An example game showing significant line movement across multiple books, and our ability to detect this movement for the Leading Indicator Books strategy. The top graph shows home team lines and the bottom shows away team lines. Each color represents a different sports book, and each black line indicates the timing of a detected line movement event for a single sportsbook.

The cumulative profit for the Leading Indicator Books strategy. 118 opportunities were found from 216 games, with a cumulative return of +5.4 units (4.6% average per bet).

Our algorithm finds a moment in time when the sportbooks’ offerings for the total number of runs scored become misaligned. For instance, one sportsbook asks for bets over or under 7 total runs while another offers similar wagers on a total of 7.5. If the odds are favorable, we can wager OVER 7 and UNDER 7.5. In most cases, we win one, lose the other, and incur a small loss. But occasionally, we win one and break-even on the other, yielding a profitable strategy.

For brief moments, two sportsbooks offer notably different odds on the same outcome. In these moments, we can wager on one outcome and its perfect converse, ensuring a guaranteed profit in either circumstance. The margins are thin, but the risk vanishes!

Our algorithm explores, minute-by-minute the odds of a given team’s victory against the probability of its opponent winning outright or losing by one run. In this case, given favorable odds, it is possible to wager on both teams, where a one-run margin yields two victorious bets and any other scenario yields only small losses. Again, in the long run, this is profitable.