Why collect even money on the Bears win when 20-1 was right there for you? If you have been following along, you know we advocate having multiple sports betting accounts. The main reasons for this are odds shopping and “middles”.
This week is when being aware of these angles enabled our followers to collect a 20-1 payout. For those of you who are new to our advice, here is the setup…
The Setup
After a disappointing week 1 performance vs. the Rams, most sports books, including BetRivers IL, opened the Bears as a -4.5 point favorite for week 2 against the Bengals. At that point, we did not have an opinion on the game, but we did have a strong opinion on that point spread.
NFL bettors are notorious overreactors. Therefore, we had the opinion that, based on the trouncing the Bears received in week 1, the week 2 odds would plummet. With this thought process, we piled into the Cincy +4.5 points bet early in the week on our local BetRivers app. If the line stayed here, we were willing to take our -110 wager with these 4.5 points and move along. But wait…
The Move
By mid-week our hunch was right and the spread was down to 3.5, then 3. By the time college games were kicking off on Saturday, several books had the Bears at only -2.5. DraftKings was then the first book I saw to take it even further and make it a 1.5 point spread. From -4.5 to -1.5 is a huge shift.
Our next move was to match our Cincy +4.5 wager with an identical amount on the Bears. We got in on Bears to win by -2.5 (we weren’t patient enough to wait for the -1.5 move). Our hometown BetRivers gave us -107 on that wager which sweetened the pot even further.
But why did we make a new bet offsetting our old bet? And how did this turn into a 20-1 proposition?
When a point spread shifts or differences between competing sportsbook lines create a “middle”, there is an opportunity for the game to land on that middle number . In this case,
the -4.5 to -2.5 move creates a scenario where a 3 or 4 point Bears victory margin cashes both bets!!!
Plus, there is no scenario where both bets can lose. Yes, that’s a guarantee to cash at least one of the bets.
With a late TD to pull the Bengals to within 3 points and post a 20-17 final score, the Bengals covered our first bet (we were getting +4.5 points), and the Bears still covered our offsetting bet by winning by more than -1.5 points. SCORE!!!!!!!
So how is that 20-1 on a Bears win?
Since we are guaranteed to cash at least one of the bets, we are only risking the “vig” on one losing bet. Either $7 if the Bears bet loses (Bears were -107), or $10 if Cincy loses (Cincy bet was -110). This means our expected “vig” loss was $8.50 (average of $7 and $10). This is the expected risk.
But when the game “middles”, like it did on Sunday, we collect both bets for a score of $200! Risking an expected -$8.50 for a Chance to win $200 is better than 20-1 odds.
