I know there are a lot of people who are very big believers in using ticket and money percentages for handicapping. Some people make their living touting ticket and money percentages as the Holy Grail of identifying sharp money in the sports market. If you are any of the above, and ticket and money percentages work for you, I wish you all the best. I am not here to take your lollipop from you. However, sportsbooks put out ticket and money percentages. Without sportsbooks willing to put out ticket and money percentages to the public, we would not be having this conversation. So, the obvious question becomes, would a sportsbook willingly give you information that could give you any chance at beating them? Of course not! Sportsbooks put out this information because it generates action (which is good for the sportsbook) and because it generates traffic as customers visit their social media or their website to view this information. If the sportsbook is giving you anything, you really have to first assess their motivation. Despite popular belief, sports betting is not free money and sportsbooks are not here to provide a welfare program for degenerates. Sportsbooks make their profit solely by taking your money… and they make a very healthy profit. Sportsbooks want traffic to the book and action from you. Posting ticket and money percentages provides both. So, how do they perform?
Below you will see how ticket/money percentages combined with “reverse line moves” performed through backtesting and my own experience in the industry, now into three decades. By the way, a “reverse line move” is when tickets and money are on Chicago -6 over Tampa Bay, but the line moves from Tampa Bay +6 to Tampa Bay +5. So, based on the example in the previous sentence, people would assume sharp money is on Tampa Bay because the line moved opposite (or “reverse”) of the side with the higher ticket and money percentage. The problem is, and that’s where another of my articles comes in…you don’t truly know who is behind those ticket and money percentages…and that’s where the flaw comes in. Check this article out (CLICK HERE) for more details.
My goal with this article is to get the casual gambler to understand that you would be better off just flipping a coin than using ticket and money percentages to handicap the games. When looking at the data by sport, we can see that ticket and money percentages combined with reverse line moves resulted in ROI’s as follows…
MLB 998-1196 (45%) ROI: +1.4%
NBA 431-459 (48%) -5.4%
NCAAB 1383-1444 (49%) -4.9%
NCAAF 347-348 (50%) -2.6%
NFL 119-129 (48%) -6.4%
NHL 517-755 (41%) -8.7%
Using the above data, which is from the largest public provider of ticket and money percentages, we can see that every sport outside NCAAF hits at below 50%, which would mean that over a large sample size, flipping a coin would theoretically provide more winners than ticket and money percentages with reverse line moves. When it comes to NBA, NCAAB, NCAAB, NFL and NHL, using ticket and money percentages with reverse line moves resulted in ROI’s ranging from -2.6% to -8.7%. What that means is for every $100 you placed on the “ticket and money percentages with reverse line moves”, you lost $2.60 to $8.70. What that further means is if you wager on three NFL games per weekend, 17 weeks (soon to be 18) during the regular season, at $110 per game, you placed $330 per week x 17 weeks for $5,610 of action. You are expected to have an ROI of -6.4% in NFL using ticket & money percentages with reverse line moves. The math on NFL would equate to the $100 bettor losing $360 over the season. Not bad, but not winning.
It is worth noting that the data sample used above dates back to 2016 and almost 6000 wagers!!! Uh oh! Wait… there is one anomaly for my theory. For some reason, ticket and money percentages with reverse line moves have been shown to work in MLB. I don’t believe that it is because tickets and money percentages provide an edge, but I also cannot deny the data. In looking at the data, ticket and money percentages made a profit in 2016, 2017, 2020 and now 2021. Why would this be? As I noticed in the experiment I did in real-time, the percentages and reverse line move method usually chose underdogs. Right off the bat, blindly betting underdogs in MLB provides a better ROI than chalk. Blindly betting underdogs since 2005 (over 37,000 wagers) carries a negative ROI of -1.6%, however blindly betting chalk in that same time period provided a -1.9% ROI. Might not seem like a lot, but that 0.3% is MASSIVE when taken over 37,000 games. However, a -1.6% ROI still is not winning. Whatever it is within the ticket and money percentages & reverse line moves for MLB is helping to filter things down to the key underdogs. So, I have to admit, there is something to ticket & money percentages.
To conclude, ticket and money percentages are useless in every major sport, outside MLB, when assessed over a large sample size of 5,932 games. You would literally do better flipping a coin (expectation would be 50% winners). However, I cannot deny that there is something going on in MLB and that for MLB ONLY, ticket & money percentages with reverse line movement have been shown to provide a positive ROI over a large enough sample size (2,194 games) to provide a decent level of statistical confidence. The data in MLB suggests that using tickets & money with reverse line movement does achieve a positive ROI and one that exceeds the expectation for variance (luck).
So, to all of you ticket & money with reverse line move zealots… I grant you there is something going on in MLB, the rest of the sports (NFL, NCAAF, NBA, NCAAB, and NHL) flip a coin… it’ll save you time, money, effort and provide a better win percentage and thereby ROI.
Deep Dive Backtesting- I used the database of what is likely the most popular public provider for ticket and money percentages. The data for ticket and money percentages with this provider goes back to 2016 (six seasons). As of April 30th, 2021, below are the breakdowns by sport (2016 to present) for the performance of betting a reverse line move using ticket and money percentages…
MLB 998-1196 (45%) ROI: +1.4%
NBA 431-459 (48%) -5.4%
NCAAB 1383-1444 (49%) -4.9%
NCAAF 347-348 (50%) -2.6%
NFL 119-129 (48%) -6.4%
NHL 517-755 (41%) -8.7%
MLB is profitable, everything else is not. So, let’s take a deeper look at MLB with a breakdown by season since 2016 to see where those gains come from…
2016 259-298 +1%
2017 216-181 +15.6%
2018 221-317 -6.5%
2019 200-292 -6%
2020 69-77 +9.1%
2021 33-31 +22.9%
What about the same theory for totals (i.e. tickets and money on one side, reverse line move on the other side of the total)?
Over the last 6 seasons…
MLB -2.2%
NBA -2.3%
NFL -2.5%
NHL -2.8%
NCAAF -3.2%
NCAAB -4.1%
So, no major sport shows a profit for the ticket & money with reverse line move theory in totals.
What parameters did I use for all of the above historical assessments?
Ticket Percentage: 0% to 45%
Money Percentage: 0% to 45%
Spread Change (for NBA, NCAAB, NFL, NCAAF): -0.5 to -100 points
Moneyline Change (for MLB, NHL): -5 to -150 cent
So, next time you are thinking about using ticket & money percentages to handicap your games, be sure that handicap includes a lot of additional intel and assessment…because on their own…ticket and money percentages with reverse line moves is not a long-term winning strategy. Don’t trust me…it’s in the numbers!
Good luck!
TSP