Sportsbook Line Management for Dummies

Saying “I want to be a bookie” is but the first step of many that you will take if you want to own your own sportsbook. It takes learning about sports, about gambling, time management, customer service, and, most importantly, line management. So what exactly is line management, and how do you manage your lines? We’ll give you the simplest explanation to help you understand the concept of this in our sportsbook line management guide.

Sportsbook Line Management

In its simplest definition, you, as a bookie, will manage the lines, or the odds that you have in your sportsbook pay per head. So, each event or game will have multiple betting options. For example, you have a game that will offer odds on the moneyline, over/under, the spread, prop bets, parlays, and more. Each of those wagers will need to be managed by the bookie.

The beauty about having a good sportsbook software is you can see which ones have action, so you can try to ensure that you win money from the event. A bookie usually collects a vig from each player for each game. This is your payment as a bookie. You can actually earn more if you have more losers than winners in a given bet.

How to Manage your Lines

Your goal is to get as much as a balance between the two sides of a bet. Let’s say that in a game between the Lakers and the Nuggets, there are more wagers favoring the Lakers. If the Nuggets win, you get more since there is a surplus in payout money. But if the Lakers win, then you wont have enough money from the losing bets to cover the winning bets. This will mean you need to pay from your own bankroll.

So what happens when there are more people betting on the Lakers than the Nuggets? This is where moving your lines comes in. You can read through some bookie tutorials to understand the particulars of line movement. As mentioned earlier, you have more people wagering on the Lakers, right? If you want to even it out, you can move the line so that it becomes more favorable for people to bet on the Nuggets instead. That way, more people will go for betting on the Nuggets. You can never get 100% equal amounts between wagers, but you should try to aim for that.