College Football Betting Pointspread Moves

Before you place your next bet on the college football betting season make sure and check the pointspread history on the game. That means looking at the NCAA football betting line moves for the entire week on the game in question.

The NCAA football betting lines are set almost a week in advance.  You will see NCAA football betting line moves on games all week long.  Some games won’t move very much while other games can move by as much as three or four points or more in a NCAA football betting season. NCAA football betting pointspreads move because oddsmakers want to have the same amount of money bet on both teams in a game.  That is the technical reason.  The oddsmaker wants money one both sides of a game, but in reality the oddsmakers really want more money on the losing side.  What is supposed to happen with NCAA football betting line moves is that if one team is getting more action than the other, the line will be moved to make the less popular team seem more attractive to the bettor.  That doesn’t always happen though because sportsbooks have their own opinions on games and because some of their action is “smarter” than others.

When you bet on a college football pointspread you have to bet $110 to win $100 or the 11/10 equivalent.  If a NCAA  football betting game is perfectly balanced then the sportsbook makes $10 for every $220 bet regardless of the outcome.  The reasons for line moves are not just action by college football betting players though.  One reason a sportsbook may change their line is if their experts have a strong opinion on the NCAA football betting game which differs from the original line they got from an oddsmaking service.  If the line was set to make one team a favorite, but the sportsbooks feel that the other team should be favored, they could move their line accordingly.  These college football betting lines moves are the ones you see on Sunday night and Monday morning.

Other factors that occur during the week can cause an NCAA football betting line to change.  If the star quarterback for a college team is hurt in practice and has to be replaced then, the NCAA football betting line will move.  The line will be moved at any time in the week if a sportsbook gets hammered with smart money on one side.  They call these “steam moves” and although they sound exciting, they aren’t much better than any other line move.  The line can also move because of public money, though this usually only happens in NCAA football betting games on TV.

Those are some of the reasons you see college football betting pointspreads move at sportsbooks.

 

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