Thanks for the info.
If a steamer is a guy who watches for a sharp line movement and then bets with the majority, I can't imagine why the books would be afraid of that. When Northcoast releases their plays on Saturday morning, by the time the Northcoast subscribers listen to the recording and phone their bet into the book, the line has always moved against them. Someone watching for that line movement and jumping on the bandwagon would not profit from this, just as Northcoast's subscribers don't profit. At the end of the day, Phil Steele's organization is pretty close to .500. I've followed those clowns for years and there is no reason to bet on any of their plays in my opinion. So a steamer who's following line moves blindly might follow some good plays, but he'll also be following plays from clowns like Phil Steele. At the end of the day, he'd be lucky to hit 52%, in my opinion.
The Phil Steele example above is exactly why Millennium has no problem holding the lines for the Northcoast herd. Millennium has been booking Phil's bets for years with great profitability. Especially if the herd has read Ten Keys and they're adjusting their bet size every week.
Another thing thats puzzling about all this is the fact that the books won't take large wagers until just a few hours before the game. $500 is the limit on college football Monday through Friday. Then, on Saturday morning, if you want real action, they'll take it. Makes more sense to me that they'd want the large action early so they could adjust the lines and get the sides more evenly balanced. A guy phoning in a large wager an hour before kick off doesn't give the book much chance at finding more action on the other side with a more favorable number.
The fact that Betmill says they don't allow syndicate play, yet go out of their way to accommodate the Northcoast herd, tells me that they will ban any gambler at any time for any reason. Maybe it's just a disguise to keep them from paying out large dollar bonuses. Oh, we see that you've earned 90% of the $5,000 sign up bonus, so now it's time we ban you for being a 'syndicate' player. I'm not saying that's what they do, but one of the BOS books started placing limits on me last fall when I got close to earning a $6,000 sign up bonus.
Later,
Books Worst Enemy