Originally Posted by DefNotRsigley
Being a not fat, but not in shape middle aged white man who is prematurely balding, I get approached by younger people in the Vegas sports books all the time. They comment on how it looks like I've been in this game for ten years and want to hear a story from the good old days. Before people spent 9 hours a day generating DFS statistics to give them away for free or sell a subscription for $20/month instead of using the data to make money for themselves. Before Draftkings ruined the market with increased rake and scandals (can't wait to see what their sportsbook does!) and made profitable DFS players unprofitable forcing them to also flood the market with their data. Simpler times. When modelers trusted their models and risked their money on it. When we shared ideas freely on the message board only to be called names by Thremp.
After I correct them that I've been in the game for sixteen years, I tell them about the magical year of 2011. Let me set the stage first - the online sportsbook market was crumbling. It was harder to get money in, smaller books were folding or merging, several books stopped doing business with the USA, and the government was arresting people involved in bookmaking. Some people smartened up and sold their low quality sportsbooks to TheGreek and used the money to craft a narrative that they won their money through sports betting to get e-Famous and spin that into other jobs. With the dwindling USA population, how could sportsbooks attract new customers?
Enter Pinnacle Sports. While they pulled out of the USA several years earlier, they still had an army of agents who were offering access to USA players. Prior to this, they tended to focus on more traditional bets, but in 2011 that would change. I logged in MLB Opening Day 2011 and was met with a buffet of props to choose from. Some of the traditional ones like hits+runs+errors, score in the first inning, but more novel ones such as First Inning K's and Total Bases. That morning I took an unofficial position as props linesman as every morning at 10am I would adjust their lines to what I thought was fair. It was a good paying job with First Inning K's paying 164k in the first season, but my hardest day at work was with this little Total Bases prop.
July 5, 2011. Any normal day. Wake up, adjust the lines, sit at the computer monitoring the situation all day and checking to see if any other lines need adjusting, when a new prop appeared on my screen. This was odd, as up to this point they never added a prop later in the day. Hunter Pence (Astros led by Wandy Rodriguez) +105 vs. Andrew McCutchen (Pirates led by Jeff Karstens) -123 and the game starts in 35 minutes. Both Wandy and Karstens were having good years at this point, but according to my model Karstens was running way above expectation and was overvalued. Pence was also a much better player at the time, and my model saw a lot of value in Hunter Pence. I put in a max $1,000 bet, watched the line moved to Pence -105, hit it again down to -120 and was satistified that I made a couple hundred in expected value. Then a minute later it bounces back, Pence +105 - interesting. Reload and hit it again and it goes to -120 after one bet. Little did I know, these were the opening shots in what would become an epic war. I had a healthy bankroll at the time, but not enough to fire more than 4 or 5 shots at a 50k MLB ML and feel worried, but a 1k prop we could unload a banana clip at this thing. Over the next 30 minutes, me and an unknown soldier went back and forth moving the line a combined 48 times. As the game started we were standing there with approximately $26,000 on a prop bet.
Pence got us out to an early lead with a single in the top of the first, followed by a pop out by McCutchen. These were the times before the second you gain any value you hedge out with a live bet and be happy you made $5. When you took a stand you saw it to the end. Pence grounded out in the 4th, and McCutchen struck out on 10 pitches. 5 innings to go. McCutchen got another AB in the next inning. Wandy was tiring leading off with a walk to Karstens, but then rallied striking out the next two. A double to Matt Diaz put 2nd and 3rd with McCutchen coming up. A 3-2 fastball down the middle gets rocked by McCutchen. One foot to the right and it would have been a home run, but it's foul. We get out of the situation with hard ground out to third and a great defensive play by Chris Johnson. Top 6th, Pence singles on a ground ball to McCutchen and we are leading 2-0. McCutchen walks in the bottom of the 7th and it looks like we have this thing sealed up, Pittsburgh is up 5-1 and at home, so we just have to sweat one more inning. Pence strikes out in the top of the 8th and the Pirates go 1-2-3 in the bottom half. No comeback for the Astros in the top of the 9th and we cash approximately 27k on our 26k bet.
There were smaller skirmishes throughout the year such as taking Derrick Lee +148 over Travis Hafner down to -112 over 11 max bets only to get a push, a 14-1 victory of Pujols over Josh Hamilton that went through 23 line changes, and a 1-0 victory of Paul Konerko over Travis Hafner over 9 bets, but nothing close to the intensity of Pence vs. McCutchen.
I had immense disappointment when the 2012 season rolled around and all the non-traditional MLB props were gone. The only things left standing were HRE, To Score First, and Score in the First Inning. Occasionally during the playoffs they bring back Total Bases, but it doesn't matter. When Pinnacle executives were arrested in 2014, they cracked down on agents providing access to US players and we were forced to only bet in Vegas and through telephone with Bookmaker. Vegas offers the props, but not as frequent, with lower limits, and a bigger hold. The lines are tougher now due to the DFS crisis, but one day I hope we can return to those simpler times of 2011.
Unfortunately yesterday we went
0-1-1 in total bases for -1.05u
0-2 in K prop for -2.25u
but lets get back on the right track today.
Belt -115 over Bellinger
Soto -105 over Harper
K Prop closer to gametime as they lines aren't posted.
