How do sportsbooks establish odds for the Super Bowl?
Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz and Frank Schwab discuss how point spreads are created — including how some simple math and “sharp money” set the lines for bettors everywhere.
Video Transcript
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JASON FITZ: He's Frank Schwab. I'm Jason Fitz. We are at the Yahoo Sportsbook inside the Venetian Resort, Las Vegas. Frank, everybody's going to be talking about gambling coming into the Super Bowl, obviously, but the curious part for me is, how do they even figure out how these point spreads are set?
FRANK SCHWAB: It's really interesting. It's something most people never think about, right? It's just minus 2, minus 3, whatever it is. It starts with the power rating. The Sportsbook managers who set the lines, they have a rating for each team.
And it usually starts with 100. 100 is the best team. Somebody like the 1985 Bears might be like up to 110. But they just take the difference-- it's very simple math. The difference between the two power ratings is where they start.
Now, then you start to factor in other things, right? Home field advantage, weather, injuries, how a team is playing-- a lot goes into it, but it starts with the power rating. It starts really with science and then it becomes art a little bit, trying to figure out where to settle this line so they can get pretty even action on both sides.
JASON FITZ: I do have to point out that the goal for the casino is to make sure-- the Sportsbook wants to make sure that there is action on both sides of all of this.
FRANK SCHWAB: Absolutely. Because it's minus 110 if you've placed a bet, you know that that minus 110, they're making that 10% vigorish on those bets.
How it changes though, it's usually sharp money. It's not-- if a ton of money comes in on one side or the other, they don't really move that much on that. But if some sharp players, they have about five to 10 sharp players that they come in, they play big on one side, that's going to move the line sometimes a half point, sometimes a point, or other things.
News on injuries or something like that can change. Weather can sometimes affect the line. But usually, it's sharp money. When you see a line move from 2 to 2.5, it's usually because a sharp player hit one side.
But sometimes there's some sharp players out there that don't play a ton of money but they still respect them so much they'll move the line just on that.
JASON FITZ: The base question here and the simple question, because everybody sits here and says, well, the 49ers have been here so many times. So we want to talk about Brock Purdy. We want to talk about Mahomes. But at the end of the day, they decided the 49ers are the favorite in this game. Why?
FRANK SCHWAB: Correct. I've heard so often this week, why are the Chiefs not favored? Well, it's because the sportsbooks think the 49ers are the better team. They're power rated higher. So they came out at minus 2 and it's going to move a little bit and move to minus 1.5, back up to 2.5 based on some play, sharp play, pretty much. But probably going to settle in at minus 2. But that's how it was made.
JASON FITZ: You and I like to dabble, right? But so much of that can be based on how you feel, like a gut sense, or it can be based on, well, my common sense just tells me Mahomes, right? There's all these things. Math doesn't apply common sense or intuition, or gut feel, or just emotion around the moment.
FRANK SCHWAB: Betting with your heart, right? That's what a lot of people do. But in this case, they want to make sure they're not getting hammered with 49ers money. Does it make the Chiefs a favorite? No, they figured this was the right play. This was the right line to get even action on both sides.
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