By now you might know what an odd is and how many types there are, but do you know who sets these odds and how they are calculated?
No need to Google for the answer,
It might be complex at first but the process is more simple that you might think, so simply you as a bettor should be doing it yourself.
The various odds you see for the various matches are set by a person known as an Oddsmaker.
What does a football oddsmaker do?
An Oddsmaker is someone who studies the games, teams and to some extent the players to set the lines accordingly. Bookies and Oddmakers are not the same people. The job of a bookie is to adjust the line set by the Oddsmaker to make the bet equal on both sides of the money line, point spread and other sorts of betting odds till the bet is closed.
How oddsmakers set the odds
For an Oddsmaker to set the odds he goes through a complex process of evaluating numerous variables, some of these variables are:
1. The team’s performance in the past and present season
• For example Liverpool, in the 2012-2013 season the team had a bad first half of the season and then recovered strongly in the second half of the season.
• By season 2013-2014 they kept improving but in the second half of the season the performance was just unbelievable poor.
• Similarly in the present 2014-2015 season they got off to a bad start but are now showing signs of improvement and seem to be turning the season around. So theoretically they should perform better in the second half of the season against teams they had struggled against in the first half.
*As a bettor and football fan, if you had followed the team during these seasons you might have noticed the ups and downs come after player transactions occur. Include a sentence of new players like Suarez and those good ones who left.
2. Home field Advantage
In the world of football or for that fact in any team sport, home support plays an important factor in determining the outcome of the game. There have been instances in the past where the home stadium and its fandom have managed to lift the player’s morale and the course of the match, like in the legendary Champions League final between Liverpool and AC Milan that we have titled “You will never walk alone”. A passionate home crowd is the ideal 12th man to the team.
3. The Weather
Weather plays an important factor in the game of football. For example, if the condition is rainy then the defenders are bound to make mistakes thereby providing the attackers a chance to score. Now days you can place a bet live during the game thanks to online betting sites, this way you can wait till the very start of the match to define how weather affects the odds. Oddsmakers do it and odds do change as events happen before and after the match.
4. Injuries and player’s morale
There is no better example for this than the current Liverpool team. Look at how they are struggling after their star striker Daniel Sturridge went out injured. Sometimes a single player can have more impact to the team with his mere presence than his actual performance on the pitch. A star player returning from injury can greatly boost the morale of the team thereby increasing their performance on the field and the oddsmaker´s odds.
These are just a few of the variables that the oddsmaker needs to consider before setting the odds for a particular match. Most sportsbooks do not assign a single person to set the odds but it will most probably be a team of odds makers that determine the odds for a particular game, and each sport booker has its own odd result, which works to a bettor’s benefit when deciding which sportsbook to place a bet with.
Oddsmaker´s even up the odds, they don’t predict results
The job of an oddsmaker is not to make predictions on the match.
For example, if the oddsmaker has set a point spread of 2 it doesn’t mean he believes the favourites will win by more than two goals. The job of the oddsmaker is to set the spread such that both sides get equal amount of bets, in other words an oddsmaker sets odds so that the bets don’t become one-sided.
Let’s consider a Manchester City vs Hull City match up.
If no point spread is given most bettors would bet on the favourite Manchester City to win the match and if Manchester does in fact win then the bookies will lose a lot of cash from their hands. So an oddsmaker sets the odds to level the playing field.
The odds can be changed during the course of the match to level the bets on both sides. For example:
• At the start of the Manchester City vs Hull city game, a point spread of 2 goals is given to Hull City, meaning Hull City can lose by 1 goal and the bettor wins, by 2 goals it is a push, by 3 goals the bettor loses.
• Five minutes into the Match if Manchester City scores one goal then a lot of bets will start to build on the side of Manchester and the odds change. The bookie at this time sets a new point spread of 3 goals, so now people placing bets on Hull City will need the team to win or not lose by more than 3 goals for the bet to payoff.
Are bets placed before a point spread change affected?
If you have placed a bet for Hull City when the point spread was still at 2 goals then your bet will not be affected by the change in the spread. In fact, you could now place a new bet on the same team and go with Manchester to win by more than 3 goals, this way you hedge your bet.
This technique is called also called middling.
Fun!! Isn’t it?
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