Roster rules deliberately compress quality
Salary mechanisms and a single-entity structure narrow the gap between the best and worst sides on purpose, so upsets are structurally more common.
The competition is designed for competitive balance rather than for the accumulation of talent at the top. That design shows up directly in the distribution of results.
Designated player rules allow a small number of exceptions, so individual teams can carry one or two players well above the league standard.
The problem arrives next. Applying reasoning from a league with no such constraints produces prices that look wrong and are not, because the underlying distribution is genuinely different.
What to do with it. Expect flatter ratings and smaller edges, and be sceptical of any model trained on a league with different roster rules.
The archive
What the published price did in MLS
483 games in MLS that are over and carried a price when we wrote them up, between February 21, 2026 and November 2, 2026. Each count sits beside what it is out of, and the share is the one divided by the other.
| What | How often | Out of | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| The shorter price won | 240 | 480 | 50.0% |
| The favourite covered the handicap | 227 | 483 | 47.0% |
| The total went over | 249 | 483 | 51.6% |
| The home side won | 221 | 483 | 45.8% |
- Points in a game, on average
- 3.24
- Winning margin, on average
- 1.34
How wide the games were
Over 608 finished games in MLS with a score — a margin needs no price, so this sample is wider than the one above.
- Half were decided by this or less
- 1
- One in ten by this or more
- 3
- The widest
- 7
How they ended
Over 603 finished games in MLS whose result line says how it ended — the feed's own one-line verdict, not a reading of the play.
| What | How often | Out of | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Went past regulation | 7 | 603 | 1.2% |
| Settled on a shootout | 7 | 603 | 1.2% |
126 games landed exactly on the number — the handicap or the total — so they are in the counts they are out of and in neither result.
The prices counted here are DraftKings', as they stood when we last wrote each game up — one snapshot per game, near kick-off for almost all of them, and never a closing line. So this says what the published line did, not how it moved on the way there.
A season that happened. Nothing here predicts the next game, and none of it is advice.
Counted November 6, 2026.
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