NFL RLM week 7.

3 teams this week are subjects of RLMs:

Pittsburgh (at home versus Minnesota) – 35% (with 47564 bet) –4 (open) to –6: RLM 2.0
Oakland (at home versus NYJ) – 38% (with 30674 bet) +7 (open) to +6 : RLM 1.0
Dallas (at home versus Atlanta) 26% (with 47471 bet –3 (open) to –4.5: RLM 1.5

General situational observations:

All of these games have a hint of statistical validity since the betting numbers are well above 10,000. Since no dollar amounts are (or ever will be) available, it can be only inferred indirectly that significant steam plays are likely to be present with the Dallas game since less than 30% are betting on Dallas and the RLM is greater than 1.0

Of these three games, Dallas is the most significant RLM with an RLM of 1.5 and less than 30% betting on Dallas. Dallas is playing an Atlanta team that has come off an emotional win versus Chicago last week at Atlanta. It is going to be tough to sustain that emotional intensity away from home at a rested and determined Dallas team coming off their Bye week. Now the Falcons are facing a Dallas team looking to prove it is a playoff contender and they have had a week to try to get th kinks ironed out. Romo and Wade Phillips are under the gun to win and win now. Wile the value of the line is getting worse (-3 to -4 to -4.5), the move from -4 to -4.5 is not that significant in terms of the raw line value. Can the Cowboys cover this spread? A few people are going against the betting public (and they have bet a lot of dollars in doing so) that say - yes.

Next, Pittsburgh with a RLM of 2.0 is a decent bet; however, the betting percentages are creeping towards 40%. The chance of the Vikings pulling a rabbit out of its hat in Pittsburgh are slim. Last week the Vikings beat a tough Ravens team at home, and should have lost that game if it were not for a last second miss of a makeable field goal by the Ravens. Pittsburgh is coming off an uninspired win versus Cleveland, and are looking to get into stride with the bulk of AFC division game coming up. The Vikings are due for a letdown, and may be looking towards the game Brett Favre has been planning for in the last two years – going to Green Bay. The game of Brett Favre’s heart and soul is next week, and this week may be the week Favre and the Vikings are going to just take it a bit easy in preparation for the game everyone is going to be watching for next week. While the betting percentages are moving to 40%, the timing of the line move is what is significant. The problem is that the line may have moved too far, and has pushed to -6 (versus -4 to -5.5 are probably where you should have played this game.) Those who caught this RLM early are sitting in a very good position, while the current value of -6 may be marginal.

Finally Oakland has a decent RLM of 1.0 but the betting percentages may push towards 40% by game time, and it cannot be said where the game dollar betting positions are drawn in this particular game. Oakland is facing a NYJ team that lost to Buffalo last week, while the Raiders beat a Eagles team that was clearly off key. This game is hard to pick due to the inconsistency of the Raider’s QB and the potential of the Jets overall. While team momentum is clearly in the Raiders favor, the Jets are determined to stop a slide that has lasted for the past two weeks. Overall, this game is a toss up.

Good luck

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Part 2. RLM - Picking a criteria.
Ok, you have found a few RLMs for this week, and need to decide which ones are of value. 
My personal criteria for a good RLM are:

1. RLM of 1.0 or greater for spreads of 0 to +/- 16.0
2. RLM of 1.5 or greater for spreads  greater than 16.0.
3. The percentage of public bets are less than 30% with a minimum of 8000 bets.
4. The RLM is a home team.

If any of these criteria are not met, then the RLM team needs to be handicapped further before making a bet on that team.

Obviously, as the criteria gets better, the value of the RLM gets better (eg. RLM of 2.5, 15% bet and the team is at home.  What this RLM represents is the classic "fade the public, take the home dog;" however, the best thing of this particular RLM bet is that you are taking the Vegas bookmaker's side of the bet (for an explanation why, see the first of the posts on this series on RLMs.

Let's take a look at this week's NFL games:

 
Today (10/20/09) the potential RLMs are:
(source: http://www.thespread.com/nfl-football-public-betting-chart)
NFL:
Oakland Raiders:
24% bet (out of 1689 bets)
+7 (opening line) to +6 (current line) : RLM = (7-6) = 1.0

Dallas Cowboys:
29% bet (out of 2624 bets)
-3 (opening line) to -4 (current line): RLM = ((-3) - (-4)) = 1.0

 Dallas and Oakland would make good RLMs based on public bet percentages and the fact that both teams are playing at home.  The problem is that there are still too few number of bets made with these (and all the other NFL) games to date.  For the RLMs to be justified, I feel, at least 8000 bets need to be made with these games.  Why? Because there can still be large percentage swings with larger number of people betting later in the week. 

Although the concept of a Reverse Line Move still exists with these fewer number of bets, the relative small sampling number makes me uncomfortable calling it a RLM.  Ultimately the linesmakers can still shift the lines, and they themselves can cancel the RLM with a line change at any moment.  If the number of people bet are greater than 8000, and the line still indicates an RLM, then I can feel relatively comfortable that the RLM exists.  You can argue that the number of bets corresponds to a sample size, and the larger the sample size, the larger the probability of the RLM occurring, even if the line reverts the game to a non-RLM.

Thus, the 8000 bet number is a personal preference, and you can take the betting (sample) size to be whatever you want it to be. 
You can even make the required bet size larger (say 10,000 bets).

The only criteria that are not negotable are the 40% of public bets on a team and the line changing from a negative vale to a more negative vale or the line moving from a postive number to a smaller value.  If the percentage of public bets are greater than 40%, by definition this is not a Reverse Line Move, and you are betting the game based on something else.  The line shifts are the ultimate definiton of a RLM.

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This is a series of blogs regarding Reverse Line Movements.
The foundation of these blogs are from:

http://ltprofits.mysbrforum.com/blog...g-profits.html

The data and free line movements will be mainly from these sites:
http://www.thespread.com/ncaa-colleg...-betting-chart
http://www.thespread.com/nfl-footbal...-betting-chart
and  SBRlines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More...

Scary poker and online gambling news.

source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124459561862800591.html
By TAMARA AUDI

"In an apparent crackdown on Internet gambling, federal authorities in New York have frozen or seized bank accounts worth $34 million belonging to 27,000 online poker players, according to representatives for the players and account holders.

In an operation that began last week, the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York froze or issued seizure orders for bank accounts in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Arizona held at Wells Fargo, Citibank, Goldwater Bank and Alliance Bank of Arizona.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office had no comment.

The accounts... More...