Sports betting sites hate getting middled on a game. This happens when sports betting players are on both sides of the same game. The middle occurs when the final score and spread of a game is a number that falls in between the opening and the closing sports betting number.
Sports betting middles are great for bettors but bad for sportsbooks. Let’s look at a couple sports betting examples to illustrate what could happen. Let’s say we have a football game that opens with a pointspread of -4.5 and is steamed up to -6.5. If the favorite wins the game by 5 or 6 points then the sportsbook gets middled. Those taking the 6.5 points win and those laying the 4.5 points lose in this sportsbetting example. Let’s look at an NBA example. If a game opens at -3 and goes up to -5 then a 4 point margin of victory by the favorite will result in a sportsbetting middle.
There are other situations in sports betting that are considered half middles. This is when the player gets a push and a win. It could be in that previous football sportsbetting example that the line closes at -6 instead of -6.5. In this situation if the game lands 6, then all those that laid the six points push, and those people that took the +6.5 late, get a win. That is another bad situation for the sportsbook. You may notice in sports betting that oftentimes the sportsbooks don’t want to move the line a great deal. The main reason for this is that they don’t want to expose themselves to a middle. Some sportsbooks will attach a money line to their sports betting numbers and adjust it accordingly. You might see a football game at -3 and -120. This money line means the book really doesn’t want to go to -3.5 so they make you pay more money to lay the -3. The sportsbooks don’t want to get middled so they attach a sports betting money line to the number instead of moving it.
Some sportsbetting players will look to have more than one sports betting account and look to middle games. They will look for numbers like we looked at earlier and take a position early on a game and come back late on the other side. Sportsbooks don’t like this because they hate running the risk of getting middled in sports betting.