Re: Setting UP A MONEY MIDDLE IN THE LAKERS MATCHUP

 Here's one of the ways pros bet and a recommendation I made to NBA Package subscribers and my Crowne Club members.  Professionals are always seeking to bet middles.  Good middles normally don't exist in great abundance, however.  For that reason, pros will attempt to set some up themselves.  The Syndicates can create their own line movement to set up middles for themselves.  Most of us don't have the money it takes to do that, but there are other methods

The Series line on the Lakers is -260.  If you can get an adjusted series price for the next game, here's how to handle it.  In my opinion, the probability that the Lakers will win tonight combined with the probability that they will win the series was sufficient to take a chance on a money middle set up.    A word of warning, don't bet the Lakers cold in the Series without being able to bet the middles.  It is only the potential for the middle, with the saver on the Lakers winning the series, that makes the bet worthwhile.

I advised subsribers and members to play to win one unit on the Lakers in the series at -260.  That is a $260 risk for a $100 win.  In my my opinion, the Lakers have a better than -260 probability of winning straight up tonight.  That's all I need.  I don't need the Lakers to win the Series.  That's just a saver.

If I am correct, and the Lakers win tonight's game straight up, the adjusted series line after the game will be sufficiently high to set up a nice middle.  For the sake of easy example, let's assume that the line on the Lakers after their win goes up to -410 with a comeback of +360 on Denver.   Books may differ as to their spead, but the spread doesn't matter.  What matters is the increased price on Denver.  

Assuming Denver is now +360, you can place another $100 on Denver.  You now have the following bets for the Series:

Lakers $260 to win $100

Denver $100 to win $360.

If the Lakers win, you win $100 on the Lakers but you lose $100 on Denver for an exact breakeven.  If Denver wins, however, you will win $360 and lose $260 for a riskless $100 win once the Lakers win the first game.   If you don't think the Nuggest will win the Series, instead o f weighting things toward the Nuggets, you can give yourself a free bet on the Lakers.  Simply take the amount you risked on the Lakers the night before and divide by the odds on Denver in the next game.  In this example, I would divide the $260 I risked on LA by the +360 odds we postulated for Denver after the Lakers win the first game.  260/360 = $72.  I would now bet $72 on Denver at +360.

 My bets are:

Lakers $260 to win $100

Denver $72 to win $259.

Now if Denver wins I will win $259 on Denver and lose $260 on LA for a tiny minus of one baby dollar.   If the Lakers win, however, I get a win of $100 and I lose $72 on Denver, for a net risk-free profit of $28.  Doesn't sound like much?  Show the bond or account out there that will return $28 on every $360 invested in 2-3 weeks.  That's the equivalent of over 100% interest per year.  The only risk is that the 6 1/2 point favorite Lakers will lose straight up tonight, and if the Lakers should happen to lose tonight, I and my Pregame subscribers still haven't lost.

If the Lakers don't win tonight's game, they still may get the lead in games at some point in the Series, thereby giving me an opportunity to set up the profitable middle after one of the later games.  If the Series winds up tied going into the 7th game, I will normally be able to bet Denver on the money line for the final game and break even no matter who wins the Series.  Of course if the Lakers win the Series and I haven't evened out I will win the $100.  In essence, my riks is that the Lakers don't win tonight, don't ever take the lead in the Series and lose the Series.  All three things must happen for me to lose my bet.  At any point that any ONE of the three does happen, I have no further risk at all and I will get free money. 

As far as I'm concerned, having to get a win on one proposition against losing only if three propistions all lose, is an excellent bet.  That's why pros bet that way.   When you need to live on your winnings, you want to take the risk possible for the best return.you cn get for that risk.     

By the way, instead of setting things up so that you either win or break exactly even, by sacrificing some return you can set the middle up so that you win no matter which team takes the Series.

Just bet an amount on Denver that is exactly between the breakeven amounts.  In our example we calculated the break even $100 ir se like Denver to win the Series, and $72 if we like LA to win the Series.  That's a $28 differential. To bet an amount in the middle we divide the $28 difference by 2 and then add the $14 to the $72 or subtract it from the $100.  That gives us an $86 bet on Denver.

Se now have the following bets with absolutely no risk:

LA $260 to win $100.

Denver $82 to win $295.

If the Lakers win the Series, I win $100 on the Lakers and lose $82 on Denver, for a net profit of $18.

If the Nuggets win the Series, I win $295 on Denver and lose $260 on the Lakers, for a net profit of $35.

I'm a guaranteed winner either way, just so long as the Series is played to completion. 

Note:  This was posted to explain how to set up money middles.  It was purposely posted after the Lakers game started because a number of things can change what I do from what I predicted here.  For instance, if the Lakers look like an excellent propostion to win the second game, I may recommend that subsribers wait until after the second game to set up a much bigger middle.  If something happens, such as a serious injury, that makes me believe after the Lakers lose tonight that they will lose the Series, I may make other hedging recommendations to even out or mitigate the damage.  In a situation involving several bets, such as this one, simply making a pick or a recommendation and then abandoning everyone is like those stock touts on TV who tell you to buy a stock, never tell you when to sell and then if the recommendation goes bad tell you afterward that you should have sold earlier.  I don't want to recommend a play here and then have to tell that subsribers and I did differently.  I put the information up here so that you can learn to set up your own middles in the NBA, the NHL or any series at another time based on your own assessments.  My purpose was merely to teach the mechanics.

bkwesq

I have never read a "middle" explained quite that way. It seems like a safe bet, not a true middle. You would have to risk 10x the amounts you listed to make it interesting.

It is an artificially created middle and therefore less safe than a true middle.  A true middle is one that exists on its own.  For instance, you find one bookmaker with LA -260 and another bookmaker with Denver +270 both existing at the same point in time.  You can then arbitrage the difference by simultaneously by betting $260 to win $100 on LA and $100 to win $270 on Denver.  If Denver wins you collect the $10 and if Denver loses you lose $0.  It is a truly riskless bet.  As a result, when that is found, I will bet as much as possible without moving the line.  Since only one "out" is usually offering the line that is the aberration in such a bet, you are limited only by what that bookmaker will allow you to bet on that line, and of course the amount of money you have.   Sometimes, you will find that the reason the book with the offline has the out of whack line is because he is overloaded on the other side.  As a result, he may give a very large limit because you are betting the side he needs to get to even his action.  You are acting as his layoff house.  Still, you are only winning $10 for every $360, and a mere $1000 if you can get in $36,000 between both sides or the bet. 

The way you have to look at it is that you are taking 0 risk and getting 2.77% interest per day.  If you invest in riskless Treasury Notes you will get only 1/4% per YEAR right now.  The 2.77% per day is the equivalent of  over 1000% per year.  That is very interesting.

The problem with true money middles is that they are very rare.  But my attitude is, if I see a $100 bill in the street,  I will never snub my nose at it.  

Creating a money middle is a low risk bet, but unlike a true middle, it is not a riskless one.  There are a certain number of times that the trifecta against me will come in, and I'll be scrambling to even out by playing the money line dog in the last game, and usually I will be scrambling just to hedge off before that because the series may never get to that 7th game.  The created middle, however, has much less risk than a bet on the game or bet on the series, and because it is low risk it can be bet for larger amounts than game bets or a regular series bet.

Besides, in general, sports betting is a grind and not a get-rich-quick scheme.  If I am an excellent handicapper in football, I can expect to hit around 57%.  To make the numbers easy, lets pretend I win 57.3%.  The breakeven  for lined sports is 52.3%.   My excellent handicapping ability gives a mere 10% net edge.  If I make $100 bets my net expected profit per game will be the same $10 as I can expect to make on the true middle.  I can expect a maximum of $100 if I am willing to stick with the Denver series possibility.  Based on the $360 I needed to put up if I were a $100 player, that would be a return of $27 per $100 instead of the $10 per $100 that I get as a 57.3% handicapper making a game bet.  Not only is that 2.7 times more interesting, but I am taking less risk for the return.

It is always the case that if you want to make big money betting sports, you must bet big money.  If you are betting big money and must live on the results, it is much more comfortable taking small risks with big money than big risks with big money, especially if you are going to get a potentially bigger long term return.  

 They made me sweat, but the Lakers eeked out the Game 1 victory.  It should be a riskless situation from here on.  I'll let you know here what I do once I see the new Series odds.  After watchi8ng the Lakers play in the first game, trying for the biggest win by betting the full breakeven amount on Denver is starting to look more attractive than it did before the first game.  .

It was a strange game.  At the end of the half the Lakers had taken 52 shots to just 38 for Denver and they still trailed in the game.  There were 109 points in the first half, and the game went under 214 1/2 easily anyway.   

There's only a handful of people on the entire net working at the level Rob is with sports betting.

I read in detail Robs post.  Needless to say it was impressive, although I assume "alittle sweat" in game 1 might have been an understatement. 

That was close buddy..thank God George Karl has not taught his team how to throw an inbounds pass yet!

Tony George

I assume "alittle sweat" in game 1 might have been an understatement. 

That was close buddy..thank God George Karl has not taught his team how to throw an inbounds pass yet!

 A quick word on tonight's Clevelan/Orlando game.  Even though Cleveland is 42-2 straight up at home, and trying to create a middle might work, the odds are too high at -800.  The breakeven is an 89% probability that Cleveland will win, and there is no value in that.  In addition, if Clevland does win, the odds may so prohibitively high on them to win the Series after the first game that your book will not post it, and then you will be stuck with no way to middle.  In addition, the amount of money you need to tie up for several weeks at these odds, compared to the amount you stand to win is simply too low.  The higher the odds the lower your return will normally be for various reasons, including the higher the odds the larger the spread in the odds when you need to bet the middle (the more the book takes the less you get) and the higher the odds often the lower the probability that the most lucrative situation of the underdog winning the Series will normally be.