Ask HN: Does anyone know (or guess) how gambling apps make betting lines?

1 points by hiidrew 4y ago ↗ HN

Was watching the NBA finals last night and decided to play around with the $5 that was in my Draftkings account when this question came to mind.

I imagine there is some API that a lot of the apps use for their lines. But super curious about how they make these just out of genuine curiosity, both for team matchups and player stat over/unders.

Think it would make sense to incorporate historical performance, maybe higher impact on recency like if a team/player is hot, maybe also a focus on player matchups, home-field advantage. Wonder if they incorporate who is reffing or other kind of more quirky factors?

Not building anything in this space just was curious. I envisioned that some gambling software legend lurks here sometimes and might bite at the poor question.

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uberman 4y ago ↗

I don't know the details of anyone's specific strategy, but in general, you start with an educated guess (might involve a lot of the factors you highlight) and then you monitor how people respond with bets. If more people are betting one way then the odds shift to encourage betting the other way. This shift is no longer really based on factors other than "as the house, we must come out ahead after the winners are paid".