Review of Sports Book Management
- Title:
- Sports Book Management
- Author:
- Roxy Roxborough and Mike Rhoden
- Publisher:
- Las Vegas Sports Consultants
- Date:
- 1998
- ISBN:
- --
- Pages:
- 114
- Price:
- $35.00
March 2, 2005
One strategic principle that has been applied to every competitive
context is that there is an advantage to knowing one's adversary.
The more a sports bettor understands about the way sports books operate,
the better the position one is in to beat them. Along with Mike Rhoden,
sports betting luminary Roxy Roxborough describes his recommendations
for how to run things behind the counter in Sports Book
Management.
After some introductory thoughts, Roxborough and Rhoden step through
the most popular sports for betting, explaining how to write the game
up on the line, how to move the line based on public betting, how
to calculate bet payouts, hold percentages, and expected hold percentages.
The authors also discuss the effects of parlays, teasers, and buying a
half point on the book's bottom line. The information on hanging the
line is pretty elementary, but even though the discussion on line
movement isn't going to blow anyone away, I haven't seen precise
recommendations on how to manage these situations in print before.
The differences listed between betting on different sports are interesting
as well, although, again, there aren't any big surprises here.
The book concludes with some advice about when to open a line for
betting, betting limits, parlay cards, and other aspects of running
a book. This information is more interesting to me because it's
less obvious, although there's very little substance behind some of
these topics. One chapter, Bookmaking Myths, discusses many of the
public's misconceptions about sports book operations. This is
the sort of stuff I want to read.
I do have a couple of complaints about Sports Book
Management. The first is that I really can't tell who the target
audience is. The book discusses the nomenclature of hanging a line.
This information might be valuable to new sports book employees or
novice bettors, but sports book managers already know this stuff cold.
On the other hand, information on when to move a line is valuable to
managers, but the folks taking bets at the window don't care.
Another objection I have is the self-serving nature of the book.
One of the things I expect that most readers of this book will want to
hear about is setting and adjusting the line. However, most of what
the authors have to say about this is to consult a professional, external
line-making service, for example, Las Vegas Sports Consultants. At
the time the book was written, who was the main man at LVSC? Yup,
it was Roxy Roxborough. I would have greatly appreciated a little
better look behind the curtain here.
The book is published in a large format, but the word count is low
and there aren't many pages here. Sports Book Management
might have been a useful training manual for sports book employees, but
it's not deep enough to make this work. The book could have been
useful as a sports book management manual, but it doesn't work here
either. It has a lot of very introductory material and, again,
doesn't go deep enough into important book management issues such
as shading lines. As far as sports bettors go, there's some information
here that is likely to be valuable to those without intimate knowledge
of what goes on behind the counter, but it's still ultimately
disappointing.
I really like the topic of the book, and there is some good information
here, but not enough to make me really recommend this book for
anyone but the most serious sports bettors. I can't imagine anyone
sitting on the house side of the counter would need this book. It
doesn't help employees much, and any manager with a week of experience
already knows this stuff. Completists will find something of worthwhile
here, but there's not enough substance for me to give this book
an enthusiastic recommendation.
Capsule:
Sports Book Management provides some interesting information
about how to manage a sports book. Unfortunately, the authors don't
provide enough information to make this a must-read by book employees,
managers, or sports bettors. There is material here that's interesting,
and it may be worth reading by serious students of sports betting
information, but it's hardly a must-read.
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