By The Rex Factor
* Disclaimer * – Everyone has their own thoughts and ideals here. Some of the sharpest minds in the sports gaming business have differing opinions on this subject. I’ll pass along my own to you, without wanting you to take it as the gospel.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, part of it bears worth repeating. There is no real consensus among wise guys and sharp players about when and if to buy points or not when it comes to wagering on college and professional football.
There are philosophical differences in regards to buying and selling. Since many places don’t offer you the right to “sell” points, we’ll mainly focus on buying in here.
For the uninitiated, “buying” means to get a better number on a game than is currently available at your sportsbook. The night of Thursday, October 9th featured two prime examples. One game was in college; the other in the NFL. Indianapolis was playing at Houston in the NFL, and Brigham Young was at Central Florida in a college football game that kicked off an hour earlier.
This is one of the rare cases where the college total is lower than an NFL game being played on the same night. It’s not uncommon for multiple college games per week to have totals in the 70s, whereas you might see one or two NFL games with a total in the low-50s. This bears mentioning because of the math involved, which I’ll come back to. The Colts were -3 “dog a quarter” (meaning Indianapolis was -3 but to bet +3 you had to lay -125 on Jacksonville, and get back +105 on Indy) with the total at 46.5. Meanwhile, Central Florida was -3 “minus 15” (meaning you had to lay -115 on UCF -3, and BYU would be +3 -105 near post, with a total at 44.5).
Generally speaking, the NFL lines are tighter than those you see in college. It’s not at all uncommon to see a double-digit underdog (or even two-touchdowns plus) win outright. In the NFL, it happens maybe a couple or three times per year, tops. So with tighter lines, more closely contested games, and lower totals than you’ll generally see on the college card, the value of a half-point in the NFL is greater than it is in college almost without exception.
Here’s where the math intervenes. Let’s look at two other games the weekend of Oct. 11-12. One has West Virginia has a 5.5 and 6 point favorite at Texas Tech on Saturday, with a total set at 75. The other is a Sunday NFL game with Baltimore laying 3 “minus 30” at Tampa Bay. There are a couple of offshore operations that are using Baltimore -3.5 “flat” (-110 both ways). The total in that game is just 43.5. Combine the much higher total with the might tighter line, and the value of a half-point in the NFL is magnified.
Let’s look at these situations:
It would cost 10 cents to buy a half-point in the West Virginia game. If your book had West Virginia -6 and you wanted to buy down to 5.5 for -120, then you certainly have that option. The math, however, strongly opposes this move. The implied final score of this game, if you align the spread to the total, is going to be West Virginia 40.5, Texas Tech 34.5 (this is if we infer that WV is -6/total 75). The half-point you would be buying down would be worth nothing close to 10 cents when you account for how high the total is.
Meanwhile, the final score that’s implied in the Ravens/Bucs game is Baltimore 23.5, Tampa Bay 20. In this case, the half-point is worth much more. Look at how much lower scoring is expected in the game.
The other factor that comes into play is that NFL games are far more frequently going to fall on the number ‘3’ than any other number. Going all the way back to the start of the NFL in 1920 through the 2011 season, a whopping 11.8% of games finished with a winning margin of 3 points. The second most common was 7 (7.4%), while the third-most frequent was 10 points (5.7%). Four points is the fourth-most valuable number in terms of how many games land on that number. Yet most shops will only charge 10 cents from buying onto and off of 4 and 10, and many will charge the same 10 cents onto and off of 7, as well. It’s imperative to see what your bookmaker charges in these spots.
One place where I could advocate a buy would be in the Sunday Ravens/Bucs game, if your book charges 25 cents or less to do so off of the 3, and it doesn’t make an already expensive juice higher. I could not tell anyone to “buy” Baltimore down to -2.5 -155, because of the enormous juice that’s attached to the price. It’s hard enough to lay 11-to-10 when betting sports, but laying 3-to-2 or worse is a death knell in the long run. However, buying Tampa “up” to +3.5 -110 isn’t a bad play because you’re getting the half-point that is so cherished with a low total, and not paying through the nose to do so.
You would have to win right at 55 percent of your bets over the long haul if you laid 6-to-5 every time you made a bet! It sounds simple, but 11-9 over 20 bets is one thing. Over the course of 100 games, can you confidently predict a 55-45 record? It’s much more difficult than it sounds, and if it were that easy, a lot more people would be doing this for a living.
The Rex Factor has been betting on sports since he was in high school more than 20 years ago. He’s got a much greater grasp on the math of sports betting now than he did when in high school and college, and is eager to share tips like this and others with you going forward.
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