$Unique_ID{BAS00182}
$Title{Baseball Betting}
$Author{
Erwin, Phil}
$Subject{Baseball Betting}
$Log{}

Total Baseball:  The Game Off the Field


Baseball Betting

Phil Erwin


"That ain't gonna go, that's too high!"
"Dollar says it goes!"
"OK!"

     Jonesy and Harold watched as Mantle's high fly turned into an upper-deck
home run.  Harold owed Jonesy another buck, but I had not kept track and could
not say for sure who owed whom how much.  I was eleven years old and had been
fascinated for nine innings by the two men sitting in front of me.  They bet
on everything, all through the game, beginning by muttering to each other in
the early innings, opening up so others could hear them in midgame ("Quarter
the first pitch is a strike," "Dime to a nickel he doesn't hit anything out of
the infield," "Bet a buck this pitcher don't last the fifth," "Quarter says he
fouls this 3-2 pitch".)  They were having a great time, and captured the
attention of most people sitting around them, punctuating the game with verbal
exchanges, predictions backed by dimes, quarters, and half-bucks.  Who knows
if they ever settled up or even kept track?
     Betting in the stands was still common into the early 1960s, in the old
major league cities, where the last remnants of the old-time "sporting crowd"
still maintained their spots in Fenway, old Yankee, Comiskey, Wrigley, Shibe,
Forbes, and other esteemed venues.  Informal wagering in the stands is a
practice that harks back to the very beginnings of baseball as a professional
sports event.  When players began to be paid, admission began to be charged,
and owners ("magnates" in those days) quickly recognized that friendly
man-to-man bets on game outcomes, scores, the number of hits, or anything else
were going on inside their turnstiles.  Why discourage patronage by forcing
bettors out?  Indeed, some of the magnates themselves enjoyed the tension
accompanying a fine wager.  The National Association, the first major league,
formed in the robber baron 1870s era, disbanded in part because of problems
associated with gambling supported by the magnates.  Lee Allen, baseball
historian, noted that the Brooklyn Atlantics "fostered so much open betting
that one section of the grounds was known as the Gold Board, with activity
that rivaled that of the stock exchange."
     Person-to-person betting remained popular, but it was encumbered by the
problems that arise when money and ego become entwined in personal
relationships.  Not everyone got along as well as Jonesy and Harold.  A more
organized form of betting developed, known as pool betting, centered around
"pool rooms," where the pool owner held a kind of auction before games.
Another type of pool involved a lottery-style ticket, probably similar to the
football cards of the present.  Gradually, however, the English form of
"bookmaking" supplanted the pools.  The bookmaker established odds, took bets
on all sides, and changed the odds and propositions to (he hoped) assure
himself a profit as, in essence, the broker in bets between strangers.
     Baseball, horse racing, boxing, and, to a lesser extent, college football
and basketball were the major betting sports in America for a long time.  The
invention of the "pointspread" gave football, especially professional
football, the impetus to become the most popular betting sport.  Baseball now
ranks behind football and basketball in terms of interest to bettors.  The
point spread, which has only limited application to baseball, is primarily
responsible for the change.
     Baseball is still an odds-based betting proposition.  An example is
necessary to explain the odds system.  Say the Mets are at home versus the
Cardinals, favored by 6 1/2 to 7 1/2.  This type of odds quote is an "Eastern
line," and means that a player must risk $7.50 to win $5 if he backs the Mets,
and will risk $5 to win $6.50 if he takes the Cardinals.  In Las Vegas, the
same proposition would be translated into a "money line," where the Mets would
be -1.50 favorites, the Cards +1.30 underdogs.  For every $1.50 risked on
New York, a winner would profit by $1, or he could risk $1 to win $1.30 on St.
Louis.  Notice the 20 difference (1.50 - 1.30).  This is called a "20 line,"
and is common for smaller wagers outside Nevada.  The bookmaker's percentage
("vigorish", "juice") is derived from the varying payoffs.  If a bookmaker has
the same amount of money placed on both sides of a game, he is guaranteed a
profit.
     In Nevada, because of the open competition between the legal sports books
for the gambling business, a 10 line is common.  The Mets would be -1.45,
and the Cardinals +1.35 in the same game.  The bookmaker's percentage is
somewhat lower, with a corresponding benefit to the bettor.
     Odds vary from "pick 'em," where the better chooses which team will be a
-1.05 favorite (-1.10 if a 20 line is involved) in what should be a
closely contested game, up to the -3.00 range, for a champion club on a
winning streak at home with its ace pitcher going against a cellar dweller on
a losing streak with a sacrificial lamb taking the mound.
     Bookmakers will take bets of as little as $10, or up to $10,000 or more
on a single baseball game.  One of the highest single baseball wagers known to
this writer involved the famous publisher of a men's magazine who shopped a
World Series bet of close to $500,000 around Las Vegas for a few days, before
one sports book manager got permission from his casino-owner boss to take the
bet.  Unfortunately for the publisher, it was 1983 and he was backing the
Phillies.
     Another type of baseball bet involves predicting the total runs that will
be scored in a game against a "totals," or "over/under" line.  Normally the
number is between 6 (two great pitchers throwing in a big ballpark) and 12 or
even more (the wind is blowing out at Wrigley or Fenway).  In the above
Met-Cardinal example, perhaps 7 would be a likely total number.  The wagerer
could play the over, winning if the Mets and Cardinals tallied 8 runs or more
between them, or the under, with a 4-3 game tying the number for a "no bet,"
or "push."  The player risks 1.10 to win 1.00 to choose his over or under.
     Nongambling baseball fans encounter baseball odds only through the line
published in daily newspapers.  The odds published every day are not
necessarily the actual odds being used by bookmakers, however.  Newspapers get
the "line" from a news service, which obtains it from handicappers paid to
create it for them.  Due to the need to publish early editions of today's
paper (last night's early edition), the odds in today's paper were actually
created yesterday afternoon, before last night's games were played.  They were
based on factors and starting pitcher plans as they were known then.  Although
the newspaper odds do have news value--they represent the educated view of a
professional linemaker--bookmakers do not look in the local paper for the
odds they will use.
     Instead, they call a line service, which usually obtains its odds
directly from the display boards in Las Vegas sports books on the morning of
the game.  What reasoning goes into the creation of the line?  The purpose of
the line is to divide the betting--the bookies want both sides in a game to
get about the same amount of "action."  When journalists say that an upset
proved the linemaker wrong, they are mistaking the line for a prediction.  It
is not, except as it operates as a prediction of public betting psychology.
Top teams playing at home are usually big favorites.  Betting behavior,
represented by the money wagered, is the biggest determinant of the odds.
Other factors of importance are the starting pitcher, the perceived quality of
the teams, winning or losing streaks or publicized trends.  In totals betting,
the ballpark site is a key factor.
     The rise of "rotisserie" or fantasy leagues in recent years must be seen
as a new form of wagering, as many of the participants in effect bet on them.
This seems like an extension of the old betting in the stands, with the
statistics of chosen players being used to settle season-long wagers between
the "owners" of the rotisserie teams.  Somewhere a bookie is being prosecuted
by an assistant district attorney who himself has $500 staked on his own
"rotisserie" team.
     Hollywood treatments and occasional real-life scandals have combined to
give sports betting and bookmakers an undeserved bad name.  In fact, most
baseball gamblers are professional people (doctors, lawyers, accountants,
stock-brokers, and businessmen) who are devout fans.  They are no more or no
less honest than other citizens.  Bookmakers gain their clientele by
word-of-mouth referral, deal on a credit basis without security, and must deal
honestly to keep their businesses afloat.  Aside from legal problems,
bookmaking can be a precarious business financially, since in order to stay in
business the bookie must be able to pay winners--if he does not, he loses
them as customers.
     Consider the best-known baseball betting scandal, the Black Sox affair.
If the "fix" had never become known, the honest gamblers and bookmakers would
still have been hurt by it monetarily.  Could such a scandal happen again?
Baseball is probably the most honest team sport in America, and a similar fix
is extremely unlikely.  The players are much better paid than they were in the
Black Sox days.  Just as important, communication is much better.  In
Cincinnati in 1919, the odds changed so drastically that some suspected a fix,
but bettors in the rest of the country did not know.  Today, such a shift in
odds would be known nationwide immediately, transmitted by long-distance
telephone, computer modem, radio, and TV.  Unjustified heavy betting on one
team would cause bookmakers across the country to refuse bets and to demand an
immediate investigation.  Also, the commissioners' offices of all major sports
monitor betting activity and changes in the odds.
     Baseball gambling, like other baseball traditions, will continue.  In
recent years interest has grown, and it is possible that some states besides
Nevada may legalize sports betting.  Fans like to have the extra interest and
tension accompanying a personal stake in baseball games, whether they are
carrying stacks of currency around Las Vegas, calling the neighborhood bookie,
drafting rotisserie teams, or just betting a nickel that the next pitch will
be a strike.