I was looking at the Live odds during the playoff today. After the first shot on the par 3 16th, the second playoff hole, Snedeker went long, Stanley about 40 feet below the hole. 5dimes put out Stanley -165/Sneds +145. This got bet upto -210/+175 by the time Snedeker hit his second shot. I said after the fact I thought +175 was good value. I'm retracting that statement and here is why.
First look at the percentage that one or the other will win on that particular hole.
In order for Snedeker to win, he needed to get up and down (50% was my guess) and Stanley had to 3-putt (5% was my guess). This leaves a 2.5% chance Snedeker wins on that hole. We'll call it 3% in case he holes his pitch.
In order for Stanley to win, he needed to either make his putt (5%) or have Snedeker not get up and down (50%). With those percentages, the chances of one of those two things happening is 47.5%.
If the match continued beyond that hole, I put it back at 50/50 for each player.
In order for Stanley to not win, we have 52.5% that he would not win on the second playoff hole multiplied by 0.5 (the percentage that he would lose if the match continued.
26.25% Sneds would win
73.75% Stanley would win.
This translates to a true line of -280/+280.
So Stanley was good value even at -215, and the quick move from -165 was certainly validated.
This is why bot usage can kill live betting markets. These decisions have to be made in a split second and are far from sharp. Since I was using estimations on a lot of this stuff I would advise a larger gap than you'd normally want between the line offered and what you come up with before making a bet. But if a situation like this arises again, use the commercial breaks to figure out what the line should be given 1 or 2 possible outcomes. There may very well be some value.