What is Closing Line Value in Sports Betting?

Closing Line Value Explained in Detail

The closing line is considered the most accurate reflection of the true probability of a game outcome. By the time a game starts, the market has processed all available information, sharp money has been placed, and the line has settled at its final number. Beating this line means you saw value before the market fully priced it in.

CLV is more predictive of long-term success than actual win-loss record over small samples. A bettor who beats the closing line consistently but has a losing month is almost certainly going through a variance dip and will recover. A bettor who has a winning month but consistently gets worse odds than the closing line is likely running hot and will regress.

Sportsbooks use CLV as their primary tool for identifying sharp bettors. If your account consistently bets lines that move in your direction after you bet, the sportsbook will limit or ban your account. This practice, while frustrating for winning bettors, is confirmation that CLV is the gold standard metric.

To maximize CLV, you need to bet early when the market is least efficient and your edges are largest. Early-week NFL lines are softer than game-day lines. Opening totals have more room for mispricing than closing totals. The tradeoff is that early lines can be harder to analyze because less information is available, but for skilled bettors, the CLV captured by betting early typically outweighs this uncertainty.