A gambling thought experiment

Probably the most effective way is to link your bets to Cutler's body language.

 

Lots of really smart guys have tried to use systems to gain and edge and win gambling. Don't think it's worth the investment in time.

 

As I wrote in an earlier thread, I followed Ivy League basketball pretty closely when I was in college and I made a killing my junior and senior years. Now, there is way more tape available than 25 years ago, so the spreads will be more efficient, but there is money to be made.

 

Is this a system, though? It's just trying to know more than Vegas.

 

Should work. After all, the worst anyone has ever done against Vegas is break even, or "lost a little."

 

"I just play for the comps."

 

The argument I would make in response is that Vegas is likely nothing if not efficient. They aren't going to spend more time on the MAC, for example, than they need to in order to come out ahead. Is there a "MAC guy" watching every Eastern Michigan game and analyzing the matchups and analytics in order to set a proper line? Maybe there is. Ragu thinks there is. I'd like to find out. There are still inefficiencies to be exploited - people clean up on DraftKings and FanDuel, for example, given the time to put into it.

 

Long term, I think the only way you come out ahead is if you are betting against other people (poker, fantasy leagues) and are just better or put in more work.

 

You're using the word "efficient" in a manner wholly inconsistent with Ragu's usage. Ragu's "efficient" market is one in which all publicly* available information is incorporated in the price of a speculative play. The bigger, more liquid a market, the more likely it is that it'll be efficient in that manner.

Further -- and on other threads we've gone 'round and 'round on this, but it's a fact -- Vegas defines a proper line as one in which the action is approximately split. To that end, Vegas does not analyze Eastern Michigan's game ... rather, Vegas analyzes the betting patterns of those inclined to place bets on Eastern Michigan's games. Entirely a different animal.

Finally, of course there are people who clean up on DraftKings and FanDuel, just as there are money managers who "beat the market" substantially in a given year. Doing it over the longer-run, though ... that's another matter.

*There are even more expansive views on market efficiency. Adherents of the strong market efficiency hypothesis believe that virtually all relevant information -- even that that's not public -- is incorporated in the price of a speculative play. Read up on stock market reaction to the Challenger explosion ... at the end of that day, only one of the three main contractors exhibited a significantly lowered stock price. Guess which one ...

 

When I'm using the word "efficiency," what I mean is how much work is Vegas actually putting into analyzing that game to set the proper line. At some point, for Vegas, it's diminishing returns. They'll make money whether the EMU line is set at 10.5 or 10. Can't you theoretically just outwork Vegas then, and know pretty definitively that the proper line is actually 8?

 

To that end, Vegas doesn't really care if Dick Whitman works to have a better knowledge of the MAC and if he wins a few thousand betting on it per season. Vegas cares if 50,000 Dick Whitmans start analyzing and winning bets on the MAC.

DQ's point - "Vegas does not analyze Eastern Michigan's game ... rather, Vegas analyzes the betting patterns of those inclined to place bets on Eastern Michigan's games. Entirely a different animal" - actually supports Whitman's point. Because Whitman's betting pattern is going to be an outlier, Vegas isn't going to worry about him and is going to keep setting the lines based on the vast majority of bettors. So if Whitman works hard enough to know the MAC inside and out, he doesn't need to know it better than Vegas - he needs to know it better than the average bettors so he can recognize when they push a line too far in one direction.