Strategy
Reverse line movement
Also called RLM
A line moving toward the side receiving fewer bets — a classic sign of sharp money.
Normally a line moves toward whichever side is attracting tickets. When it moves the other way — 70% of bets are on the favourite but the favourite's price gets better — something heavier than ticket count is pushing it.
That something is usually a small number of very large, well-informed wagers. RLM is one of the few publicly observable signals that correlates with sharp positioning.
It is a signal, not a strategy. Plenty of RLM is noise, limit changes, or a book managing its own liability, and acting on it without a number of your own is just following someone else's bet at a worse price.
See also
- Sharp — A consistently profitable bettor, or the money such bettors move a line with.
- Steam — A fast, uniform line move across many sportsbooks at once, driven by heavy informed money.
- Square — A casual bettor, and by extension the predictable side of the market they bet.
- Closing line — The final price on a market immediately before the event starts.