What's the actual advantage of stale lines?

[fearless]

There's an occasional game like the Fullerton St. game recently where the point spread dropped six points. Huge advantage, definitely.

But, in most cases, stale lines only give you a half a point to a point advantage. How much does that really help someone win? It gives you at most maybe a 5% advantage, imho.

But, the real kicker is this: your opponent is using the same stale lines so no one has any special advantage. If you say stale lines give you a 5% advantage than both people in the contest have the same 5% advantage, the results are completely valid then, imho.

If both contestants have a 5% advantage then it all evens out and you have a valid contest. Right?

[diogee]

I really don't know but I say it is a huge advantage watching sharp moves and playing the stale line...anyone with any type of gambling knowledge can beat stale lines imo. Even 1 pt moves do great in certain sports...

[rookie]

From point of view of a contest, since everyone is using the same lines, it should not matter. To quantify the exact edge, you may use half-point calculator.

http://www.sbrforum.com/Betting+Tools/Half+Point+Calculator.aspx

[fearless]

From point of view of a contest, since everyone is using the same lines, it should not matter.

It should not matter, that's the conclusion that I've come to.

[LT Profits]

It wouldn't matter as long as both participants take advanage of it. If only one guy plays the stale lines and the other guy only plays what he likes regardless of whether the lines are stale or not, then theoreticallly, the guy playing exlusively stale lines should have the edge.

[Chi_archie]

but are there any historical numbers that have been kept for certain sports or anything that show how well the stale line did.... for example last night say there were 3 games that had big line moves after opening. a,b,c with totals of 150, 140, 130
before closing the lines each moved 2.5 points in different ways. 152.5 137.5 132.5 is there anywhere that has a listing of how games like a,b,c did at their 'stale' line numbers 150,140,130? over the course of a season or longer? all the college bb totals that moved over 3 points one way or another for instance?

do the over 150 bets for example hit 2-3% higher over time?

[losturmarbles]

i assume youre making reference to using stale lines in a handicapping contest?

i guess the advantage is that it levels the playing field. its a disadvantage to those who can project the market.

just because a line contest line is team A -6 doesnt mean the team A has a 50/50 chance of covering. and most of the time if the line goes to team A -7, then team A -6 is most likely >50%. but in real life, your chance at getting team A -6 is most likely gone. but if you were a good handicapper then you already took team A, at -5.5.

think of it as a market. prices are always changing based on buying and selling. lets say we were going to have a contest of who could have the biggest total gain in the stock market for a day. we have a list of stocks with their 10 am price to choose from. your picks must be in by 1pm. since everyone is choosing from the same list then its fair right? at 4pm the person with the biggest gain is the winner. what would that really prove?

it all depends what kind of contest you are trying to have, a picking winners contest or one more close to reality where getting the best line and best price is rewarded. its like tonight between flor and okla. contest line is flor - 5.5. so do you want to have a contest of who can pick the winning side with a spread of 5.5 bc in reality if you like flor you should have them at -3, or if you like okla you should be waiting to see if the line continues to move more in your favor. picking the winner between flor/okla -+5.5 proves nothing more than who can pick the winner between flor/okla -+5.5.

[MonkeyF0cker]

i assume youre making reference to using stale lines in a handicapping contest?

i guess the advantage is that it levels the playing field. its a disadvantage to those who can project the market.

just because a line contest line is team A -6 doesnt mean the team A has a 50/50 chance of covering. and most of the time if the line goes to team A -7, then team A -6 is most likely >50%. but in real life, your chance at getting team A -6 is most likely gone. but if you were a good handicapper then you already took team A, at -5.5.

think of it as a market. prices are always changing based on buying and selling. lets say we were going to have a contest of who could have the biggest total gain in the stock market for a day. we have a list of stocks with their 10 am price to choose from. your picks must be in by 1pm. since everyone is choosing from the same list then its fair right? at 4pm the person with the biggest gain is the winner. what would that really prove?

it all depends what kind of contest you are trying to have, a picking winners contest or one more close to reality where getting the best line and best price is rewarded. its like tonight between flor and okla. contest line is flor - 5.5. so do you want to have a contest of who can pick the winning side with a spread of 5.5 bc in reality if you like flor you should have them at -3, or if you like okla you should be waiting to see if the line continues to move more in your favor. picking the winner between flor/okla -+5.5 proves nothing more than who can pick the winner between flor/okla -+5.5.

It's also called luck. Similarly, correctly guessing heads or tails of a fair coin toss...

[fearless]

i assume youre making reference to using stale lines in a handicapping contest?

i guess the advantage is that it levels the playing field. its a disadvantage to those who can project the market.

just because a line contest line is team A -6 doesnt mean the team A has a 50/50 chance of covering. and most of the time if the line goes to team A -7, then team A -6 is most likely >50%. but in real life, your chance at getting team A -6 is most likely gone. but if you were a good handicapper then you already took team A, at -5.5.

think of it as a market. prices are always changing based on buying and selling. lets say we were going to have a contest of who could have the biggest total gain in the stock market for a day. we have a list of stocks with their 10 am price to choose from. your picks must be in by 1pm. since everyone is choosing from the same list then its fair right? at 4pm the person with the biggest gain is the winner. what would that really prove?

it all depends what kind of contest you are trying to have, a picking winners contest or one more close to reality where getting the best line and best price is rewarded. its like tonight between flor and okla. contest line is flor - 5.5. so do you want to have a contest of who can pick the winning side with a spread of 5.5 bc in reality if you like flor you should have them at -3, or if you like okla you should be waiting to see if the line continues to move more in your favor. picking the winner between flor/okla -+5.5 proves nothing more than who can pick the winner between flor/okla -+5.5.

Even if we were using real time Pinnacle lines then you could say that the contest proves nothing more than who can beat Pinnacle lines. Shopping for lines couldn't be a part of this contest no matter what.

But, we could include buying points quite easily and that would take care of the problem you're talking about.