A recent American Gaming Association study found the gaming industry as a whole has brought in billions in revenue for New York state, even more since New York made online sports gambling legal last year.

New Yorkers can bet on a variety of outcomes at casino sportsbooks and on sites. Some of the most common lines are overall point totals for a given matchup, and spreads.

For example, "the Bills minus seven" means they are favored to win by seven points. There are also prop bets, which have lines on individual players and overall team statistics. The industry has professionals that monitor the market throughout the week to find something that can give their respective book an edge.

Spectrum News 1 looked into how sportsbooks work to come up with the final numbers that folks place their bets on.

“Everyone has a prediction on their game, and you want to be able to prove that right. So, engaging in these markets is a way to do that," said Hunter Kuchenbaur, president of the Sportsbook Analytics Club at Syracuse University.

He's always been a big sports fan. As he looked through stats with his friend, Robbie, he reflected on when he started to bet as a way to stay engaged when his beloved Patriots and Bruins weren’t playing.

“I’m watching these sports that my favorite teams weren’t apart of, and I was always wondering, 'how can I make this better?'" he said.

Betting allows Kuchenbaur to analyze information, one of his favorite things to do. He’s also a statistician for the school's ice hockey team and a part-time data collection analyst for Pro Football Focus.

He wants to win his bets like everyone does, but making money isn’t why he does it.

“The thrill of knowing that you got something right when professionals thought it was very unlikely to happen, is something that’s really, really cool, and is a cool feeling," Kuchenbaur said.

With the NFL season in full swing, how do sports books produce the numbers bettors see when they bet?

“Weeks in advance they are running predictive models, solely based on probability, against matchups, recent performance, they’re taking in consideration so many variables," Kuchenbaur said.

The models are math equations that lead to a number. It's used for major market betting, as well as the future and prop markets. For the NFL, major markets open on Sunday night after the games. Leading up to the next week of contests, those numbers change.

“Information," said Syracuse University sports analytics Assistant Professor Jeremy Losak. "Information drives everything.”

Bets from professionals move numbers because they’re wagering large amounts of money. Injury news and weather are also factors that lead to a change.

“If you think about how the stock market operates, the gambling markets aren’t very different," Losak said. "You have prices moving up and down, you have shocks that will drive prices. Player X gets hurt, the lines shift. Earnings report comes out, stock price shifts."

As sports betting continues to grow, Kuchenbaur believes it'll lead to more opportunities for people who want to work for a sports book.

“People are only going to get smarter the longer this is available, and Vegas is gonna want to catch up, so I think that means jobs," he said.

Those jobs are where he wants to be one day.

“My number one goal in the future would definitely be to set lines for NHL games. I would love to set lines for NHL games," Kuchenbaur said.

Each bet placed includes a fee from the sportsbook. That’s what known as "the vig." Usually, the odds are -110, meaning if we want to win $100, one must pay $110. The $10 difference is the fee.

The best way to overcome that is to use more than one book and shop for the line with the lowest vig.