Baseball Futures
Value was once comparatively easy to come by in a baseball futures book. Nowadays, this is no longer the case.
These days futures are posted almost immediately after the 'grand finale' of any major sport, not just baseball. Sometimes
the following season's prices are even posted before the completion of the current one.
Maybe this should tell us something, there has to be more to it than the sportsbook simply giving superb
service to their betting customers, they are in the business of making money after all!
The reason why sportsbooks love putting out a baseball futures book right after the World Series, is simply because
it is good business for them - the book commission percentage is heavily weighted in their favour - far more so than in daily
match-ups for instance.
In the old days there was some value to be had but then in the early Nineties a couple of teams made the World Series
final having started at odds of betwenn 100/1 and 150/1. Pretty much there and then the bookmakers decided to tighten
the book to a ridiculous degree, so that a 40% vig for a book was fairly normal. Ouch.
Add to that the fact that many bookmakers weren't managing their
futures books properly in that they would shorten the price
on popular teams but fail to lengthen odds on less favored teams to attract more action. The result was that
book percentages spiralled upwards out of control and no money came in for the teams.
It is still a mystery to many, why the sportsbooks went into a state of panic in the first place simply because a couple of
big priced teams came in - don't the sportsbooks make enough money on any given betting day to more than cover a few bets
on a 100/1 shot? They then proceeded to shoot themselves in the foot by over-compensating going forward from that point
and offering no real value to the public, in what should be a fun market to get involved in.
That is not to say that you cannot make money betting baseball futures, it's just that it is a lot harder, and you want to
make sure that your estimate outdoes the book by at least 20% - which means that good bets will be a lot harder to find.
For example: On a 16/1 chance you will need to look for 19/1 or greater; on a 20/1 chance you will want to find 25/1 or greater; on a
40/1 chance, you would want at least 50/1 or greater and so on.
There are other techniques that you can use to find value. By default, a baseball futures book has to offer prices right up until
the World Series, so prices are available throughout the long season. You might find that a team that you were looking
at pre-season at 20/1 - that you did not bet because no value existed at that time - is doing quite well. You see that
a lot of books have cut the price to between 12/1 and 14/1. Again, you feel this price is about right and offers no real
value but then you find a sportsbook still offering the 20/1 and you have an excellent bet on team that you like and one that
is doing well.
Another method to find some edge in baseball futures is look at favorite teams being 'dumped' by the public after a poor start to the season and whose odds
may have moved from a favorite's price of 5/1 to e.g. 8/1. Most teams have their ups and downs during a season and it
could be that the favorite is just having its bad spell early on. The 8/1 could be an absolute bargain and you would probably
wait to time your entry in line with a change in form and/or a series of games that they would be expected to win.
In summary, things are not what they once were in the baseball futures market but if you look hard you can still find
value, especially if the sportsbook is committed to keeping its lines updated and managing its prices properly.
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