Beating Four Dollar Lines: A Survey of Online Baseball Futures by Colin Caster

Everyone who bets baseball has heard the term "dime line", which refers to a reduced band of vigorish. Specifically, in a dime line, the underdog is priced ten "cents" below the favorite. So if the favorite is -145, the underdog is +135; if the favorite is -105, the dog is -105. In football point spread wagering, of course, the bettor usually wagers 11 to win 10 (-110) on either the underdog getting points or the favorite laying points, so standard football vig is "20 cents". Sharp bettors used to -110 rightly grumble on the occasions when they have to pay -115 because the house take is so much harder to overcome in the long run. Proposition bettors who see -125/-125 lines sometimes pass altogether.

How, then, would you like to play into a -150/-150 line? We might call this a "dollar line", and the book offering it could expect opprobrium from bettors. How about a -200/-200 line? Unthinkable, right? Wrong. Welcome to the world of futures betting, in which sports books don't for a second blush at putting up lines whose house take rivals that of your local lottery.

I recently surveyed the books on Sportbook Review's recommended list and found that, of the nine books currently offering MLB pennant and world series futures lines, the return ranged from 64 to 85 cents on the dollar, which corresponds to a range of money lines from -143 (5Dimes.com's AL pennant futures) to -346 (Bodog's NL pennant futures). [ See technical notes at the bottom of this article for information on how to compute return on the dollar and equivalent money line. ]

As you can see in the table above, there is a good deal of variability across books in terms of the vig they are willing to keep for themselves. 5Dimes is most generous for AL futures, NL futures, and World Series futures, returning an average of 81 cents on the dollar (ML equivalent of -163). Bodog is most penurious in each set of futures bets, returning an average 66 cents on the dollar (ML equivalent of -306; pull tabs, anyone?). [ See technical notes for further information on survey methodology. ]

It should also be evident that World Series futures are less generous than either set of pennant futures. It is not uncommon to see futures bets with more betting options pay out less than futures bets with fewer options. Along with the more extreme bankroll swings associated with World Series futures betting (inherent in the higher payoffs), this is a good reason to prefer pennant futures betting to championship betting.

So should we give up on futures betting as a rip off? Not necessarily. High vig is sometimes seen with softer lines. That is, books sometimes feel constrained to increase expected house take on offerings about which they are less certain. They may need more of a "buffer" against sharps taking advantage of soft lines. Some books do not update their futures lines very frequently, leaving generous lines available on a team that goes on a hot streak. Furthermore, a sharp bettor understands that the lines offered by a single book are not his effective lines. Because the sharp bettor shops for the best line, he can consider the best line available on each betting option across a variety of books offering the same set of bets.

Consider the AL pennant futures. By finding the best line on each available team we can construct our own, reduced-vig betting structure:

As you can see in the table above, I've skimmed just the very best lines at each book. In my set of nine books, the Yankees are offered at a range from -180 (BetWWTS) to +110 (VIPsports). This huge difference benefits me because BetWWTS' stinginess on its Yankees offering is compensated by generosity in its offerings on Boston, Chicago, and Texas. So I disregard its New York line and focus on those that are most favorable to me. You'll also note that some sportsbooks are not represented above at all. Specifically, Bodog, WSEX, Intertops, and Canbet are so stingy with their futures that no AL offering from them is best among this group of sportsbooks. Note, however, that overall generosity need not result in extreme bet prices. 5Dimes, for example, tends to be generous overall, but they tend also to post very conventional lines. Books that are generally stingy with futures may occasionally offer good prices on selected teams.

The result of this cherry-picking is a set of bet offerings that has a return of 98 cents on the dollar, equivalent to a two-team money line of -104! There is now so little house edge that competent handicapping on my part can easily exploit the weakest of these lines. Occasionally, futures bet sampling of this kind constructs a betting structure that returns a positive expectation, i.e., more than one dollar returned on the dollar. With such a structure, competent handicapping is not even necessary to expect a long term profit. Obviously, the more books you include in your shopping, the likelier it is that you will find a profitable futures betting structure.

We've gone here from Bodog's outrageous "four dollar" futures lines to futures bets with a positive expectation. But this is only one part of the equation for maximizing futures winnings. Competent handicapping and quantitative analysis, such as that you can find in the discussions at SharpSportsBetting.com (how's that for subtle?), can help you discern which betting options should be ignored and which are likely to result in profit.

Enjoy the rest of the baseball season!

Return on the dollar can be calculated by converting each futures price to a probability, summing the probabilities, and taking the inverse of the sum. For example, the return on the dollar for a three-way presidential race between Bush -110, Kerry -105, and Nader +900 would be calculated like this: Bush (110/(100+110)) = .524, Kerry (105/(100+105)) = .512, Nader (100/(100+900)) = .100, giving us a sum of .524 + .512 + .100 = 1.136, the inverse of which is .88. Therefore, this set of futures bets returns only 88 cents on the dollar; 12% is kept by the house.

Equivalent money line can be calculated from return on the dollar (provided return does not exceed a dollar) using the following formula: 50 / (return on the dollar - .5). So in the presidential race example, 50 / (.88 - .5) = -131.

Survey methodology notes - At this late point in the season some books do not offer futures odds on teams that have an unrealistic chance of winning the pennant or World Series (e.g., Arizona). Because it is not possible to compare books fairly when different sets of teams are included in the futures bet, I considered only teams that were common to every book surveyed. The omission of some teams means that overall estimates of return on the dollar are biased high. However, because the occasional bet offerings on these teams (e.g. 30-1 at Bodog on Milwaukee to win the NL pennant) are essentially sucker bets, estimates are not likely to be too far off.