Limits
A limit is the most a book will take from you on one bet. It changes with the sport, the market, the time of the week and the player, and the reasons tell you a good deal about the book.
Where the book trusts its number
One rule covers every limit you will meet: a book takes the most money where it trusts its number most.
So limits are highest on the side and total of a major league game, and lower on props, small leagues and futures. They are usually low when a line first goes up and are raised as the game gets closer and the number settles. And most books can set a limit for one account, and do.
Stake or win
A limit is stated either as the most you can stake or as the most you can win, and the two are not the same thing. A $500 stake limit on a +400 prop means the book is risking $2,000, while a book that lets you win $5,000 on a side at -110 is taking a $5,500 stake. The longer the price, the more the difference matters, so find out which way your book states it. Better still, read or ask what the limits are on the things you bet before you deposit.
Why books cut players
The book's side first, because it has one. A straight bet at -110 has a cut of about 4.5 percent built in, and a player who beats the number by more than that costs the book money on every bet he makes (and he makes a lot of them). No business keeps a customer like that at full size, and a shop that wants to be open next year has to manage him.
Now the other side. Plenty of books cut a player at the first sign that he knows what he is doing, and cut him to a stake that makes the account useless. I think that says more about the people making the lines than about the player. A book that advertises for your action and then takes $10 of it is not really in the bookmaking business, and I never had much respect for the ones that worked that way.
What gets an account limited
Results matter less than people think. From what I have seen, these matter more:
- Beating the closing line regularly.
- Betting only props and small markets, where the numbers are softest.
- Betting only when there is a boost or a bonus attached.
- Taking a price seconds after the rest of the market has moved off it.
- Asking for the maximum every time.
- Betting one side of an arbitrage.
A recreational player who bets the weekend's big games for round amounts will probably never meet his limit. If that's you, don't lose sleep over any of this.
Two kinds of book
Some books take a large bet from anyone and move the number when they are beaten, treating a sharp bet as information they have paid for. Their margins are thin and their limits are high. Others are built on recreational players and marketing, with lower limits, and they move winners out.
Neither is dishonest if the rules are stated. I'd want to know which kind I was dealing with before I put money in, and so should you.
A bet limit is also not a maximum payout, and it is not a withdrawal limit. All three can apply to the same account, and the differences are in how payout limits work.
When it happens to you
If you are cut, arguing rarely changes it. I'd withdraw what you don't need there and take your business to a book that wants it. What I wouldn't do is open accounts in other people's names to get around a limit: it breaks the house rules everywhere, and it can cost you the balance.
The limit that matters most is your own, and it should sit below the book's. One or 2 percent of your bankroll on a bet is the limit that keeps you in the game, whatever the book would let you stake.
A book's limit tells you what it thinks of its own number. A cut limit tells you what it thinks of you.