They are known as head fakes in high-stakes betting on sports. On a Wednesday in July, one syndicate released an all-timer.
For days, a team of bettors and associates from around the country had been preparing to release the over/under on total points in the WNBA All-Star Game. The betting syndicate believed there was a chance that an oddsmaker might make a mistake.
Sports Betting Head Fake: A bet placed on the opposing side of a bettor’s real position. They move the line to the side that is more favorable, so the bettor can make larger bets at a higher number.
Betting syndicate: A group or individuals who bet together and share handicapping and profit from their bets.
ESPN Chalk home
The top players from the WNBA were playing against the U.S. women’s national team. This was in preparation for the Olympics. According to the syndicate, more defense would be used which resulted in lower scoring than traditional All-Star Games with wide-open scores.
One of the syndicate members was sent to New Jersey ahead and, on game day (July 14,) the monitor closely viewed the odds screen while waiting for the first sportsbook's total to be posted. At 10:29 AM. ET: The syndicate received its wish. It had made a mistake. Las Vegas sportsbook Circa Sports opened at 248. This is a normal All-Star Game with defense-optional play and is not a competitive event featuring a team trying to win gold at the Olympics.
Everything was perfect. Although the syndicate was able to profit from the error by under-hammering, the uninitiated may not believe what it did next.
The suggestion was sent to the Vegas syndicate member charged with placing the first bet: "Let’s see what happens if we wager over."
The syndicate believed the total was 30+ points higher than it actually was so they chose to place its first bet on an over. This strategy was not intended to fool Circa, but was meant to create smokescreens and not alert other sportsbooks to the fact that the number was wrong.
The head fake worked.
The syndicate partner who placed the first bet is sharp and causes lines to move frequently after placing a wager. The limit bet placed by the account on more than 248.5 was canceled by Circa oddsmakers, who raised the total to 252. Soon after, Circa was copied by sportsbooks in New Jersey, Nevada, and Costa Rica. The total was around 250.
The syndicate got to work and began betting on the under at as many sportingbooks as possible. The final total was 197 before it dropped to 191. The WNBA All-Stars won 93-85 with the total remaining under 19 points. The syndicate performed well.
"That was a very unusual case and not typical. "It doesn't often work that way," said one member of the betting syndicate who spoke to ESPN under anonymity. "It was the perfect storm."
Perhaps the best head fake.
The head fake
Head fakes are wagers that are placed on the opposing side of a bettor’s preferred position in a game. These bets are used to conceal the true intent of a bettor and to move the point spread to a better number. These occur in smaller markets with less liquidity like college basketball and the second-half over/under totals of the NBA or WNBA. However, some bookmakers claim they have even occurred on the Super Bowl.
The most powerful head fakes, when done with precision can cause sportsbooks around the world to misdirect the line.
This is how it works: A prominent bettor prefers Duke +3 to North Carolina. The bettor places a $1000 head-fake wager on the Tar Heels -3 when the first line appears at a well-known sportsbook. Because of their market influence, the bettor expects that the line will move to -3.5 at the prominent and other sportsbooks due to the North Carolina head fake. The bettor places $40,000 in Duke bets with the same sportsbooks that increased the line to +3.5 if he is successful. The bettor can place larger bets with a better line for $1,000.
Las Vegas has been home to bettors for decades. William T. Walters, the famous sports bettor, made a name for himself with his head-fakes. This kept everyone wondering, "Which side's Billy on?" Art Manteris, who managed Las Vegas' sportsbooks for over 40 years, recalls that wise men head-faking the opening line of Super Bowl XXXII between Green Bay Packers (Green Bay Packers) and Denver Broncos (Broncos). Head fakes are now being played online in real-time on odds screens that illuminate when totals or point spreads begin to move.
Shane Sigsbee who heads the high-volume betting syndicate ImawhaleSports, says that "we're not a team that does head faux -- that's our business model." It's amazing to see other groups doing head fakes. It's amazing how they do it.
Master of head-fake
Walters is the most powerful head fake in a world filled with cunning, smart guys.
"You can get caught with you pants down," Gadoon "Spanky", a long-time professional bettor, said about trying to decipher head fauxs. "And the one that was most famous for it was Billy Walters."
Walters grew up in rural Kentucky in a hardscrabble household. He moved to Las Vegas in 1980s and joined the Computer Group, which quickly rose to the top in sports betting. Walters has been the most influential person in U.S. betting for 40 years. Walters is almost a mystical presence in the market. This causes a paranoia among both bettors as well as bookmakers who constantly try to determine if Walters' bets really are genuine and if they are fakes.
Walters was in federal prison serving a sentence for insider trading. However, rumors about which side he was were regularly circulated within the sports betting community. President Donald Trump commuted Walters' sentence in January.
Professional bettors joke that Walters has never lost.
"If a game wins, Billy was on that team," stated a sports bettor known as "Fats" who worked for Walters in Las Vegas for one year. "If a game loses, well that was a Billy head fake game."
David Purdum/ESPN
Fake head history
For a long time, the head-fake game has been around.
The Stardust resort and casino in Las Vegas had the most influential totals, point spreads, and odds in the country in the mid-1980s. Scotty Schettler, the Stardust's sportsbook director, put up a number and everyone was interested -- even rival bookmakers in Las Vegas.
Every morning, bettors would gather to take a look at Stardust's opening spreads. They even hired stand-ins to help them wait overnight to keep their place in line. Although the sportsbook had stanchions to help keep the bettors organized they just moved them away. Schettler created a morning lottery using a deck card deck to determine which bettors would go first to the betting windows.
Legend has it that the payphones outside the sportsbook were busiest in the country with bookmakers calling their bosses from all over the country to report Stardust lines. To see the line movement, some Las Vegas sportsbooks would wait until after the first Stardust betting wave. The adjusted numbers were then copied and posted at their shops.
Schettler said that people used to handicap their own games and do their own work. Schettler spoke with ESPN during a phone interview. "We actually set the line for the whole country. We set our line at 8 AM and everyone followed it. Everyone."
The wise men quickly realized how to profit from the situation. They were able to create the line they wanted at all the national sportsbooks by placing a few thousand dollars on the Stardust. This is the real power of the head fake: the ability to move lines across the entire market and not just one.
Roxy Roxborough, a legendary Vegas oddsmaker, said that "it only works if other people are going to follow it." People copy it."
The bookmaker's headache caused by a head-fake
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Bookmakers play mind games with head fakes, testing their confidence and numbers. This is something veterans claim is lacking in today's world.
Manteris worked for 40 years at the largest sportsbooks in Las Vegas, before retiring this year. He was most annoyed by head fakes like the one he believed went down during Super Bowl XXXIII.
The Packers opened as 11-point favorites against the John Elway-led Broncos. Manteris recalls an flurry on Green Bay in the early games that drove the number to as high at -14. As Super Bowl Sunday approached, limits increased and more money was available for the underdog Broncos. The point spread was back at Green Bay at -11 by kickoff.
Manteris said that wise men bet the favorite during a phone interview. It wasn't the public. It was wise men who in the first 24hrs pushed it up 3 and 3.5 points. The line fell to 11 the weekend after the game. "I remember thinking to myself, "I can't believe that we allowed this to happen."
The Broncos won the game.
Manteris stated that you end up betting all your money on the favorite at the lowest prices and all your money on the underdog at a higher price. You can't book at a good price if you don't try. People manipulating the price can make it impossible to book in the way that you desire.
"The truth is that [if] the bookmaker has complete confidence in his number, then it's possible to negate [head fakes]. You don't have this today. I don't believe in the numbers. There is too much uncertainty. It is very difficult to be confident in numbers in today's world.
These days, good numbers don’t last for long.
Part of the game
Today's virtual headfakes take place at the Don Best odds screen.
The Screen, or as it is commonly known in the betting industry, displays the points spreads, totals, and odds from hundreds sportsbooks around the globe. The Don Best screen is on the computer monitors of any professional bookmaking establishment.
You want to find out the cost of the latest Russian table tennis match at Costa Rica's sportsbook? Don Best has it. You can monitor the line movement to see the most recent post for next year's WNBA All-Star Game. The Don Best screen lights up when the numbers begin to move. It is being watched by everyone.
There are many estimates as to how many betting syndicates have enough influence to pull off headfakes. However, it is likely that only a few dozen or so. It is difficult to spot head fakes. The point spread will move in one direction at a prominent sportsbook. Other sportsbooks will copy the move, sometimes even without taking a wager, and suddenly, the line will move in the opposite direction.
"You have a matter of seconds," Sigsbee stated. This is not something that can be done in seven to eight minutes. This is your chance to get everything done in 45 seconds. We are trying to figure out what is really going on and then we can also get down for ourselves. Sometimes, we can be feigned out. It's just that we get caught upside-down on it.
"Headfakes are an important part of the game."
As long as they continue to follow the lines of bookmakers on events such as the WNBA All-Star Game and other similar ones, they will always be.
