Right... that's why its called a holiday.

Surely technology has gotten to the stage where you could.

Could, theoretically, yeah. But in terms of practical application, I can't get info fast enough remotely to even work from home, which is behind the office. A lot of what I do has to do with intuition and it's hard to figure this stuff out without being right in the thick of it, without seeing it all come in.

So holidays, I can take. Just not during football season. Or March Madness.

So what exactly is your role where you work?

Posting on Loaded-Gun.Com ...

So what exactly is your role where you work?

You know the guy that sits and watches all of the screens in the Matrix?

All siko sees is blonde, brunette, redhead...

... and this:

So what exactly is your role where you work?

You know the guy that sits and watches all of the screens in the Matrix?

That's not actually that far off.

But I mean, what do you do? You're not a handicapper, are you? Do you adjust the line? Why would it be so crucial that you take the bets unless either you adjust the line or it's a one man show.

Oh, sorry, I dunno what happened to the rest of my post there...

No, I'm not a handicapper. There aren't many books that keep their own dedicated handicapper on staff anymore, not since the advent of the internet and availability of so much more information. That said, anyone worth their salt in this industry will do a little bit of handicapping when needed, and a general understanding of probabilities and statistics is necessary. Not so much for making up lines but for figuring out what a given team's odds to win something should be, for example. It's always good to have an idea if the odds you're giving out are at least roughly what they ought to be, instead of just blindly following the rest of the industry.

As for what I do - I sit in front of six computer screens, each with various functions. One is my workstation, from which I move lines, take bets, set up new games, grade existing games, etc. Another is an identical workstation for my co-worker, who does much the same as I do.

More on that:

All told there are three of us main managers and another five sub-managers. Between us we cover 6am - 1am, 7 days a week. Two of the sub-managers' main job is to stay late and grade the remaining games in the schedule. The main managers pretty much never work past the start of the last game of the night. For really important/busy times, like college football or basketball Saturdays, with their huge slate of games, or NFL Sundays, two main managers work together to keep up with everything that's going on. At less busy times, it's usually a main manager with a sub-manager, because it's a waste to have two strong people working with not much to do.

So yeah, a co-worker and I sit at a long desk, each with a workstation, with another four computers between us. Those computers are for running the various line-tracking programs that let us compare our lines against everyone else's, and keep us up to date on line trends, injuries, suspensions, and so forth. We also have a program that shows us all the bets coming in from the floor (clerks taking calls) and the internet, and a program showing us line moves within our office (there are triggers that can be attached to people's accounts to automatically move the line, depending on what sports they're good at).

So yeah, that's what I do. I watch the bets come in, move the line accordingly, or move it back if necessary. I try to balance the book as much as possible, unless we have info one way or the other, in which case we try to attract more action on the side less likely to win, according to our information. When not doing these things I set up upcoming games, grade (put the scores in) games that are over, put up lines on halftimes, etc. When not doing that stuff, I'm posting here.

Wow, that was long and boring.

That sounds like a lot of work. Reading that post made my mind start creating a Guy Ritchie movie!

I've heard two different things about lines... The first is that the object of the line is to get the bets spread 50/50 between teams so the books can avoid big losses and make their money on the juice.

The other thing I've heard is that the above is bullshit, the REAL objective of the line is to get as many people on the wrong side as possible.

Is there anything you can confirm or deny?

They're both true. Just not at the same time, obviously.

On a random, not very strongly bet game (your average hockey or baseball game, for example), or on a hugely bet game like the Super Bowl or NCAA Championship game or whatever, you see more of that "balance the books, play it straight, just pick up the juice" philosophy, because there's going to be so much money bet on it that making either side particularly attractive to anyone is a recipe for either an enormous payday or an enormous loss. At this point you're just rolling the dice, which you always do to an extent, but it's not healthy in the long run. The truth of it is that almost always you'll have a side you need, because there's always a team that people generally like more in any given game. So on big games like that, or the aforementioned little games nobody really cares about, you play it straight, take your 10% advantage, and win in the long run.

On games that are bet more but not huge, games with injuries, games with more extreme weather - that's where you get info and take stands. Bear in mind that the entire industry's lines are created and manipulated by a relatively small set of people, so often games are set up for "the right people" to get good numbers, while the public remains clueless. The trick is to figure out who's in the know, who's statistically very good at certain things, or who just seems to be good at handicapping their own stuff, and use their information against everyone else. So you limit those guys to smaller bets, move the line towards what they bet, and win with them. That's the intuitive part of the job. You're working with information, trying to interpret it as best you can, and making educated guesses about the games. When it becomes tricky is when you have two people who are both very good bet against each other!

sorry I couldn't come, I was working : /

sorry I couldn't come, I was working : /

Weren't there enough T-girls on your corner that night?

I think you mean trannies, not girls.

Fixed.

Who? The trannies?

Relevant to a conversation I held with Emp:
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/04/ripping-into-a-catalyst.ars