Wild Bill,
As always, I cant comment on US books. As far as Eurpoean books are concerned, its pretty much the French saying, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Some of these books have been doing business since the early 1900s and have established a code of practice. Although the big books do not appear to be gamblers, in reality they live and die on the merits of the odds-makers they employ. Some of the smaller firms will be successful at certain sports, which soon becomes apparent to the rest, so odds movement is rapid.
To give you an example, back in the early 80s there was a bookie in London with one shop, scraping a living. Because he was crazy on NFL, he decided to advertise prices in the racing papers. The big firms were probably getting an opening line from the states and would not touch it for the rest of the Week. This guy would adjust the spreads on the games he had an opinion on and it wasnt long before Punters were jumping on his success. As I have said before, this was in the Days when I could walk into a shop and bet the Thanks-giving games the following Saturday. After a short while, the big books realised their inadequacies, bought his shop for well over the market value and hired him as an advisor.
Another point that is not taken on board is some of the high rollers the big firms have, which make a mockery of the odds. While working with Ladbrokes years ago, at a Cricket Test, one of the Directors put out a price of 1/10 West Indies, which at the time needed 1 more wicket to win with a whole days play to go, a certainty. The bets were coming fast and furious, £10s, £20s etc, when I questioned his reasoning he replied, give it 5 minutes and all will be revealed. Within 5 minutes in walked a Man I later found out was a S.African diamond merchant and a keen Cricket fan, he promptly asked and got £200,000 on. The Director told me later that by giving out that price, he was securing the Gentlemans account, which apparently, lost on average £50,000 a Week.
