how do you determine what's a "good" line

If I were to make some lines...how do I know if they are "accurate"?

Should a person betting all the faves lose the same as a person betting all the dogs?

Or should it be, no matter what you bet, you average a 5% loss per game?

Just want to evaluate my own linemaking. Any help appreciated.

You should deal at least 2 lines.

You'll need a square & vanilla line.

It doesn't matter if you play dogs or favs.. if you play into the real line, without any line edge, you will end up losing very very close to 4.55% over the very long haul. It just has to happen. It is impossible for this not to happen, no matter how lucky or unlucky you are . But when i say the long haul, I mean 100,000 games, not 100 or 1000, because anyone can get lucky and win over 1000 games, or even 5,000.. But over 100,000 plays at betting into the real line, NO BETTOR HAS A CHANCE. The vig will just catch up to you...

history is not a good predictor of future events.

the bookmaker is beaten in the short term, as they are typically slow to 'catch up' to the current day-to-day values.

using values from over 3 years ago is not a good predictor AT ALL. the game has changed, the personell has changed, the rules have changed, the playbook has changed, the athletic prowess has changed, even the vig has changed as does the value of bookmaker's opinions etc, etc, etc.

even the value of a half point is constantly changing. it is different by team, it is different in the beginning of a season than later on, it is different off of different key numbers, it is different off of different totals, it is different by year.

If you are trying to beat the oddsmaker, one of the best things to do is handicap every game that you possibly can. Formulate an opinion, record this opinion, track it over time, and review the results to see if you had the right side but a random occurrence caused a loss, or if you missed something or didnt put enough emphasis on it. The more lines and results that you see and remember the better. After a while you will start to see correlations that lead you into identifying value. A well trained human mind is much more powerful and effective than any computer.

If you want to line games in order to book them to the public, use the above and shade the lines to match your opinion. It also helps to know your customers. A lot depends on what kind of action you are getting or want, and limits versus financial backing. Just my opinion.

I try to look at whether i got the best of the bet. If i take a side and then there is a better line available, i figure i did not get the best bet.

drunkguy,

At first you should probably just try to balance your book so you minimize your risk. Then, as you get experience, note which teams your customers tend to overbet and then take some one-sided action on these to increase profits. If you want to get into serious handicapping, then you probably want to be a player rather than a bookie.

I'm just a fairly educated player with no bookmaking experience, so take my opinion for what it's worth (ie. not much)

Bigger the better... IMO