Bet −105 on what closes −110 and every winner pays $4.33 more per $100 — that is CLV.
Price
Pays on $100
Your −105 collects $4.33 more per $100 than the −110 close — you beat the closing line.
Definition
What closing-line value is
CLV is the gap between the price or line you bet and the price or line the market closed at.
Every market drifts toward a final number as the start nears — the close. By then the wisest money has spoken, and that closing line is the sharpest public estimate of true probability anyone will publish on the event. If you bet a number the market later agreed was good and drifted toward, you captured positive CLV. If it drifted away from you, you bet the worse number, no matter how the game ended.
A bet’s CLV is fixed the instant the line closes. The game can still hand you a win or a loss, but it cannot retroactively make a bad number good. Treat CLV as the scoreboard for the decision, and the win/loss column as the scoreboard for the night.
The case for it
Why CLV beats win rate in the short run
Win rate is mostly noise until your sample is enormous; CLV is signal from the first bet.
Over fifty plays, a 53% bettor and a 47% bettor are statistically hard to tell apart — variance swamps the difference. Their CLV separates them almost immediately. Beat the close by a point or two per bet and you are, by definition, betting numbers the market keeps validating; do that across a few hundred plays and the win rate has nowhere to go but toward the edge you have already proven.
The math
The formula
For a moneyline or any priced market, CLV is the move in implied probability — the form the engine speaks, and the one with no side to get wrong:
For a total or spread, CLV is the move in the number, signed by the side you took. An Over wants the close ABOVE its number; an Under wants it below:
Worked example
One ticket, two scoreboards
You bet Josh Allen Over 250.5 passing yards at −110 on Thursday. By kickoff the market has walked the other way: the close sits at 244.5. Allen throws for 262.
Ticket result
Win · 262 clears 250.5Closing-line value
−2.5% · the worse numberWorked example · The two scoreboards
- Bet · Over at −110 (implies)
- 250.5 · 52.4%
- Close · Over
- 244.5
- Result
- 262 · ticket wins
- Points CLV · (244.5 − 250.5) ÷ 244.5
- −2.5%
Your ticket cashes — 262 clears 250.5 with room. But by the close every later Over bettor got 244.5, six yards cheaper than yours. You bought the number the market priced richer: a win on the night, a loss on the decision. Repeat that bet a thousand times and the six-yard gap is what you pay.
Try it
Grade your own ticket
Type where it opened, what you got, and both sides of the close. The ladder redraws and the expected-value engine grades your price against the de-vigged close.
Don't bet — at −105 this is −2.4% against a 50.0% fair — you would need +100 to break even.
Price
Pays on $100
Your −105 collects $4.33 more per $100 than the −110 close — you beat the closing line.
- Your price implies
- 51.22%
- The close implies
- 52.38%
- Fair at the close, cut removed
- 50.00%
- Closing-line value, in probability
- +2.27%
The anchor
The sharp reference market
CLV is only meaningful against a closing line you trust to be sharp.
Not every closing price is created equal. A low-limit recreational book’s close is a soft estimate; a high-limit market or an exchange’s closing midpoint is the consensus of the people who move the most money and can least afford to be wrong. Books like Pinnacle and the major exchanges close the sharpest, lowest-margin numbers in the market, which is why they make the cleanest yardstick.
Strip the vig out of that sharp close first. A raw −120 / +100 market still carries the book’s margin; de-vigged, it resolves to the true probability the market settled on. The instrument above does exactly that with the two closing prices you type.
Dynatyze methodology
How we grade CLV
When the +EV engine surfaces a pick, it stamps the offered price, the de-vigged fair probability, and the sharpest anchor available at that moment. After the event starts, the closing price at the same book and tier the pick was flagged on is captured, and realized CLV is computed against it.
Grading against the same book the pick was flagged on is deliberate: it measures a number you could actually have captured, not a theoretical best price you never had access to. The result is published in the public ledger — wins, losses, and the CLV on every one.
Questions
CLV, answered
4 questions · tap one to unfold the answer
A good closing-line value is consistently positive — most sharp bettors target an average of +1% to +2% across hundreds of plays. The exact bar is market-dependent: low-vig sides need less CLV to prove an edge than high-hold player props, where +3% or better is a stronger signal.
Yes — negative CLV means you got worse than the closing price, so the market moved against your bet after you placed it. It is the honest measure of a market-timing error, and a long run of negative CLV is the clearest sign a process has no edge, regardless of the win rate luck has handed you.
CLV matters more than win rate over small samples because it isolates skill from variance. A single bet either wins or loses, but its CLV is fixed the moment the line closes — beat the close repeatedly and the win rate eventually follows, because the closing line is the sharpest public estimate of true probability.
Grade against the sharpest closing price you can reach — an exchange's no-vig midpoint or a de-vigged consensus of the highest-limit books. Dynatyze grades every surfaced +EV pick against the de-vigged closing price at the same book and tier it was flagged on, so the CLV figure reflects a number you could actually have captured.
Continue reading
Arithmetic of stated prices, not a recorded play. Not a sportsbook — bet legally and within your means.