2-0
1999: 4-1, 0-0
1998: 3-0, 1-2
1997: 2-3, 0-2
1996: 0-3, 0-1
Overall: 13-13 ATS @ home, 5-6 ATS on the road.

Very small sample size, not meaningful in my opinion.

Expanding it:
Favorites of 7½ to 9½ points, at close:
Over 6 years, have gone 56-68 ATS @ home (45.2%), and 16-22 ATS on the road (42.1%). This trend has NOT tailed off like the one above. 10-16 ATS home and road combined last year (38.5%), and 9-17 the prior season (34.6%!).

Probably a lot more info than you wanted....but some nice numbers in there!

GM