In the classic comedy Airplane, there’s a scene when all the reporters covering the unfolding drama run to a bank of phones to call in the latest news, causing the entire bank to fall over. Back in the 1980's at the Stardust sportsbook, a similar scene would unfold when the opening lines went up – with the people involved only slightly less reputable than reporters.
“You had the same degenerates that hung around in the sportsbook every day,” said Scott Kaminsky, who was Roxy Roxborough’s first employee back in 1983. “They hung around and bullshitted.”
At that time, the Stardust was the center of the sports betting universe. Opening lines and line movements were the news of the day, and like those reporters, there were plenty of people on hand awaiting those numbers. Many of those people were paid to be there, including a heavyset gentleman who reported back to Roxborough.
When the lines went up, the chaos began.
“Right outside the Stardust, they had a bank of telephones,” Kaminsky said. “Once the numbers went up, it was a race to write those numbers down and run to the phone. There were more people than there were phones.
“Being as our guy probably weighed 320 pounds, I’m guessing he wasn’t first too many times.”
The point here is that the Stardust line influenced the line at all the other sportsbooks.
A lot has changed in the world of sports betting since then. There are dozens more sportsbooks in Las Vegas – though the Stardust isn’t one of them, having closed in 2006 and been demolished in 2007 – and countless online bookmakers, but none with a heavier influence than offshore sportsbooks BetCRIS and Pinnacle Sports as it pertains to setting the daily betting markets with their opening odds.
And with the bulk of the industry taking their cues from offshore sites like BetCRIS, there's less room for differences and discrepancies in the betting odds, leaving bargain-hunting sports bettors with watered-down lines that may not reflect a sportsbook's actual true handle on a particular game but rather the industry standard.
However, getting back to the point, some would look at this evolution and, at least with regard to the opening line, raise the question: "Is true oddsmaking a dying art form?" But looked at with a more critical and experienced eye, perhaps the better question is: "Was oddsmaking ever an art form to begin with?"
Strictly speaking, oddsmaking these days actually has more in common with how it was done years ago, perhaps more than most people would think or care to admit.
Still, opinions from the experts cover the spectrum.
--
Kaminsky is a longtime veteran of the sports betting business, and he’s seen it from all sides. The 61 year old is now the general manager for offshore betting site TheGreek.com. He noted the only thing that’s changed with regard to the opening line is the origination point.
“Before the advent of offshores, the Stardust was the lead that everybody took their line from,” Kaminsky told Covers. “When I worked with Roxy, we paid a guy to sit in the Stardust, and he’d call with (line) updates.
“Now, it’s always BetCRIS. You can see it every day. When CRIS’ number goes up, everybody else goes up. All the sportsbooks, including all the offshores, I’d say 99 percent of them follow BetCRIS’ lead, and we do, too.”
Kaminsky also said Pinnacle has plenty of influence in that sphere. “When Pinnacle’s lines move, that’s when you give them a lot of respect, because they take smart action,” he said. But again, whether it was the Stardust then or BetCRIS now, Kaminsky contends that oddsmaking still has predominantly one table-setter, and as such, he pulls no punches in saying:
“Oddsmaking never was an art form.”
--
So what are they saying at BetCRIS and Pinnacle Sports?
Bill Shane, lines manager for BetCRIS.com, concurred with Kaminsky in saying his operation strives to be the first book to post lines on games, and that others often wait for those numbers before posting. As far as the art of oddsmaking, Shane says there might be a better term for it than “art.”
"I wouldn't say true oddsmaking is a dying art, because the initial numbers still come from guys who are oddsmaking the old-fashioned way,” he said. “That said, for most, the art has become more of a practice, because they do want to see our numbers first. They all have guys who can do it, but
this is the easier, less time-consuming route.”
Shane added that even though BetCRIS is an offshore online operation, there’s still a lot of classic oddsmaking going on there.
“We’re going to involve three different sources: three staff handicappers provide their numbers. And we may weigh one guy’s numbers more than the others,” he said. “These guys are Las Vegas, old-styled guys. I’m talking about people who have their own power ratings and an old-school methodology to oddsmaking. I would say that the old methodology of checking the injury report, your power rating and having a little bit of horse sense is what is generating the very initial number.”
Mirio Mella is the customer engagement manager for PinnacleSports.com, so he too has been on the front line of changes in the oddsmaking dynamic. He thinks most bettors don’t realize oddsmaking isn’t taking place at their favorite sportsbooks, which ties into the “dying art” school of thought.
“I think it is safe to say that true oddsmaking is certainly on the decline,” Mella said. “The average bettor would likely be surprised to know that a large proportion of popular sportsbook brands outsource their risk management and instead focus on promotional differentiation. Where risk cannot be outsourced, a lot of books will find an early price elsewhere, rather than calculating that number themselves.”
Mella said the improvement in API technology has driven the move away from individual oddsmaking and to outsourcing that task. For you non-techies, API stands for Application Programming Interface, which Pinnacle described in laymen’s terms as a set of programming instructions and standards for accessing web-based software or a web tool. In this instance, it’s a tailor-made betting application.
“That improvement makes betting odds a very portable product, with the operational efficiencies that outsourcing brings driving that move,” he said. “Similar pressures to increase profit have seen the consolidation of bookmakers through mergers and acquisition.”
But again, as Kaminsky pointed out, almost all of those sportsbooks weren’t doing their own oddsmaking in the first place, decades ago, so the merger phase hasn’t changed that fact.
Pete Korner has a different line of thinking, even though his company – The Sports Club – creates odds and disburses them to most sportsbooks throughout Nevada. Korner believes that there is an art to the oddsmaking craft, and that it’s not in decline.
“No matter who puts up the first line, there has to be someone putting in the time to do it,” Korner told Covers. “Personally, I think the art has grown since I joined the fray back in 1987. Back then, the odds source was consolidated pretty much down to Las Vegas Sports Consultants and Roxy Roxborough, whom I was an employee of.”
Korner said The Sports Club doesn’t lean on the offshore books for a starting point and that in fact, his company influences the offshores.
“I'm sure the offshores get our numbers one way or another before they put out their set,” he said. “Oddsmakers on my team have them as clients, and we prefer that they see ours first, so the range of numbers is reduced, therefore cutting down on the gap to prevent the middling of games on the schedule.”
--
CG Technology operates several sportsbooks in Las Vegas, including at the Palms, The M, the Hard Rock Hotel and the Cosmopolitan. Jason Simbal, CG’s vice president of risk management, has an opinion of oddsmaking that would seem to run counter to Kaminsky’s.
“I don’t think it’s a dying art form,” he said, noting that no matter where a book gets an initial number from, that number isn’t coming out of thin air. “Someone is creating that number.”
And in CG’s case, Simbal said that someone – actually a team of someones – is indeed in house.
“We have CG Analytics, a group of guys who are responsible for the data portion of the sports betting business,” Simbal said. “They have their algorithms and spreadsheets, and they have pricing for all our markets, from standard bets to crazy props. But they don’t know customer tendencies or injuries, etc.
“So then we on the bookmaking side, we take their prices and some prices from other books to compare, and then we’ll lean (our lines) toward our analytics. We definitely do make our own prices, and we use them for every event.”
Simbal said without a doubt that CG is not leaning on offshore books to get the ball rolling.
“We come out with our own numbers first, and our team decides what to use based on all those contributing factors: analytics, price comparisons, customer tendencies, injuries,” he said, while noting the importance of all those factors in limiting liability. “If you were putting up your numbers first, without having any reference point, you could be susceptible to your lines being the correction. Everything is kind of added up, and some factors weigh more than others. Then you create what in your opinion is the best possible price.
“It’s true oddsmaking. The math piece and all the other factors – what is the public’s perception, what players are in and out, all those things.”
--
Tony Miller, race and sports director for the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas, comes closest to acknowledging Kaminsky’s side of this argument, perhaps because he operates one of the few remaining independent shops.
“There is no doubt in my mind that true oddsmaking is a dying art form,” Miller said. “With less and less independent sportsbooks out there, they do rely more on consensus numbers across the board on all sports. If the line on a game lights up with numerous off-shore books, the same game will light up across Vegas books right after – even with no money crossing the counter on that particular game.
“And once the hub of a sportsbook makes that line change, it changes at all their locations instantly, and on all their mobile phone apps.”
That’s not the case at the Golden Nugget - a point of pride for Miller. But he recognizes and admits the importance of keeping an eye on the consensus numbers.
“Being an independent book, I do have the choice of making the consensus move or staying at the number we are currently at,” Miller said. “And I will say, most of the time, we go with the flow of the move.
“But there are times where we make a stand at our number and don’t move at all. We have won and lost games by standing on numbers, or not. It’s great to have money move your number, but in many cases, that does not always work out.”
There are times that Miller and his right-hand man, Aaron Kessler, are actually doing plenty of oddsmaking, indeed setting initial odds.
“We’ve got advance wagering on events that many other books don’t offer, such as the Golden Exacta, where you pick the college football champion and the Super Bowl winner,” Miller said. “There’s advance wagering on all four golf majors in 2016, plus player matchups. These are just a few examples of where Aaron and I must create our own power rankings and pointspreads and future odds.”
Jay Kornegay, vice president of race and sports for the Las Vegas Superbook at the Westgate, is in a somewhat similar position to Miller. The Superbook is the only operation under Kornegay’s purview, but it’s a huge operation - the biggest book in town and with nationwide renown.
Particularly for weekly or seasonal offerings, Kornegay said oddsmaking is still very much an in-house operation.
“We take pride in compiling our own events and odds. We still do a lot of that and try to get them up in a timely manner,” Kornegay said. “The day-to-day games (basketball, baseball, etc.) don’t take much, as the offshores open up hours before we do, and those lines have already been bet into. So I agree, that aspect has dwindled over the years. However, the week-to-week, season-to-season offerings are still an art form for us.”
Up in Reno, Nevada, Peppermill director of race and sports Terry Cox says his book monitors a comprehensive consensus line with real-time changes. So the work isn’t in the initial oddsmaking, but in the bookmaking element after the opening line is released, which Kaminsky would say is the case almost everywhere.
“There are decisions about moving lines based on money or based on consensus moves without money,” Cox said. “There is anticipating what local markets will favor. There is instinct in estimating individual customer gaming worth and flexing the limits. There is ‘game protection’ in identifying and eliminating syndicated efforts to circumvent house bet limits.
“This job still requires bookmaking skills. It’s not so much about making the original pointspread. It’s what you do with it once you post it on the board and start taking actual bets on it.”
--
So even among experts who believe oddsmaking is an art form, there is also agreement to varying degrees that the practice is receding. At the same time, the wagering menu has increased exponentially, with all sorts of exotic bets often available, plus prop bets and the expansion of in-game wagering. Even books that outsource their day-to-day or week-to-week odds have to put in the legwork to offer all the other options bettors expect these days, creating a whole new genre of oddsmaking.
“I think as sports betting becomes more popular, there will be more of an appetite for fun bets, props, wagers on things that were never available before,” Simbal said. “And those things need pricing. Sportsbooks have to do that themselves.”
That’s a point skeptics might concede. But again, that’s not the same as setting the initial line on one game, like the upcoming Super Bowl, for instance. Although there are some outliers that Kaminsky is willing to credit, he remains dubious of almost any sportsbook claiming oddsmaking is done in house.
“If you look at any North American sportsbook, tomorrow’s basketball lines will look very similar to BetCRIS’ lines,” he said. “It’s not a coincidence.”
Kaminsky firmly believes oddsmaking has never been anything more than one key outlet originating a number – the Stardust back in its heyday on the Las Vegas Strip and BetCRIS today – and practically all the sportsbooks falling in line afterward.
As he couldn’t state stridently enough:
“It never was a form of art.”
Colin Kelly is a Las Vegas-based contributor for Covers. Follow him on Twitter: @ColinPKelly29.
“You had the same degenerates that hung around in the sportsbook every day,” said Scott Kaminsky, who was Roxy Roxborough’s first employee back in 1983. “They hung around and bullshitted.”
At that time, the Stardust was the center of the sports betting universe. Opening lines and line movements were the news of the day, and like those reporters, there were plenty of people on hand awaiting those numbers. Many of those people were paid to be there, including a heavyset gentleman who reported back to Roxborough.
When the lines went up, the chaos began.
“Right outside the Stardust, they had a bank of telephones,” Kaminsky said. “Once the numbers went up, it was a race to write those numbers down and run to the phone. There were more people than there were phones.
“Being as our guy probably weighed 320 pounds, I’m guessing he wasn’t first too many times.”
The point here is that the Stardust line influenced the line at all the other sportsbooks.
A lot has changed in the world of sports betting since then. There are dozens more sportsbooks in Las Vegas – though the Stardust isn’t one of them, having closed in 2006 and been demolished in 2007 – and countless online bookmakers, but none with a heavier influence than offshore sportsbooks BetCRIS and Pinnacle Sports as it pertains to setting the daily betting markets with their opening odds.
And with the bulk of the industry taking their cues from offshore sites like BetCRIS, there's less room for differences and discrepancies in the betting odds, leaving bargain-hunting sports bettors with watered-down lines that may not reflect a sportsbook's actual true handle on a particular game but rather the industry standard.
However, getting back to the point, some would look at this evolution and, at least with regard to the opening line, raise the question: "Is true oddsmaking a dying art form?" But looked at with a more critical and experienced eye, perhaps the better question is: "Was oddsmaking ever an art form to begin with?"
Strictly speaking, oddsmaking these days actually has more in common with how it was done years ago, perhaps more than most people would think or care to admit.
Still, opinions from the experts cover the spectrum.
--
Kaminsky is a longtime veteran of the sports betting business, and he’s seen it from all sides. The 61 year old is now the general manager for offshore betting site TheGreek.com. He noted the only thing that’s changed with regard to the opening line is the origination point.
“Before the advent of offshores, the Stardust was the lead that everybody took their line from,” Kaminsky told Covers. “When I worked with Roxy, we paid a guy to sit in the Stardust, and he’d call with (line) updates.
“Now, it’s always BetCRIS. You can see it every day. When CRIS’ number goes up, everybody else goes up. All the sportsbooks, including all the offshores, I’d say 99 percent of them follow BetCRIS’ lead, and we do, too.”
Kaminsky also said Pinnacle has plenty of influence in that sphere. “When Pinnacle’s lines move, that’s when you give them a lot of respect, because they take smart action,” he said. But again, whether it was the Stardust then or BetCRIS now, Kaminsky contends that oddsmaking still has predominantly one table-setter, and as such, he pulls no punches in saying:
“Oddsmaking never was an art form.”
--
So what are they saying at BetCRIS and Pinnacle Sports?
Bill Shane, lines manager for BetCRIS.com, concurred with Kaminsky in saying his operation strives to be the first book to post lines on games, and that others often wait for those numbers before posting. As far as the art of oddsmaking, Shane says there might be a better term for it than “art.”
"I wouldn't say true oddsmaking is a dying art, because the initial numbers still come from guys who are oddsmaking the old-fashioned way,” he said. “That said, for most, the art has become more of a practice, because they do want to see our numbers first. They all have guys who can do it, but
this is the easier, less time-consuming route.”
Shane added that even though BetCRIS is an offshore online operation, there’s still a lot of classic oddsmaking going on there.
“We’re going to involve three different sources: three staff handicappers provide their numbers. And we may weigh one guy’s numbers more than the others,” he said. “These guys are Las Vegas, old-styled guys. I’m talking about people who have their own power ratings and an old-school methodology to oddsmaking. I would say that the old methodology of checking the injury report, your power rating and having a little bit of horse sense is what is generating the very initial number.”
Mirio Mella is the customer engagement manager for PinnacleSports.com, so he too has been on the front line of changes in the oddsmaking dynamic. He thinks most bettors don’t realize oddsmaking isn’t taking place at their favorite sportsbooks, which ties into the “dying art” school of thought.
“I think it is safe to say that true oddsmaking is certainly on the decline,” Mella said. “The average bettor would likely be surprised to know that a large proportion of popular sportsbook brands outsource their risk management and instead focus on promotional differentiation. Where risk cannot be outsourced, a lot of books will find an early price elsewhere, rather than calculating that number themselves.”
Mella said the improvement in API technology has driven the move away from individual oddsmaking and to outsourcing that task. For you non-techies, API stands for Application Programming Interface, which Pinnacle described in laymen’s terms as a set of programming instructions and standards for accessing web-based software or a web tool. In this instance, it’s a tailor-made betting application.
“That improvement makes betting odds a very portable product, with the operational efficiencies that outsourcing brings driving that move,” he said. “Similar pressures to increase profit have seen the consolidation of bookmakers through mergers and acquisition.”
But again, as Kaminsky pointed out, almost all of those sportsbooks weren’t doing their own oddsmaking in the first place, decades ago, so the merger phase hasn’t changed that fact.
Pete Korner has a different line of thinking, even though his company – The Sports Club – creates odds and disburses them to most sportsbooks throughout Nevada. Korner believes that there is an art to the oddsmaking craft, and that it’s not in decline.
“No matter who puts up the first line, there has to be someone putting in the time to do it,” Korner told Covers. “Personally, I think the art has grown since I joined the fray back in 1987. Back then, the odds source was consolidated pretty much down to Las Vegas Sports Consultants and Roxy Roxborough, whom I was an employee of.”
Korner said The Sports Club doesn’t lean on the offshore books for a starting point and that in fact, his company influences the offshores.
“I'm sure the offshores get our numbers one way or another before they put out their set,” he said. “Oddsmakers on my team have them as clients, and we prefer that they see ours first, so the range of numbers is reduced, therefore cutting down on the gap to prevent the middling of games on the schedule.”
--
CG Technology operates several sportsbooks in Las Vegas, including at the Palms, The M, the Hard Rock Hotel and the Cosmopolitan. Jason Simbal, CG’s vice president of risk management, has an opinion of oddsmaking that would seem to run counter to Kaminsky’s.
“I don’t think it’s a dying art form,” he said, noting that no matter where a book gets an initial number from, that number isn’t coming out of thin air. “Someone is creating that number.”
And in CG’s case, Simbal said that someone – actually a team of someones – is indeed in house.
“We have CG Analytics, a group of guys who are responsible for the data portion of the sports betting business,” Simbal said. “They have their algorithms and spreadsheets, and they have pricing for all our markets, from standard bets to crazy props. But they don’t know customer tendencies or injuries, etc.
“So then we on the bookmaking side, we take their prices and some prices from other books to compare, and then we’ll lean (our lines) toward our analytics. We definitely do make our own prices, and we use them for every event.”
Simbal said without a doubt that CG is not leaning on offshore books to get the ball rolling.
“We come out with our own numbers first, and our team decides what to use based on all those contributing factors: analytics, price comparisons, customer tendencies, injuries,” he said, while noting the importance of all those factors in limiting liability. “If you were putting up your numbers first, without having any reference point, you could be susceptible to your lines being the correction. Everything is kind of added up, and some factors weigh more than others. Then you create what in your opinion is the best possible price.
“It’s true oddsmaking. The math piece and all the other factors – what is the public’s perception, what players are in and out, all those things.”
--
Tony Miller, race and sports director for the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas, comes closest to acknowledging Kaminsky’s side of this argument, perhaps because he operates one of the few remaining independent shops.
“There is no doubt in my mind that true oddsmaking is a dying art form,” Miller said. “With less and less independent sportsbooks out there, they do rely more on consensus numbers across the board on all sports. If the line on a game lights up with numerous off-shore books, the same game will light up across Vegas books right after – even with no money crossing the counter on that particular game.
“And once the hub of a sportsbook makes that line change, it changes at all their locations instantly, and on all their mobile phone apps.”
That’s not the case at the Golden Nugget - a point of pride for Miller. But he recognizes and admits the importance of keeping an eye on the consensus numbers.
“Being an independent book, I do have the choice of making the consensus move or staying at the number we are currently at,” Miller said. “And I will say, most of the time, we go with the flow of the move.
“But there are times where we make a stand at our number and don’t move at all. We have won and lost games by standing on numbers, or not. It’s great to have money move your number, but in many cases, that does not always work out.”
There are times that Miller and his right-hand man, Aaron Kessler, are actually doing plenty of oddsmaking, indeed setting initial odds.
“We’ve got advance wagering on events that many other books don’t offer, such as the Golden Exacta, where you pick the college football champion and the Super Bowl winner,” Miller said. “There’s advance wagering on all four golf majors in 2016, plus player matchups. These are just a few examples of where Aaron and I must create our own power rankings and pointspreads and future odds.”
Jay Kornegay, vice president of race and sports for the Las Vegas Superbook at the Westgate, is in a somewhat similar position to Miller. The Superbook is the only operation under Kornegay’s purview, but it’s a huge operation - the biggest book in town and with nationwide renown.
Particularly for weekly or seasonal offerings, Kornegay said oddsmaking is still very much an in-house operation.
“We take pride in compiling our own events and odds. We still do a lot of that and try to get them up in a timely manner,” Kornegay said. “The day-to-day games (basketball, baseball, etc.) don’t take much, as the offshores open up hours before we do, and those lines have already been bet into. So I agree, that aspect has dwindled over the years. However, the week-to-week, season-to-season offerings are still an art form for us.”
Up in Reno, Nevada, Peppermill director of race and sports Terry Cox says his book monitors a comprehensive consensus line with real-time changes. So the work isn’t in the initial oddsmaking, but in the bookmaking element after the opening line is released, which Kaminsky would say is the case almost everywhere.
“There are decisions about moving lines based on money or based on consensus moves without money,” Cox said. “There is anticipating what local markets will favor. There is instinct in estimating individual customer gaming worth and flexing the limits. There is ‘game protection’ in identifying and eliminating syndicated efforts to circumvent house bet limits.
“This job still requires bookmaking skills. It’s not so much about making the original pointspread. It’s what you do with it once you post it on the board and start taking actual bets on it.”
--
So even among experts who believe oddsmaking is an art form, there is also agreement to varying degrees that the practice is receding. At the same time, the wagering menu has increased exponentially, with all sorts of exotic bets often available, plus prop bets and the expansion of in-game wagering. Even books that outsource their day-to-day or week-to-week odds have to put in the legwork to offer all the other options bettors expect these days, creating a whole new genre of oddsmaking.
“I think as sports betting becomes more popular, there will be more of an appetite for fun bets, props, wagers on things that were never available before,” Simbal said. “And those things need pricing. Sportsbooks have to do that themselves.”
That’s a point skeptics might concede. But again, that’s not the same as setting the initial line on one game, like the upcoming Super Bowl, for instance. Although there are some outliers that Kaminsky is willing to credit, he remains dubious of almost any sportsbook claiming oddsmaking is done in house.
“If you look at any North American sportsbook, tomorrow’s basketball lines will look very similar to BetCRIS’ lines,” he said. “It’s not a coincidence.”
Kaminsky firmly believes oddsmaking has never been anything more than one key outlet originating a number – the Stardust back in its heyday on the Las Vegas Strip and BetCRIS today – and practically all the sportsbooks falling in line afterward.
As he couldn’t state stridently enough:
“It never was a form of art.”
Colin Kelly is a Las Vegas-based contributor for Covers. Follow him on Twitter: @ColinPKelly29.
