Line Shopping For Profits Articles | Gambling

By: Richard Bleuze

One common mistake that many bettors make is that they only utilize one sports book when making their smart sports picks.  This is a critical mistake that can be the difference between a winning and losing season.  Spreading money across several different sports books allows bettors to shop for lines as well as shop for prices.  The difference between placing a bet in one sports book instead of another can quite often be the difference between going big or going broke.

“Shopping for lines” simply means that a sports bettor can compare the odds between different online sports books.   Assume a person had only one account with 5Dimes.   They would be forced to place their bet on a higher line and  they would thus not have made as much money on the bet they spent so much time researching.  Why?  Because they did not want to spend the five minutes to diversify their money across various sports books after making their sports picks.  This sports bettor did not make as much money on his bet because of faulty information, miscalculations, or an unexpected performance by his team; he made less money on his bet simply because he did not shop for the best line when making their baseball and other smart sports picks.

Line shopping is one of the most powerful tools available to a sports bettor.  To "beat" sports betting, you must line shop, period.   I would go as far as to say that I know many more winning bettors who are simply good at line shopping than I know people who can reliably pick winners.  It's truly that important to your success.

Most people hold the common misconception that all it takes is picking winners.  For sure, if you can pick winners at a staggeringly improbable clip, you can definitely make serious money doing so -- but there are only a handful of handicappers in the world who are good enough to win purely on their picks over the long run.

Equally as important as picking the correct side to bet -- actually, even more important than picking the right side to bet -- is finding the best available price to bet, finding the best available line.

Another reason the intelligent investor will open various different sports books accounts is to take advantage of all the different aspects that each different sports book offers.

A sports bettor might also want a very large sports book with fast payouts and good customer service.  In addition, a sports bettor might want a sports book that offers a casino, horse racing, or poker room.   A sports book like this would allow the sports bettor who not only bets on sports but also plays poker and bets on horses to solve all of his problems with one sports book.  Therefore, the sports bettor would not need to transfer money between a sports book and a poker room, the bettor can solve all of his needs with one sports book.

This process of line shopping does have one major downside besides the additional time it takes to be able to take advantage of your line shopping.  That downside is that you obviously must have funded accounts set up at multiple books.  This obviously requires a larger initial deposit; perhaps this is the main reason new bettors don't take advantage of this powerful technique.  However, having access to the best line is perhaps the largest obstacle preventing the initial success of someone betting sports, and ties in to one of the worst sins: poor bankroll management

The fact is that every different sports book offers something uniquely different.  Whether their strength be low vig, great lines, early lines, in-game-wagering, fast payouts, great customer service, or a variety of different options, no two sports books are the same.  This is why it would be impossible for a bettor to take advantage of all the great options out there if they had only one sports book.

In sports betting, getting the best line available is almost as important as  money management. The idea behind line shopping is that the sports bettor should look through many different sports books and find the best odds for the game.

If you are a serious sports bettor and want to start making large profits, cutting down on unneeded expenses such as large juice and losses due to bad lines, line shopping is the fastest way to increase your chances at winning.