'public' picks

[CCx]

i get my information on who the public is betting on from sportsbook.com's "live odds" link and wagerline

i know this information from sportsbook pertains just to their site, so where besides wagerline do the others here get their 'public' betting info from? i know there's a pigskin pick 'em on various sites, but which ones post the betting trends before the games? and are there any other sportsbooks that post which way the money from the public is coming in on? (both for college and nfl)

[mrbaseball]

Here is my favorite go against spot. link

It isn't exactly a big public sampling but rather a smaller group of guys who think they know whats what. They don't [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] This thing is a money machine in college hoops and has been pretty good so far this NFL season by fading the top choices. You have to wait until Saturday to get a bigger consensus number.

[West]

This might not be very helpful since I can't tell you anything about where to get info about actual money wagered. But if you just want a general sense of who the public likes, if you're in a pigskin pick em on ESPN, there is a link on the page where you make the picks for your pool that says, "who picked whom" that is supposed to tell you the % of pigskin pickem players picking each side. They have one section for picks that are straight up to win, and another showing picks against the spread (you can do pools either way). How accurately the spread picks reflect who the public is actually wagering on is up to you to interpret.

On sports.yahoo.com, you can view the "experts" picks, and on that page they show the percentage of "yahoo users" taking teams. This is just to straight up win the game.

Since the public generally leans towards favorites where the spread is concerned, the pigskin pick'em numbers probably aren't going to be that surprising a lot of the time when it comes to the bigger favorites. This week the only significant spread favorite that doesn't have the majority of EPSN pigskin pickers taking them in spread pools is Carolina. Tampa Bay, Cincinnati, Baltimore and Indianapolis all are being taken by 70 - 75.3% of those in spread pools. Carolina is at 44.1%, though 77% are taking them straight up.

[Slacker13]

Do any of you guys know local bookies? The reason why i am asking is this... I have 3-4 friends that are BM's, I call them to see who their players are taking and will use that info to my advantage, if their guys are all dumping on one game then I may go against them on that info alone if the line and moves coincide, the one exception is Monday night football, the general public usually wins on Monday night, I have no stats to back this up, it's just what i ahve seen from following this for 9-10 years. Many bookies end their weeks on sunday, some on monday. I know both and asked a BM why he ends his week on Sunday, he said, because a large % of the time they lose on Monday nights, and they would rather be down in the beginning of the week when they know they can get it back later in the week as apposed to letting their players bail out on them on the Monday game. Made sense to me.

Also, a few years ago one of my bookie buddys had a player who was the biggest mush ever, the guy had a shitload of money at the time and week after week the guy would lose. He would pull one winning week out of 7, kept comming back for more until he either just gave up or ran out of money. But we would take this guys plays and bet against them week after week, it was pure gold while it lasted. If you can find a guy like this I am telling you, you will do great.

We always wished this guy would hit the lottery and would be around forever. It would have been like we hit the lottery too. It's a system of the simplest form.

[NoChance]

Back in college (Whitewater, WI), six of us rented a house near campus. One guy knew a bookie in Milwaukee. He would record the lines each day on his answering machine and at 4:30 or so central time we would call this number and get his lines. Then, there was another number we would call between 5:00 and 6:00 and place all our bets. This was great because the lines wouldn't change once they were on the recording. Often we waited to the last minute to place the calls.

We went to Vegas one year for our spring break trip. That was great because at 2:30 vegas time we would call for his lines and then go to the sportsbook and look for the biggest middles. We would phone in $500 back home and then place $500 on the opposite side at the sportsbook. While we only hit one middle the entire time we were there, it was a great opportunity. Unfortunately, we ran low on money because (1) we were college students and (2) we seemed to win all of our bets placed with the Milwaukee guy and lost all our cash on hand in Vegas. We had to wait until the trip was over to collect our money back home.

Good times. If anyone has a situation similar to this, take advantage at least once.

[Slacker13]

Great story. And believe me those old guys are still around, you just have to sniff them out. I am from wisconsin and I know a few guys who set their lines on wed and do not move them. I won't elaborate here [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Something I do on middles is lets say I place 2000 on each side, i will bet a few hundred extra on the team i like to cover the juice. Or I may bet less on a team to cover the juice. So I may lay PSU-9 for 1700 and take NW +12 for 2000k, it would be the smart move to place more on NW because the line is indicating that +12 is great value since the actual line is now dipped to 9. Just a heads up if you find one of these guys again.