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Originally Posted by Moonliner
So how can I use that to make a killing with my sports bookie?
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It won't make you a killing but it suggests you shouldn't take the favorite when the favored has a huge spread (what defines "heavily favored" I don't know).
Rather than point shaving, though, this statistical analysis, it seems to me, might instead show a psychological skewing in the voting pool (the bettors) as to just how easily a heavily favored team should dominate a lesser team. All the bookies are trying to do is keep an equal number of people on both sides of the decision.
So, if people tend to think "School A is so much better than School B that they should win by 20 points" when in actuality it is very difficult to consistently win by more than 15 points no matter how much better you are, then this might explain bookies setting the spread at 18 and the games more often being on the low side than the high side (rather than equally on both sides as a purely rational system would suggest).