alt Hacker News> Bookmakers can always lay the odds so that there’s equal money on each side
No they can't. Large ones can, but the small ones sometimes cannot because they have to match the large ones but in a smaller pool. If everyone knows which team is going to win, diehard fans of the losing team will still bet on their team - large players capture that in their odds and break even. Small players don't have the same mix of customers and so will have to take that loss because they need to compete with the large ones.
Of course overall the small players balance enough the 10% rake from less sure games over the years to make a lot of money but they can still lose 6 figures on some individual games. Small players are less a target for the pros (if only because they know their customer better and so won't accept the pros in the first place).
Remember the small players are often running an illegal operation. They need their reputation of paying out so that customers don't go elsewhere to even turn them in.
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Forgive me… This is not an area. I have much knowledge of…
… But I thought even a small sports book could balance things properly by setting an appropriate pointspread?
my parent has described a risk for the sports book that seems too assume the simple picking of winners and losers and not a pointspread?
Also, for what it's worth, the idea that betting lines and odds are set to make "equal money on both sides" is a very simplistic and often ignorant talking point. It is quite possible if not common, especially on big games like the SB, for the books to have significant exposure to one side.
Making betting lines is a crazy complex mix of the house essentially betting on an outcome themselves, tempered by a limit to exposure/liability as well as the need to keep lines in basic accordance with other linemakers.
It's unreal how good these guys are most times.