Arbing middles

Once you are experienced, you will start to notice arbs very quickly. You might also start taking more middles. Middles are when you are hoping for the total or spread to land on a specific number.

Example- Bulls/Rockets game, you take one bet -105 OVER 203 and take another one UNDER 203.5 +103. Now if the total lands at exactly 203, then you win the UNDER bet and push the OVER bet. Say, you bet 500 on each side, would mean you would win 500 bucks. You are always guaranteed to win one of those two bets. Now, it appears you have a negative 2 cent arb (-105,+103) but in the NBA 0.5 pts on the total is worth about 4 to 5 cents of juice. So really, you can consider this a positive 3 cent arb with a ton of variance. Trust me, if one of these hit for you, you will be quite happy.

In general in the NBA,

Each 1/2 pt on the total is worth 5 cent juice, each 1/2 pt to the spread is worth roughly 9 cents juice. Keep in mind its not worth 9 cents between a spread of -1 to +1, its worth a little less. Now if you are dealing with a halftime line, 1/2 pt on the total is worth 9 cents juice or so and 1/2 pt on the 1H spread is usually worth 14 cents or so.

In football, it varies drastically, since certain spreads and totals are more likely to hit than others. In football, a 1/2 pt off of a 7 pt spread is worth 15 cents, off of 3 is around 20 cents, yet off of a number like 8, it could be worth only 2 cents. On totals, in general, a 1/2 pt is worth 4-5 cents, but certain numbers like 35,38,42,48 are worth more.

In baseball, I consider a o/u of 7 or 9 to have 25c-30c of value. I consider an 8 or 10 to have 15c-20c value. The reason for this is because a game always will end if the total is odd. However, if the total is even, for example 8, then the score could be 4-4 and go to extra innings. So an odd total in baseball is definitely worth more than an even total.