The creation of a series price is one of the most fascinating things in sports bookmaking. It’s a true balancing act of market, expectation and asset management. Handle and liability are the lifelines to the entire process.
We knew the Los Angeles Lakers would be a sizable favorite in the NBA Finals over the Miami Heat. The only question revolved around the series price.
So how does the process start?[[ad:athena]]
“The series price is honestly always going to be a reflection of the point spread to some degree,” Circa Sports sportsbook director Matt Metcalf told NBC Sports. “If you work out the math on the Lakers laying 5 points [every game], it comes out to around Lakers -500 for the series price.”
But Metcalf knew Lakers -500 was too steep, what with the ever-growing love and respect for this underdog Heat team. And maybe people really do love betting against LeBron James. So he just couldn’t open the market that high.
“I ran our numbers and got Lakers -449, which was the true price, but I was building some of our liability into it,” Metcalf analyzed. “We do have a lot of Heat liability on futures. And I kind of like to employ a strategy of letting people lay the pre-series favorite. I’d almost rather take a favorite bet than a dog bet, because a lot of times it’s easier to work with.”
Personally, I think that strategy is quite brilliant. Let customers risk 450 dollars and if Los Angeles takes care of business, they win $100. That’s a whole lot less risk than taking 100 dollar bets to win $375.
“Looking at all those things, I opened Lakers -450,” Metcalf said. “We took some Heat action. I opened a little higher because I thought there were a lot of people out there with big Heat tickets that were probably trying to get down on the Lakers series price. But the betting public seems to really like this Heat team, so maybe I overestimated that. So we had to start dropping it down. We went to +385, then took a big bet at +325 and I moved it all the way down to +270. I even moved the point spread in Game 1 down to Lakers -4.5. I think you’ll see the game price continue to go down.”
I covered multiple NBA Playoffs when a LeBron-led team entered a series complacent and lost the opener. It happened twice with Miami and once with Cleveland against the Chicago Bulls. Then LeBron ripped their hearts out in Games 4, 5 and 6. The Bulls never took King James to a Game 7.
“If Miami wins Game 1, that puts me in a really tough spot to work with that money,” Metcalf explained. “All of a sudden, the series price drops drastically and I’m in a spot where I have all this Heat money and I don’t really want to write Lakers money back because I’m scalping myself. I have to hold that money and hope the Lakers win Game 2 so I get back to a level playing field. Booking the series prices is so unique. You have to almost throw out what you think the price should be to some degree and play more of a strategy game.”
The mathematical gymnastics are extremely intense. That’s why directing a sportsbook is far from a walk in the park. It’s much more complex than just throwing up a number and seeing what sticks.
And there’s no time for error, because there’s big money waiting to strike.
