From this forum's Sports Betting FAQ

What are the best books to read?

Sharp Sports Betting by Stanford Wong is a good introduction to thinking like a sharp. Weighing the Odds in Sports Betting by 2p2'er King Yao is a good update to Sharp Sports Betting but does not replace it. David Sklansky’s chapter on sports betting in Getting the Best of It provides a good explanation of the math behind betting. Roxy Roxborough’s book Sports Book Management provides a good view of how sportsbooks operate. Elihu Feustel (aka Justin7) has written Conquering Risk: Attacking Vegas and Wall Street which is a solid look at a lot of the maths.

Ok, other than Sharp Sports Betting (and Yao's book, and now Justin7's) what are the other good books to read?

Sadly this gets asked so much that it needs its own entry in the FAQ. There really aren't any other great sports betting books not listed here that I know of - if you know of one, submit it and we'll pimp it. Sharp Sports Betting is the Super/System of Sports Betting. No one has written a Sklansky-level follow up to it.

2+2'er King Yao has written "Weighing the Odds in Sports Betting" which is a solid follow-up to Sharp Sports Betting but does not replace it.

We've had one recommendation for the following - I can't personally vouch for them, but listing here for completeness: "For a good overall book check out Education of a Sports Bettor by Bob McCune. It's older, so you'll have to get past some editing mistakes, but it's very good. For football I'd also suggest How Professional Gamblers Beat the Pro Football Point Spread JR Miller and Beat the Sports Books by Dan Gordon." Another poster provided the following disclaimer: "you should ignore the advice about Kelly betting in the Miller book, and ignore the advice about parlays, teasers etc. in the Gordon book. Dan Gordon is a reasonably decent handicapper but pretty clueless about optimal betting."

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Below are some merged threads where books on sports betting were discussed. This is an open topic.

Despite being a huge sports fan and spending lots of time with poker playing degenerate gamblers, I've managed to avoid learning anything whatsoever about sports betting. I'm determined to correct this and would love to hear your reading suggestions for a complete sports betting virgin. My background is in engineering and I'm fairly strong with math, so heavy math content won't put me off reading any book. The sport I'm most interested in betting is soccer, in case that matters.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I have read the FAQ, but I am looking particularly for math-heavy books beyond Sklansky.

The FAQ has two entries on "what is the best book to read." The second entry is there because this question gets asked all the time, even though it's in the FAQ.

So, as the FAQ says: Sharp Sports Betting. Weighing the Odds. For "must read" books that's pretty much it. There are a lot of secondary books you can get in to, if you want, but start with those two and go from there.

-P

if you're looking math-heavy, read all of Ganchrow's posts here and elsewhere

*that was my one nice deed of the day

New to this forum. Been reading and learning a lot the last couple days. Order SSB and Yao's book along with Baseball Hacks off of Amazon a couple days ago.

Found myself on the SSB forum this morning and all the talk there seems to be that they can't seem to win for the last 3 yrs straight and might as well shut the forum down.

Did I waste $13 buying SSB?

Or, alternatively, will it get me up to speed on the basics of how things work but I'll need to take it much further to have any edge in the current environment?

I'm looking to put a SQL db together, analyze that and test a few ideas then put a system together and simulate the 2008 season to see if I've come up with anything decent. I expect I'll also put something decent together to automate the line shopping and do some analaysis of when/where to bet to address that end of things as well. Doing all that does it sound like I have a decent shot at ending up with an edge in this game? It is a little discouraging to hear SSB lauded as THE classic book on the subject and then find all the people that I assume follow it are net losing for the last 3 years.

At this point I'm mainly in it for the intellectual challenge as I have a good job. I stopped playing poker post-UIGEA so haven't been on the boards in a couple years but would love any pointers anyone has as far as directions to head in (good articles to read, markets to focus on, sources for data, etc.)

No.

Conversely, if you expect reading a $13 book to make you an unbeatable sportsbettor on its own, you have the wrong mindset.

Edit to add: SBB is the Super/System of sports betting. it's the best place to start for building a foundation. it is not everything you need to know but is the first step on the journey.

SSB is the only gambling book i won't let my friends borrow because i reference the data in it at least once a week.

I expect the rest of my post made it clear i don't expect to rule all with a $13 book.

The Super System analogy makes a lot of sense--the fundamentals (a bit dated, but still the fundamentals).

Poisson table is very useful.

I think The Wisdom of Crowds should be added to the FAQ as a must have gambling book

Baseball Hacks is out of date. Still, the articles are very interesting and you can find errata on the Internet about it. Be sure to check out how to build PITCHf/x databases too - Mike Fast should have stuff on that.

Also, SSB is very important. It's the general working knowledge of where profit comes from in sportsbetting. The SSB forum doesn't win because the posters are forced to handicap and choose from widely available lines only. Needless to say, that's not how you beat sportsbetting. In fact, it's a pretty good indictment of handicapping in general and what a waste of time it is.

very helpful reply--love it--gives me good stuff to go take a look at. more of this kind of stuff please!

I'f I've heard 2 different speakers summarize the book for me in the last 3 months is that good enough? I think it is a killer concept and very fascinating but I feel like I've already read it. Def something to get familiar with though as it is pretty mind-blowing when you first hear the ox story.

It's somewhat boring for a highly-touted book. I would pick up Fooled By Randomness instead.

Have this on the shelf as well--would agree it is a must read for anyone that hasn't read it. His new book The Black Swan is essentially the same book from what I hear so that works too.

Black Swan is very similar to Fooled. I'd say that he goes into more detail on why the bell curve is dumb. However, I've found that the bell curve works great for sportsbetting.

most sportsbetting events are from mediocrestan
this goes back to Taleb's story about working with a Las Vegas casino

If nobody was beating the major sports you would never see big line moves against WA lines.
And logic dictates fading the steam moves would be incredibly "off the charts" profitable.

NBA game goes -4 to -6 WA

If offered -4 or +5 by a buddy I am assuming you would take +5 ?

D.

What percentage of cappers can just flat out, out handicap the books and blast them when they see an opening line come out that is off by a few points?

Probably not a whole heckuva lot.

I dunno about 'out-handicap' and 'blast,' but the opening lines on March Madness are quite frequently off and you can see them move as much as six points - at the high end - on a regular basis for spreads, with several more moving 2 points from the open to the following day, and then some continuing to move during the week and/or right up until tipoff. A spread move of -12 to 16 isn't that unusual, you can certainly get +EV middles like on Gtown last year and Memphis year before that.
I've seen totals drop by 5-6 points by tipoff multiple times for games that were already the lowest total on the board over the past 15 years.

Siena, merely one example, was one I thought [and 1-2 others here at SB] was notably mispriced last year, got bigger and bigger dog, and then upset Vandy by 21. I think with having to put up 32 totals and spreads for the first round on Sun Nite, and presumably trying to guess numbers to get equal action on most of those games, there's always going to be solid value in at least a few spots.

there are some who are just flat out destorying cbb totals this year. I'm not one of them though.

Probably the best investment you can make as a newbie in the sports betting world.

Just got in the mail the other day. I'm on page 131 right now.

If anyone can tell me how to replicate the table on page 124 using Excel I'd be grateful.

4 columns are: (sample size, 1:100, 1:1000, 1:10000)
the values in the 3 probability columns are the W-L records needed to reach that column's specified level of significance with the given sample size.

I was looking at the BINOMDIST function to generate these values but was unsure how to use it as I am essentially attempting to solve for the function's first input.

I can obviously use Solver to get the needed number of wins one cell at a time but was hoping someone here could tell me an easier way to do this in a standard formula.

Thanks.

http://www.sharpsportsbetting.com/docs/prop_tools.shtml

I must admit I am impressed you got this far.

99% of people who bet sports don`t even think about this stuff.

Maybe my "grumpy" post was just the kick up the ass you needed.

D.

actually this is a better link directly to Excel.

http://www.sharpsportsbetting.com/mi...p_Analysis.xls

D.