While there are some sportsbooks that have made some of their work automatic, most of the oddsmakers are still regular human people like you or me. Well, they’re not exactly like you or me: they live and breathe whatever sport they make odds for, so they are experts.
These people take a very, very wide range of factors into account when creating their odds to help protect the sportsbooks from losing money no matter what the result of the sporting event is. These same factors also have an effect on how the odds change for each betting market leading up to and during the event in question.
Some of the factors influencing oddsmakers as they make and update their odds include but are not limited to the following:
- Recent record of both teams
- Mismatches in style of play
- Weather
- Which team is at home
- Key injuries to one or both sides
- Historical trends
- Recent trends
- Off the field issues
- Prior relationships and jobs for coaches and players
- Statistics
- Predictive analysis
- Fan behavior