Tuesday Tool Series #12: Price Watches
Tuesday tool series, article 12 of 19. The tool: Price Watches, on every game in the Line Shop
Tuesday Tool Article #12. Price Watches. The example below comes from our hourly scans of Eagles at Commanders, Sunday Night Football on November 1, 2026, from Friday, October 23 to kickoff. Every price is the best Eagles moneyline we saw at that scan. The screenshots were taken on the Line Shop at 10:26 AM ET on Monday, November 2.
You know the price you want. The Eagles at +200, say. The board says +170.
So you check again at lunch. Then before bed. Then the next morning, and the morning after that. Most of the time it hasn't moved, and the one time it does, you're in a meeting.
Waiting for a number is the most boring part of betting, and the part people quit on. They take +170 because they got tired of refreshing.
What the tool does
A Price Watch waits for you.
Pick a game, a bet and a number. We check it every minute against our live prices, and the moment one of your books reaches your number, you get one alert and the watch is done.
Your books means the ones in your My Books list. A watch never pings you about a book you can't use.
It works on the moneyline, the spread and the total at an exact line, and the first half moneyline (first five innings in baseball). A spread or total watch only counts books that are at the line you picked, so a Cowboys -3.5 watch never fires on a book that moved to -4.5.
A real example
Friday night, October 23. The best price on the Eagles to beat the Commanders was +170 at BetRivers. DraftKings had them at +150.
Say you wanted +200. Here is how the best Eagles price moved:
- Fri Oct 23, 8 PM: +170 at BetRivers
- Mon Oct 26, 3 PM: +172 at FanDuel
- Tue Oct 27, 7 AM: +194 at Novig
- Tue Oct 27, 1 PM: +199 at Novig
- Tue Oct 27, 2 PM: +213 at Novig, with FanDuel at +200
- Thu Oct 29, 2 PM: +240 at theScore Bet, the best we saw all week
- Sun Nov 1, 8 PM, just before kickoff: +228 at Novig, +225 at DraftKings
With Novig or FanDuel in your My Books, a +200 watch fires at 2 PM on Tuesday. That's four days of not checking, and one alert.
Only have DraftKings? It got to +205 at 6 PM on Thursday. Same watch, same alert, two days later, at a book you actually have.
$100 at +170 profits $170. The same $100 at +213 profits $213. Same team, same game, $43 more, and the watch did the waiting.
Our archive keeps one scan an hour, so 2 PM is the first time we can show it there. A watch checks every minute, so it can fire sooner than that.
Notice 7 AM Tuesday. Novig hit +194 and then dropped back to +186 an hour later. A +190 watch with Novig in your books catches that. If you were refreshing by hand, you'd have needed to look in that one hour.
And notice the other side. The Eagles got longer all week because the market liked them less. A better price on your team is not free money. It means more people think your team loses. A watch tells you the number arrived. Whether you still want the bet at that number is your call.
How to use it
Set My Books. On the Alerts page, under Settings, pick the books you can bet at. Every watch only counts those.
Open the Line Shop. Find your game and tap Show all books to open the full board.
Set the watch. Under the books there's a row that reads Alert me when. Pick the bet (Moneyline, Spread, Total or 1st Half), the side, and the line if it's a spread or total. Type your number, use the + or − button for the sign, and tap Set. You'll see "Watching. One ping when it gets there."
Turn on alerts first. A watch sends a push alert, so the device needs alerts on. On the website, watches are part of the Live Beta. The iPhone app works the same way: every minute, your books only.
Find your watches. Every alert lands in your Alerts inbox at theoddsgap.com/alerts. Under Settings, the Price Watches row shows how many you have set.
The method
Every watch is checked every minute against our live prices, on the website and in the app. When a book in your My Books reaches your number, the alert goes out with the price and the book, and the watch closes. If you haven't picked books yet, it uses the books legal in your state.
Exchange prices include their fees, and an exchange only counts when there's enough at that price to take a $100 bet. Offshore books and Pinnacle never count.
Watches expire when the game starts. You can have up to 20 set at once.
The methodology page covers how every price on the site is read.
What it does not do
This is the section nobody else writes, so here it is.
It is only as fresh as our prices. A watch checks every minute, but it can only see a price once our live scan has picked it up.
It does not hold the price. By the time you open the app, the number can be gone. The alert tells you which book had it and when. Confirm at the book before you bet.
It fires once. One alert, then it's done. If the price goes further your way, you won't hear about it unless you set another.
It ignores books you didn't pick. If your number shows up at a book outside My Books, there's no alert. The watch's row on the Alerts page tells you where it hit, so you know why it stayed quiet.
It does not work on Android yet. The Android app has no alerts for now.
It does not tell you the number is a good one. It only tells you it got there.
The point
You already know the price you'd bet at. Now you don't have to stare at the board to find out when it shows up. Set the number, close the app, and get on with your week.
Set your first one on any game in the Line Shop.