How it works

LineFlip follows how betting lines move before a game: first-half spreads, first-half totals and game totals, for college football and the NFL. We publish the numbers and where they finished. We don't make picks, and nothing here is advice.

Where the numbers come from

Lines come from Pinnacle's public odds feed, checked several times a day and every two hours on game days. Pinnacle is a low-margin book whose lines are widely watched as a reference. We also record Bovada's lines. If Pinnacle's feed goes quiet, a page switches to Bovada for that game and says so. We never compare a Pinnacle number with a Bovada one.

What open, now and close mean

Open

The first number we recorded for that market. It may not be the very first number a sportsbook posted.

Now

The latest number, once two checks in a row agree on it. A single odd reading is never shown.

Close

The last confirmed number before kickoff.

What counts as a move

A line has to move far enough from its opening number to show up. The bars differ by sport because NFL lines move less than college ones.

A move also counts when:

• the favorite changes sides on a first-half spread;
• the number holds but the price moves enough to change the implied chance of one side by 4 percentage points or more in college football, 3 in the NFL. We show this in American odds, for example "under now -124, was -117";
• the line moves one way and then comes back through the opener;
• the line moves quickly between two checks.

Key numbers

Some final scores and margins come up far more often than their neighbors. In the NFL, 3 and 7 point margins are the familiar examples. We work out key numbers from thousands of past games, separately for each sport and market. When a line moves through one, we flag it, because a half point across a key number matters more than a half point anywhere else.

Where they closed

After each week we take every move that qualified and check where the game finished against the opening number. "Finished with the move" means the result landed on the side the line moved toward. We count every qualifying move, including the ones that went the other way, and a result exactly on the opening number counts as a push. Measuring against the close would make the count meaningless, since the close is where the line ended up. These counts describe the past; they don't predict anything.

What we don't do

We don't sell picks, take bets or link to sportsbooks. LineFlip is market data for people 21 and over who want to see what the lines did.