The first order of business of anyone who wants to know how to become a bookie is to learn how to set lines. This means setting up and adjusting the odds that your players will bet on. There are a number of factors why any bookie will change their lines every once in a while. But all of these changes are neecssary to maximize your profit and to minimize risk in your sportsbook. One of the reasons why bookies will adjust lines, is public betting.
The concept of public betting is simple. Public betting happens when a lot of public bettors will place a bet on a very popular team. This occurrence is very common in football and basketball. You will have a huge fan base who will be interested in rooting for their favorite team. Naturally, they will tend to place wagers on that side of the bet. Or, it could be a hometown game and your local players will show loyalty and place bets on the local team. For whatever reason, one side of the wager will now have a lot of action, while the other side of the bet will have just a few.
Risks of Public Betting
Of course, if the favorite team loses, the bookie will win, and he will win big. But do bookies always win? This type of wager will now be a risk for the bookie. Because if the team wins, then the bookie will have more money owed than what he collected from the vig and from the losing team’s wagers. The solution? Adjust the lines. Make it more enticing for people to bet on the other side by putting a bit more value into the bet. That way, you can get more bets on the underdog, and somehow manage to gain a balance between the two.
When the public bets swarm sportsbook, smart sports bettors will be following soon. It’s a popular option to bet against the public. Which is also called the contrarian method. Its also popularly called fading the public. While no strategy gives a 100% win rate, fading the public is known to be a profitable way of winning in sports betting. Not only will you be worried about one side getting heavy action, but you now also have to keep an eye out for smart and sharp bettors who can abuse the value that you will set for that particular game. The key to finding balance, is to always check your sportsbook to monitor the action. If you are using a bookie pay per head service, then you are in luck, since the pay per head software has the tools to help you monitor everything happening in your very own sportsbook.