sports betting newbie question

[plj8624]

I play poker and I have read many of Sklansky's books on general gambling. I have not ever placed a sports bet but I am aware of EV and I am a thinking sports fan. First rule of sportsbetting is "respect the linesmaker".

Can someone more knowledgeable about football betting explain to me how the Washington Redskins are favored over the New York Giants this upcoming Sunday? The Redskins are at home but can't score and have a worse record. To my unsophisticated eyes, this looks like an easy bet on the Giants. Is this a typical kind of "trap"? An explanation of the thought process would be very helpful.

[CCx]

You've got two teams that suck really, really bad. One happens to be playing at home, so they're favored. The Giants you're thinking of may be the ones from Weeks 2-8, when they scored a few points, played some D and won some games. Way different team now. Avoid this game at all costs.

[tech]

Most handicappers set lines by power ratings of some sort. There are thousands if not millions of different methods out there for computing power ratings. But I can give you an example of how it would work. For the purposes of this example, I will use Jeff Sagarin's PP ratings (available in USA Today).

In those rankings, the Giants are rated 20.86 and the Redskins are rated 18.13. So on a neutral field the Giants should win by 2.53 points. Since the Redskins are home, you adjust the result by the home field advantage (normally 3 points or so). Thus, Washington would be favored by about half a point. Then you adjust the line for any injuries, special circumstances, etc. So perhaps the fact that most of the Giants stats were with Kurt Warner. Now they have a rookie QB so you could subtract a point or so. That's oversimplifying, but it is the basic idea.

[sublime]

Is this a typical kind of "trap"?

you first assignment is to forget you ever heard this silly term.