Discussion on Middling

[jedi]

This is inspired by THIS thread. I think for noobs like me, a good discussion on middling can help us out. I'm just going to ramble a bit as to what I THINK I understand middling to be, and let you guys correct me if I'm wrong. And please add info.

Sygamel listed his bets as follows:

$100 to win $104.25 (Matchbook)
$107 to win $97.27 (Bowmans)

I was having trouble coming up with the numbers that he used. It looks like the Matchbook bet was +104.25 and the Bowmans bet was -110. Were these betting values that he used optimal to reduce the juice? And if so, what kind of math is required to figure that out? I was trying to figure out the optimal bet with 2 lines of -115 and -110, and gave up after a while. But my analysis showed what should be intuitive, that lines of -115 and -110 are going to cost more to middle than lines of +104 and -110. Should I wait for something like this before even thinking about middling? The +EV of sygamel's bet was based on a 2.6% juice and about a 4% chance that the game would land right on his total. It seems like I'd have to hunt for good lines before I could get an opportunity like that.

Earlier I had asked if you make these middling bets even if you're not going to bet the game anyways, but it seems like those are the exact bets you need to make because if you were going to bet the game, then you had a good idea which side was +EV. In middling games, you might not know which side is +EV, but middling it is a +EV longshot bet.

Also, in the FAQ it tells us that we can make bigger bets, while risking little money. My units are only $10, but I can bet $100 at a time, because the overall risk is still around my monetary unit, right?

How many sportsbooks do you guys use when trying to middle? How often do you do it?