Big money: Why NFL lines move

NFL Line Moves

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When NFL season rolls around, the big money rolls in. I'm already pulling money from each paycheck to move into my, "Hell yes, its Sunday!" fund. I'm not a limit player by any means, but limits go up for the NFL, and that means the opportunity to win money goes up.

Do you ever see an NFL line stick at one number with the same amount of juice on either side for the entire week? If you do, your odds screen is probably stuck, because it simply doesn't happen. What causes this? Money. The volume of that money varies. Some books move because they take a lot of bets. Others move because they take a bet from a bettor they respect. Most of them move because another book moved and they don't want to be exposed with their pants down at a bad number.

Who brings the money that causes these line moves? The sharks. The sharps. The wiseguys. The experts. Whatever you want to call them, these are the guys moving NFL lines, and they're doing it mostly on game spreads and overs, because that is where the limits are massive.

How they're doing it is where it gets interesting, though. In the chaos of a Saturday college football, pay attention to the NFL board. While most of us are busy looking one day at a time and trying to figure out who is about to cover the noon Big 10 game, the sharps are jumping in line to lay the hammer on some NFL spreads. If you pay attention to the NFL lines around the time that most college football games kickoff, you'll usually notice movement, and that movement tends to be right more than it is wrong.

When the difference between winning and losing is only a couple percentage points over an entire season, getting a good number is important. Wise guys get that number by identifying weak lines and picking them off before they've been sharpened up come game time. If you want to be profitable betting the NFL, you aren't going to do it betting Sunday morning. Do your homework early and get to a number before the sharp guys move it for everyone.

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