Here's the latest installment of "Fezzik Fridays", where LVASports.com's handicapping guru tackles a different one of your sports-betting-related questions each week, for the duration of the football season.
Inside Wager is a betting method by which no vig is paid to the book, but rather a 2.5% commission is charged on wagers. It sounds like a betting exchange, but technically it's not, because bets aren't being matched with opposing players on either side. Instead, the book decides how much action it wants and covers all bets directly (this also means that you could offer a wager that isn't accepted, due to its reaching a desired level of exposure on a particular side). Because you have to pay the commission win or lose, it's like laying -105 (2 x 2.5).
The book would deal every game at +100 on each side if it could, but lines often fall in-between numbers, meaning that the true market line might be something like 10.1 (most books make it 10 in this case; a few 10.5). In this case the IW line might be -10/-104 and +10/+104 to reflect the unbiased price in the current market. With this method, the average bettor pays half the vigorish he pays in the traditional bet-11-to-win-10 system. For a game lined the same everywhere, there is simply no reason not to bet it at the M.
The real bargain is on money lines, where many Las Vegas shops rob customers blind dealing spreads like -300/+220 on bid/ask prices of 7-point NFL favorites (both the -300 and +220 are total sucker bets!). Inside Wager will offer the same contest at -260/+260. The negative is that you pay the commission on the amount risked, not the win amount. Hence, favorite money line bettors matched with dog bettors will pay a much higher 2.5% commission, since they are risking much more. It's only a slight negative; bottom line, Inside Wager is a great option and one every sharp bettor in the city is looking to play.
To use this option, you'll have to post-up to the M's account-based-wagering platform. Individual games are available for IW wagering only for 10-minute stints, starting at 3 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 8 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, and 4:30 p.m. on Mondays (when there will be multiple 10-minute windows prior to the MNF kick-off).
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