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A sports gambling theory

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Dec 8, 2015.

  1. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    I'd have to think about it ... I know very little regarding the ins and outs of sports gambling. It's a market, though, and those tend to be pretty damn efficient.
     
  2. SnarkShark

    SnarkShark Well-Known Member

    To buy into something like this, I would need to study it long term. You might find something on SportsInsights.com. They have a lot of, um, insight.

    Sports Betting Articles – Sports Insights
     
  3. justgladtobehere

    justgladtobehere Well-Known Member

    As an example that Las Vegas doesn't always know what it is doing, I read an article about one of the guys making a living off of DFS and he claimed to have made his startup money from betting halftime O/U in the NBA. The article stated that the Las Vegas books set halftime O/U at half of the O/U for the game, but it was clear to this bettor that there was some variance between the point totals in each half and bet accordingly.
     
  4. bigpern23

    bigpern23 Well-Known Member

    I'd have think more about this as it pertains to the NBA, but when it comes to the NFL, I think there might be something to it.

    For instance, sometimes you see a team as a 9.5- or 10- or even 13-point favorite, but the O/U is set at 43. In that type of a case, it makes sense to tack on a bet of over if you're choosing the favorite, or betting the under if you think the underdog is going to win. I would think it's less common for a 13-point favorite to cover the spread without also going over (of course it happens, but I'd love to see some data to find out if heavy favorites hit the over often enough to make it a good play).

    If you culled the data and see a strong enough correlation between say 9-point favorites and above hitting the over, you might be able to exploit that (maybe even exotic bets such as an action-reverse would make sense if the data agrees).
     
  5. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    My suspicion is that you might get some edge, but not enough to make up for the baked-in disadvantage (or vig or juice or whatever you want to call it).
     
  6. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Right, which is built into the money line to begin with. But if I'm thinking about this the right way, you are calculating for that when determining where the value lies. At some point, say over 215 games and under 185 games, the advantage swings to the bettor.

    Again, this assumes efficient point spreads and O/U's.
     
  7. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    I've been looking at some of the O/U for NBA and I think they're too tough to crack consistently. I'll look for two teams that may be playing back-to-back games against each other and go with the under, for example.

    Where I've found a decent streak so far the last 30 days is in college basketball. Bet 2-team money line parlays or 3-team teasers but take the favorites every time. Bet on favorites that are between 3 and 11 point favorites against the spread.

    Last night:
    Rhode Island + St. Joseph's as a money line play was +100. Both won comfortably.
    GW, Virginia and Northern Iowa on a 3-team 7 point teaser. Paid -120.

    The thinking is this... in college basketball, you have a handful of great teams, a chunk of good teams and everyone else is average to below.

    NFL is too hard to really get an edge on although you'll come across the point-spread that just feels "off" (KC -3 at Oakland last week) and I really like the Giants this week.

    College football still can bring moderate gains if you play a 2-team money-line parlay and avoid getting greedy.
     
  8. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    According to my calculations, using Pythagorean wins based on the point spread and O/U expected result, money line value was available tonight on the Pistons to beat the Grizzlies and the Jazz to beat the Knicks. That's not too surprising - they are both low O/U games, with no team projected to break 100.

    The advantage to the bettor was quite small, though, particularly in the Detroit-Memphis matchup.

    The idea is that, according to Pythagorean wins, Detroit has a 61 percent chance to win tonight, while the money line is set at a 60 percent expected win percentage.
     
  9. JackReacher

    JackReacher Well-Known Member

    I like where your head's at, Dick. I wish I thought on those levels when gambling. Unfortunately, I'm a tingle player. And that is reflected over my years of (mostly) losing.

    On the surface, your theory does make some sense. I hope you put it into action, even on a limited basis. Find a game every night or so that fits and be a $20 better for a few weeks, see how you do.

    My only deep thinking theory in gambling lies in betting draws in soccer. Find a pick 'em spread with a fairly even moneyline (both in plus figures) and a total in which under 2 or 2.5 is favored. Then bet the draw. For example, the Gent-Zenit match in Champions League action today. And maybe the Chelsea-FC Porto match.
     
  10. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I think that given enough games over enough time, finding the moneyline inefficiency the way I am trying would be like minting money. Because the advantage of so small, though, when it exists, I don't know that there are enough games to bet on to weed out the effects of randomness. I'll give it a shot, though. I'm going to take a look at college lines, too, when I can.
     
  11. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Huge moneyline value on the Vikings on Thursday under this system, at +7.5, O/U 46, and +300.

    According to the Pythagorean formula, the Vikings are expected to win 31 percent of the time, under this line and O/U. But the moneyline only expects them to win 25 percent of the time.
     
  12. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    I do hold to my theory on college football and picking 40 GOOD teams on Week 1 to win ATS. The ones that lose, bet 2.2x on them to cover ATS the next week (to cover the juice) and so forth.

    No D-1 teams in the last 15 years have gone 0-10, 0-11 or 0-12 ATS. None.

    This year was not easy on that as Michigan State was 0-6 ATS to start, Mizzou was 0-3, Auburn was, I think, 0-4.

    The basis of my theory is that college athletes are inconsistent but, in college football, there is so much overreaction, week-to-week, that the lines often have significant value.
     
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