What is closing line value (CLV)?

Closing line value (CLV) is the difference between the price you bet and the market's final price just before the game starts, after the bookmaker's margin is removed from that final price. Positive CLV means your price was better than the closing line. Negative CLV means the closing line offered a better price than you got.

The standard formula is:

CLV = your decimal odds × no-vig closing probability − 1

Bettors and analysts treat CLV as a long-run signal of whether a bettor's prices are sharper than the market. CLV is an estimate built on the closing price. A bet with positive CLV can lose, and positive CLV over a stretch of bets does not promise a profit.

The closing line is the last price a sportsbook offers before a market closes, usually at the scheduled start. Analysts usually measure CLV against a sharp, high-limit book's closing line, because a sharp book's final number has absorbed the most betting information. LineGoat uses Pinnacle's last price before the game.

The closing line carries the book's margin (the vig). On a two-sided market, the implied probabilities of both sides add up to more than 100%. CLV only means something once that margin is removed, so every CLV calculation starts by devigging the close.

Step 1: Convert the closing prices to implied probabilities

• American to decimal: positive odds = 1 + odds / 100; negative odds = 1 + 100 / |odds|
• Implied probability = 1 / decimal odds

Step 2: Remove the vig from the close

Add the implied probabilities of both sides. Divide your side's implied probability by that sum. The result is the no-vig closing probability. This is the multiplicative (proportional) method, a common convention and the one LineGoat uses.

Step 3: Express CLV

CLV shows up in three forms. The numbers differ, so a CLV figure means little without its form.

Worked example 1: positive CLV (made-up numbers, not a real bet)

You bet Team A at +150 (2.50 decimal, 40.00% implied). The market closes at Team A +130 / Team B -150.

• Team A +130 = 2.30 decimal, implied probability 43.48%
• Team B -150 = 1.667 decimal, implied probability 60.00%
• Sum = 103.48%, so the closing vig is about 3.48%
• No-vig closing probability for Team A = 43.48% / 103.48% = 42.02% (fair odds +138)

CLV in each form: price (EV) form 2.50 × 0.4202 − 1 = +5.0%; probability points 42.02% − 40.00% = +2.0 points; raw ratio 2.50 ÷ 2.30 − 1 = +8.7% (higher, because the vig is still inside the 2.30).

The market moved toward Team A after you bet, and your +150 is better than the no-vig closing price of +138.

Worked example 2: why the vig has to come out (made-up numbers, not a real bet)

You bet Team C at -110 (1.909 decimal, 52.38% implied). The market closes at Team C -120 / Team D +100. Team C got shorter, so it looks like you beat the close.

• Team C -120 = 1.833 decimal, implied probability 54.55%
• Team D +100 = 2.00 decimal, implied probability 50.00%
• Sum = 104.55%
• No-vig closing probability for Team C = 54.55% / 104.55% = 52.17% (fair odds -109)

CLV in each form: price (EV) form 1.909 × 0.5217 − 1 = −0.4%; probability points 52.17% − 52.38% = −0.2 points; raw ratio 1.909 ÷ 1.833 − 1 = +4.1%.

The raw ratio says +4.1%. The no-vig close says your -110 was slightly worse than fair. The line moved your way, but not far enough to cover the vig on the closing market.

Spreads and totals

On spreads and totals, the closing line can move by points as well as by price. If you bet +3.5 and the market closes at +2.5, you got a better number. Comparing two different numbers needs an estimate of how much each half-point is worth, which the simple formula above doesn't provide. LineGoat's tracker doesn't compute CLV when a spread closes on a different number; it notes the line move instead.

The closing line is treated as the sharpest price because it's the last one, after the most money and information have gone into the market. Sharp bettors' action moves the line before the close, and high-limit books like Pinnacle adjust to it.

What the evidence shows

• Soccer, 87,960 odds pairs. An analysis on football-data.co.uk compared pre-closing prices with Pinnacle's closing prices across four soccer seasons from 2012/13. The ratio of the price taken to the closing price predicted actual returns almost one for one (trend slope about 1.00). The analysis left Pinnacle's margin in, so expected yields ran a few percent above actual ones. (football-data.co.uk, August 4, 2016)
• Soccer, 158,092 matches. A follow-up article rechecked the same idea with 474,278 home/draw/away prices. Teams that opened at a no-vig 2.20 and closed at 2.00 won about 50% of the time, returning about 10% to the opening price and about 0% to the closing price. (Pinnacle Betting Resources, "How to solve a problem like efficiency (part one)", November 30, 2018)
• English soccer, peer-reviewed. A study of online odds on English soccer match results found no statistically significant evidence against market efficiency at the overall market level. Individual bookmakers' odds did not fully use the information in competitors' odds, though those effects were very small. (Elaad, Reade and Singleton, Finance Research Letters, 2020, doi:10.1016/j.frl.2019.09.006)
• Pinnacle's own position. Pinnacle describes consistently positive CLV as one of the strongest indicators of a sharp betting strategy. Pinnacle runs a sportsbook, so treat that as the operator's statement. (Pinnacle Betting Resources, "What Is Closing Line Value (CLV) in Sports Betting?", September 15, 2025)

What the evidence doesn't show

• US sports. All of the data above is soccer. We found no published study of closing-line efficiency for NFL, NBA, college football, NHL or MLB markets, so for US sports the efficiency of the close is unknown from the sources we checked.
• Single bets. The efficiency results hold in aggregate, across thousands of matches. A single closing line can be wrong.
• That CLV equals profit. CLV estimates expected value. Actual results are the expected value plus luck, and luck dominates small samples.

Small samples

CLV is less noisy than win-loss results because every bet produces a CLV number, win or lose. A short record still says little. There's no fixed number of bets at which a CLV record becomes reliable: how many bets you have, and how spread out their CLV values are, set how much the record tells you.

Markets with weak closing lines

A closing line is only as good as the betting that shaped it. A column on Sports Trading Network, written from Pinnacle's side, says the more liquid a market, the better its collective estimate. It names big soccer leagues, US major league sports and tennis grand slams as liquid, and says niche markets have far fewer sharp bettors, so their prices carry less information. In thin markets, the close is a weaker yardstick and CLV measured against it means less.

The devig method changes the number

Different vig-removal methods give different fair prices, mostly on longshots. The multiplicative method used above spreads the vig in proportion to each side's implied probability. Additive, power and Shin methods take more of the vig off the underdog, so a record full of big underdogs deserves a second look at the method. A worked comparison is on our method page.

Which close you measure against

A Pinnacle close, another sportsbook's close and an exchange's last traded price are different references. CLV figures from different references are not directly comparable.

A price on a CLV record isn't always a price you can keep getting

Sharp bettors report that some sportsbooks limit winning accounts. In one 2017 preprint, three researchers who bet a soccer strategy with real money at international online bookmakers reported that their accounts were limited within months (Kaunitz, Zhong and Kreiner, arXiv, 2017). That study didn't cover US state-licensed sportsbooks.

LineGoat records CLV for The Goat's top three edges each day: Edge of the Day and the first two runners-up. A check runs every 15 minutes. Shortly before each game's scheduled start (usually 5 to 20 minutes before), it pulls Pinnacle's two-sided price, removes the vig with the multiplicative method and computes CLV in the price (EV) form against the price we published. If a spread closes on a different number, the tracker notes the move and records no CLV. The full method is on How Edge of the Day works.

What is closing line value in sports betting?

Closing line value (CLV) is how much better or worse the price you bet was than the no-vig closing line. The common formula is your decimal odds times the no-vig closing probability, minus 1.

Is positive CLV good?

Positive CLV means your price beat the market's final no-vig price. Over many bets, analysts treat that as a sign of sharp prices. A single bet with positive CLV can still lose, and CLV does not promise a profit.

Why remove the vig before calculating CLV?

The closing line includes the book's margin, which makes raw comparisons look better than they are. A -110 bet that closed at -120 / +100 looks like +4.1% raw but is -0.4% once the vig comes out.

How many bets do you need before CLV means something?

No fixed number exists. How much a record tells you depends on how many bets it has and how spread out their CLV values are; a short record says little.

What is the difference between CLV and EV?

EV at the time of the bet uses the fair price available when you bet. CLV uses the fair price at the close.

Does LineGoat track CLV?

Yes. We record Pinnacle no-vig CLV for our top three edges each day on the Edge Tracker, next to EV at publish for every edge.