I recently added the Pinnacle no-vig lines to the site, so I wanted to discuss the value of no-vig lines in a little more detail. I’ve referenced no-vig lines before in a post about closing line value, however I’ve never discussed it as it relates to getting an advantage in betting. One will see that this yet another effective way to get an edge over a sportsbook.
Remind me. What is a No-Vig Line?
Quite simply, the no-vig line is the what the price of a bet would look like if the sportsbook didn’t have a vigorish (i.e. their fee). The simplest example of this is to imagine that we are betting on a coin toss. This is actually a common bet for the Super Bowl and you may see lines that roughly look like -105 for heads and -105 for tails. It should be clear, that this is a 50/50 bet. Removing the vigorish after the calculation would show that each side (heads and tails) would both be +100 bets. This is the no-vig line.
Is There Any Reason That Pinnacle is Used?
Yes. Pinnacle is a market maker sportsbook that has great coverage and some sharp lines. Though one could argue that 5Dimes or Bookmaker may be better, Pinnacle is the standard for great and accurate lines. As I always mention, the betting landscape is always changing so one has to be adept to changing as well. However, for the time being, Pinnacle is the go-to book for our no-vig lines.
Let’s See This No-Vig Advantage At Work
I came across this game between Austin FC and the Colorado Rapids being played tonight.
No-Vig Line for the Austin FC at Colorado Rapids Game in September 2021.
Now, in looking at the implied margin, we see that there is value somewhere in these lines. Let’s now assume that we don’t know anything about Major League Soccer teams. Funny enough, knowledge about sports is completely irrelevant for making money in sports betting. Anyways, we can see that there is a huge discrepancy in the money line for Colorado. It is -175 at Caesars and Westgate, -240 at Circa, and -250 at Stations. We can see that the best line for a draw is at +404 at Circa. Finally, we can see that the best line for Austin is at +560 (at a book not shown).
The quickest and easiest way to find value is to compare the best lines to the no-vig line. One will want the price that is better than the no-vig price. Remember our coin flip example. If the price of tails was +101 (compared to a no-vig of +100), then we would jump on that in a heart beat. Here, we can see that the price of -175 is much better than the no-vig line of -208.1. There does not appear to be value in the other two bets as the best line price is worse than the no-vig price. Thus, in this instance, I’d be placing bets at both Westgate and Caesars at that -175 price.
In Conclusion…
This is just one more tool to use in the arsenal of weapons against the sportsbook. It is a quick and easy way to find value bets without knowing a thing about sports. Is this method infallible? Of course not. But combined with the knowledge of how to use implied margin and other metrics, it can make one a very dangerous gambler!