Steam detection: what 'sharp money' actually looks like

Coordinated moneyline and spread moves across the sharp operators inside a 5-minute window. What an event looks like, how a spread move is weighted by the key numbers, and what we filter out as noise.

Updated 2026-10-02: the examples are illustrations.

Every minute while NFL games are inside the next seven days we pull current moneylines and spreads from the sharp operators: Pinnacle and BetOnline today (LowVig is BetOnline's reduced-juice skin, so the two count as one operator). When two of them move the same game the same way by ≥2pp inside a 5-minute window, that's a steam event. We log it, dispatch it to a Slack webhook, and surface it on /trust/steam: the public view lists moves that settled more than two hours ago, and a Pro account sees them live (pricing). On a spread the size of a move is not its number of points but what those points are worth. Measured from 2,939 regular-season games against one league-wide margin distribution, the same for every game, a half-point is worth about 4.8pp onto the key number 3, about 2.2pp onto 6, about 2.8pp onto 7 and about 0.5pp from 8.5 to 9: what the margin table measures at that number, not a prediction of any one alert's size. A half-point onto 3, 6 or 7 clears the 2pp bar on its own; onto 4, 10 or 14 does not; most half-points away from the key numbers are not.

What steam actually looks like

An illustration, not a log excerpt. The two moves that make up one steam event:

11:42 ET  KC@LAR  h2h/away  +3.2pp  Pinnacle
11:43 ET  KC@LAR  h2h/away  +2.8pp  BetOnline

Two sharp operators moved the Chiefs' moneyline higher within 90 seconds. Pinnacle moved first; BetOnline followed within a minute. That's the coordination we're detecting — it doesn't happen because each book independently decided to move; it happens because real money hit Chiefs at one of them and the other followed the sharpest book's lead.

What we deliberately filter out

Single-operator moves

If only Pinnacle moves and BetOnline sits still, that's most likely a Pinnacle correction (operator error, late injury news Pinnacle priced first) — not coordinated sharp money. We require two sharp operators before we call it steam, and BetOnline and LowVig count as one: both of them moving is one operator moving twice.

Sub-2pp jitter

Sharp books retick prices constantly as bots arb against each other in microseconds. A 0.5pp move on Pinnacle that drifts back within 90 seconds is jitter, not action. The 2pp floor filters this.

Moves outside the 5-minute window

A move at 11:42 and another at 11:55 might be related but most often isn't. The 5-minute window catches the coordination burst; longer windows muddle real signal with bookkeeping activity.

Two illustrations

Worked scenarios, not entries from our log.

Example 1: Late injury news

Say it's a Sunday morning at 11:42 ET and the starting quarterback for the home team is ruled out. Sharp books that have insider feeds adjust within seconds. Pinnacle and BetOnline both move the home team's moneyline by 2-4pp inside the next two minutes. Steam fires. Anyone watching the alert would have a few minutes before retail books (DraftKings, FanDuel) caught up.

Sharp users with our watchlist set on that game get the alert at /me/alerts. Whether they act on it is their call — we don't tell users what to bet, just when the sharps move.

Example 2: Sharp action with no news

More interesting: a Friday afternoon, no injury news, no weather change, no public coverage. Pinnacle and BetOnline both move the same team's moneyline by 2.5pp inside 4 minutes. No retail book moves for another 20 minutes.

That's a syndicate or a sharp group placing real money quietly. We don't know who or why.

Why the dispatch is best-effort, not authoritative

We dispatch to a Slack webhook for our own alerting and fan out per-user alerts to anyone watchlisting the game. The authoritative surface is the in-product /trust/steam feed, which reads the stored alerts. The loop polls every 60 seconds; the public view lists moves that settled more than two hours ago, and a Pro account sees them live. Slack can drop messages; the feed does not depend on it.

The honest caveats

• NFL is the only sport with steam detection wired today, on moneylines and spreads. Other sports get the watchlist + per-user alerts when we extend the cron.
• Sharp books occasionally move in concert for non-sharp reasons (operator error, limit changes). The 2pp floor + 5-minute window catches most coordination, not all.
• Steam direction tells you SHARP money is on a side. It does not guarantee that side wins. Sharps lose. Sharps lose less than the public on average.

Methodology details: /methodology#signal-steam_detection.