What happens to a line until kickoff
A game's price isn't one number. It is a series of numbers, from the first one posted to the last one before the start. Knowing what happens along the way helps you decide when a price is worth taking, and how to judge your bets afterwards.
The opener
The first price a book posts is the opening line. For the NFL, most books post next week's openers on Sunday night (Why lines move). Openers are the least informed prices a game will see. That is where early bettors find the most mispricing, but books usually take only small bets on them, and they move fast.
Between open and close
From then on, lines move on news and respected money. Consensus Edge keeps up: we re-price the board regularly until the game starts, with fresh prices from the books. Each rebuild can change a verdict. A BET in the morning can be NO EDGE by the afternoon if the price moved toward our number, and the other way round.
Two practical consequences:
- A price is only good when you can bet it. Any board, ours included, can trail the books between updates, so check the price on your bet slip before you confirm.
- Don't chase a move. If the price you wanted is gone, the bet you wanted is gone too. The new price needs its own check.
At the start: the freeze
When a game starts, we stop pricing it. The card freezes at its last pregame numbers and shows In Play, so its verdict is the pregame one. Our last prediction before the start is kept as the closing snapshot, so our number can be compared with the close and our accuracy measured on it.
We also record the market's own last word: the last prices we capture before the game begins are saved as the closing line.
Why the close matters
By the close, the injury news is in, the weather is known and the biggest bettors have had their say. That makes the closing line the most accurate price the market produces. It also gives you a way to judge a bet long before you have hundreds of results: compare your price with the close.
If you regularly get better prices than the closing line, you are probably betting at good numbers, even through a losing week. If the close keeps moving away from you, a winning week may just be luck. That comparison is called closing line value, and it is the first lesson in Level 3.
Example. One week of the Bears moneyline (illustrative prices, not live data):
| When | Bears | Lions | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday night | −125 | +105 | Opener posted |
| Tuesday | −130 | +110 | You bet the Bears at −130 |
| Last check before the start | −150 | +130 | Closing line recorded |
Your −130 needed 130 ÷ 230 = 56.52% to break even. At the close, −150 and +130 imply 60.00% and 43.48%, and with the vig removed, as in Implied vs fair probability, the market's fair chance for the Bears is 58.26%. You paid a price that needs 56.52% for a team the best-informed market rates at 58.26%: 58.26 − 56.52 = 1.74 points better than the close.
Waiting until game day would have cost −150, which needs 60.00%. And whichever way the game goes, one result won't tell you whether −130 was a good price. The close tells you more.
Terms in this lesson
Opening LineLine MovementIn PlayClosing SnapshotClosing LineClosing Line Value