Somebody knew something. Within 2 hours of the line market being posted on the TAB on Wednesday, the Suns, granted 75.5 points start by those who determine these things, had moved from $1.90 to $1.70. Meantime, the head-to-head market, frequented it seems by different money, ill- or un-informed and therefore unaware of the team announcements to come, steadfastly supported the Gold Coast's Monday assessment as $13 prospects.

Fast forward to Friday afternoon, post the revelations about the Hawks' multiple outs for the week, and observe that Gold Coast are now at $6.00 on the head-to-head market, making them about twice as likely to win as they were previously assessed, and $1.23 on the line market, a price unlike anything we've ever seen in this market. By the TAB bookmaker's own assessment, anyone who'd climbed on the Suns when they were $1.90 on the line market was now sitting on a 40%+ margin, and anyone who'd picked them up head-to-head at $13 was sitting on nearly a 25% margin. Sweet. 

On the basis of this behaviour in the markets I'll take some convincing that a significant proportion of the early money on the Suns wasn't "smart" money - smart in the sense that it knew something others didn't.

In fact, for much of this season it's been my contention that the line and head-to-head markets are being wagered upon by two largely distinct groups of gamblers, differently abled. I've seen numerous examples where the line market has moved and the head-to-head market has not moved at all or has only moved much later. Forced to posit a guess I'd wager that the line market money was far more professional and informed; I guess that's reinforced by the fact that the line market is posted two days after the head-to-head market and is therefore insulated against any information that becomes available during the period from Monday to Wednesday noon.

But if I'm to make other than anecdotally-supported observations I need to be more assiduous and considered in my data collection about this issue. Maybe next year.