It’s and old adage called the law of Supply and Demand.  Basically stated it means that if the supply of some object remains constant, the market value (or PRICE) of that commodity (or object) is directly proportional to the demand for it.  As demand increases, price increases.  As demand diminishes, the price falls.

The same is true for the sports betting market.  As the demand for a bet goes up, so does the price for it.  You pay more for the bets everybody wants.  If everyone is clamoring to get their money down on a particular team, the price on that bet is going to go up.  So then, who does everybody want to bet on? 

The Favorite.

Everybody wants to bet on the team that looks like it will win.  Its only natural.  Who wants to put their money down on a team likely to lose?  But as everyone piles onto the favorite, the price on their betting line moves.  It gets worse and worse.  The betting line moves from -200 to -220 to -240.  Your payout odds get longer and longer as more everybody gets their money down on the favorite.

What happens to the price on the underdog as the price on the favorite gets worse?  It gets better!  If the Chalk price is moving from -200 to -220 to -240, the dog price is moving from +180 to +200 to +220.  The terms on betting the underdog are getting better and better.

Huge swings in the betting line are an indication of which way the money is coming in on that line.  Sportsbooks are well aware of this and they try to compensate by predicting how much money will eventually come in on the favorite, and then they set the opening line accordingly.  That way they do not have to adjust it so much as the money comes in.  They are usually pretty good at that, but not always.  Sometimes they must make substantial adjustments in the wagering line in order to set the proper market price for the event.

The steeper the favorite, the more skewed the line tends to become - and the better the price offered on the underdog.  This makes betting on big underdogs a big value.

Read on to find out why you won’t consistently bet on big underdogs even though they are a much better betting value than betting favorites.