What Is Closing Line Value (CLV)?

Detailed Explanation

Closing line value is considered the gold standard for evaluating sports bettors because the closing line is the most efficient point in the market. By game time, the line has absorbed all available information: public betting, sharp money, injury news, weather, and market corrections. Beating that line consistently means you are finding value before the market catches up.

Here is how CLV works in practice: if you bet the Bills moneyline at +150 and the closing line is +130, you got positive CLV because you got a better price. Even if the Bills lose that game, getting consistent positive CLV means you are making mathematically profitable decisions over time. Short-term results are noisy. CLV is the signal.

AI prediction models help you capture CLV by analyzing games earlier than the market fully prices them. When our model identifies a team as undervalued early in the day, you can bet before sharp money moves the line. By game time, the line may have moved in the direction our AI predicted, meaning you captured closing line value.

Professional sports bettors track CLV obsessively because it correlates with long-term profit better than any other metric. A bettor who consistently gets positive CLV will be profitable over thousands of bets, even if individual games are unpredictable. The math works out because getting better numbers compounds over time.

The 99¢ Community's AI generates predictions before lines move, giving you the opportunity to bet early and capture CLV. Our public dashboard shows when predictions are posted and what the line was at game time, allowing you to verify whether our picks provided closing line value.