Why a line moves

The number you see is a price a bookmaker is managing, not a forecast it is publishing. It moves when the thing being priced changes — or when the money coming in changes, which is not the same thing at all.

The usual reasons

• Team news. A starting pitcher scratched, a goalie confirmed, a quarterback ruled out, a star rested on the second night of a back-to-back.
• Weather. Wind and rain move baseball and football totals before they move anything else.
• Money. A side taking most of the stakes gets more expensive, whether or not the bookmaker thinks the price was wrong.
• Other bookmakers. Nobody wants to be the last shop still offering the old number.

Only the first two are new information about the game. The rest is a business balancing its book. From outside, all four look identical — a number that used to be one thing and is now another — which is why a move is not a message and cannot be read as one.

What it means for the pick in front of you

Our card shows the price at the moment of publication, and that moment is recorded. By the time you open your own bookmaker, the price may have moved, and it may have moved either way. This is precisely what the minimum price is for: it is the number below which the bet is no longer worth taking, so you do not have to judge whether a move was small enough to ignore. Below the floor, skip it — the day counts the same for your package.