The idea
The closing price is the market's final estimate after all information — lineups, injuries, weather, withdrawals — is in. Taking a better price than the close, consistently, is evidence that your prices were better than the market's final view. It is evidence that accumulates much faster than win-loss results, because it does not wait for the noisy outcome.
Three ways to measure it
- Price CLV: 3.40 / 2.90 − 1 = 17.2% better payout than the close.
- Implied-probability gap: 34.5% − 29.4% = 5.1% points.
- No-vig CLV: the fair close for your side is 33.1%. If that is the truth, your +240 has expected ROI 33.1% × 3.40 − 1 = 12.5%.
No-vig CLV is the most honest of the three because it removes the book margin from the comparison.
What CLV can and cannot tell you
Limitations
- CLV assumes the closing price is a good estimate of the truth. In liquid main markets that is a reasonable assumption; in thin player-prop markets the close can be noisy or stale.
- One bet's CLV means nothing; a few hundred start to mean something.
- Limits and line availability change the story. A price you could only get for a few dollars is not the same as a market price.
Try it in the CLV calculator, which reports all three measures and asks for the opposite side's closing price when you have it.