Betting Big Favourites on Money Line in Basketball

[BMR_Brad]

A poster question I hope some regular baskets bettors might share some personal experience on;

I noticed Pinnacle and Bookmaker (possibly more bookies..) are reluctant to allow Moneyline for basketball matches with a clear favorite (and low odds) e.g. today the matches between Fenerbahce (home court) and Eskisehir in the Turkish Super League and tonight´s match between Rockets (home court) and Hawks in the NBA. Is this a common policy whereby bookies are insuring against losing money or just a coincidence...?

 

[GreenAcres]

I'm pretty sure it's not so a sportsbook can insure against losing money as it only takes one loss on a big ML favourite to wipe out the profit you'd made previously and then some ie it only takes one -2000 ML loss to wipe out the money you made from 20 earlier bets. And obviously big favourites do lose so a book wouldn't mind you risking a big chunk of money simply to win a relatively little bit of money because that one loss will get all their money back. If it's just a coincidence or not though, I don't know. There may be another reason not mentioned for why a book doesn't offer them.

 

[Tart]

I read an article last week about this topic. Someone in Las Vegas staked 2000 dollars on the Virginia Money line vs a small school UMBC I think. The UMBC school won the game and the money line wager was a loss. I heard the player staked 2000 to win about 40 dollars!!