Great opportunity to work through an example problem together. I'm thinking we could improve daringly's rough calc by adding league sacks?

BAL Sacks Allowed 1.5
BAL Sacks 2.7
NYJ Sack Allowed 2.9
NYJ Sacks 2.4
League Avg Sacks Per Game 2.5

Next we can think about what variables predict sacks to create our own xSacks metric. If we can all improve our handicapping by just 1% every week by the power of compounding soon we'll all be crushing

Sorry for the late results update. Never a slow day being a partner in an imaginary betting syndicate. Can I count this as project management experience on my resume?

Daily: 1-3-0, -2.21u
YTD: 168-169-1, -15.45u, 407.14u risked, -3.8% ROI

SOGs coffee cup came out of the kiln looking amazing. Of course, I need to actually have a winning day to deserve using it. It's something extra to root for on a big slate.

.....

TomG,

Sacks aren't really predictive. Generally everyone regresses toward the mean.

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/st...usted-pressure
https://www.sharpfootballanalysis.co...it-regression/

We need to adjust for expected passing plays as well, since it is pretty tough to get a sack when the ball isn't being passed!

Your method seems substantially better than J7's, but that isn't really a compliment.

yes pass attempts are a huge component for me at least. and pacing, etc. which are part of the pass attempts model. It also looks at Def line vs. Off line matchups and I use something similar to the adjusted sack rate for football outsiders but I seem to value things differently as my numbers don't really match up with theirs.

Baltimore plays the one of the slowest paces in the NFL, especially when they get up by 7+, so that is a big factor for the low pass attempts and hence low sacks. I do also adjust for things like NYJ being really good against the run (ranked #2 in my model) which will force Balt to throw more, etc.

Who knows, after I bet the under it went to -101 an hour later and now is -160.

I don't understand the volume argument though, a majority of my volume is still on spreads (ML for MLB) and totals, but in setting my fair line I make all the projections for the individuals anyway so why not double dip and diversify a little (with bets that are higher ROI too)?

This week I put in a couple bets on Jets +17 when I found them for around 18k, and now I have 7k or so on props in the game. My ROI for props varies on the prop, but overall for NFL it's been 11.27% this year which equates to $788.90 sklansky bucks for things I calculate anyway. Just have to click buttons and type in numbers.

For NBA it's been really great since there is still value in full game spreads, but it's tougher now. I used to have many full game and half/quarters bets in the past years, but the lines seem to be more efficient (thanks to Deck Prism sports most likely), don't move as much creating opportunities to buy back bad line moves, etc. People seem to get info on minutes projections way faster than me, so I can't even benefit from that like I used to in the past.

There's still tons of value IMO on props and more books are offering them because of the european style books becoming more popular here, so just need to diversify. To go through the hundreds of nba props in the morning only takes me ~15 minutes and I'm doing the projections anyway for full games. My NBA Prop ROI has been ridiculous this year and I'm easily able to get ~15k/day on them, so why pass that money up. I need all I can get to lose betting on the NHL.

If you focus just on Baltimore forced sacks... 2.7 vs league average of 2.5, and NYJ allowed 2.9 vs average of 2.5, there are a lot of different ways to play with that. Additive, multiplicative, log 5, and more complex (but not necessarily better) approaches. We could build a multi-year database and build a precise xSacks model. We might believe the true answer is .61, .625, or what have you. We could put in our $250 bets and pound fists on our chests. "I captured 10% EV! $25 grocery dollars!"

Is it worth doing? Yes, but not so that you can place $250 bets. The methods (for me anyway) aren't worth the time, unless I can attack a much bigger market. Anyone can win on props with back-of-the-napkin calculations. Everyone recognizes -125 Under 5.5 as a great bet, but no one is taking -150.

The biggest successes I've had are with giant historical databases where you can really look at relationships. How much is outlier, how much do you expect it to revert? What is the best relationship between many variables for future prediction? If we could bet $10k on sacks, an xSack model would be a great project.

If you all are going to spend the mental effort, why not attack something worth beating?

If I were advising a new syndicate what to attack, I'd say go after any sort of in-game betting in a major sport (the big US 5, Soccer or Tennis). The market limits are huge, and the lines are still very weak. For sportsbooks that publish holds, the typical book hold for in-game is about 1/2 of the pre-game hold.

You must have a very good process to get your numbers and bet them (at many books) that quickly. I'm reluctant to spend money on automatic betting since you don't know how long you'll last at most books.

Justin you should probably go back to being a lawyer.

Yeah, probably. This whole thing with numbers, dollars and stuff is overwhelming.

Just download the html file from whatever book you're using, upload to your server, use your database to automatically find the value, then click away, hit max bet, etc. The couple I'm using now let you click multiple at the same time, so select all the ones I want, hit max bet, hit submit, wait, download pending bets, upload to server, and everything auto grades.

Or a lot of the PPH books use the same XML feed. Just find it and you good to go.

What do people think about this 6 at Saratoga Harness Race 12? People loving 4 for some reason, should we take a huge flyer at 8/1 even though the win pool is only $2500 or so?

Racing sucks so much this time of the year, can't wait until April.

Sigs,

Yeah. They lump in intentional grounding. Some QBs love holding onto the ball and eating a sack. Others bail all the time. (Rape v Godgers) Pulling out the elements that are pertinent can help refine the model from a generic stat someone utilizes.

Seems fine to mash the buttons if you're doing everything on a granular basis. I'm a pleb who just does derivs so w/e.


Justin,

I don't know what has happened but if you think the live hold is less than pre game.... lolwut?!?

If you're trying to model full game spread and totals to place bets with "more volume" don't you need to consider the number of sacks anyway? So you'd have to put in the work to model that as a piece of the puzzle and it goes beyond the $25 grocery money. I'm sure someone could reverse engineer what spread bets I have based on projections I share.

Or do people still do the classic "power ratings" of teams approach that only worked because the lines were so bad at the time before people figured out how to use computers.

Live betting with no automation sounds infinitely worse than being a 5th tier attorney.

oh no we screwed up

predicted there would be ~$5500 in the race 12 pool so dropped a fat hundo on the 6 when it was 5/1

and i guess other people did too and the pool came in really low of 5500 so now it's 4/5 and a bad bet

and now it's in last place because it got caught in the gate. sorry bros

somehow we still got 4th even with the horrible start

you've got about 10x more money than i will ever have, and 10x the math skills too, but i always imagined you were betting way bigger. those numbers are modest for someone who many would consider to be a legit top sports bettor, if not the greatest of our time

give us a call and let's make money moves

Actual hold, not theoretical hold. Most books hold 4-5% of volume on straight pre-game wagers. Most books hold half that in in-game, even though the theoretical hold is roughly the same.

In-game is much, much easier to beat than pre-game. I haven't done any sort of pre-game handicapping in probably 5 years, when I was doing tennis.

I am not good at NFL and has always been a marginal winner (like ~1% ROI over the last 5 years for FG). I make more on 2H NFL bets than FG every year and if things hold I'll make more from props than full games this year. It's close now. There was a weird period of my life where I was betting 300k on games and it was great when I won every one, but when I lost my first one I got sick and then went back to more normalcy.

MLB, NBA, and Golf are where I make my biggest bets and most of my money. Well Golf relatively big to the limits offered which are pretty small outside of bookmaker.

And I only really bet Harness racing which has pretty low handles so you can only really bet max $250 on Win bets and $500 or so on exactas, but the rakeback is insane. Some tracks give you 16%, don't even need to be a winner.

I also lose money every year on college basketball even though it's apparently the easiest sport to beat. Typically it goes win money Nov-March. Lose all of my profits + more during March Madness. Swear I'll never do March Madness, when it rolls around think it will be different, and it never is.

Lets all do the March Madness meetup again and people can teach me how to beat it. And I'll teach you how to use computers to cheat by predictive modeling.

I don't think I'm 5th tier anymore. Valparaiso Law School, my Alma mater, lost its accreditation. They were having trouble filling their classes, so the kept lowering the admission standards. Back in 2016, their bar passage rate was about 65%; if a school doesn't maintain 75% the ABA can shut it down.

That said, I agree. You don't really need a feed for NFL, MLB or NBA (NBA has a bit more going on with fouls and such), but you definitely need it for Tennis and Soccer.

Wow law school there is estimated to be $196,217 for three years? School in general seems like a bad investment. I mean realistically what job will give you enough salary to pay that back? And by the time you pay it back they'll fire you for the new class of people.

Cam'ron was right in his Intro to the album "Crime Pays"



I wonder if Bobby ever got his Spyder or David and Wanda their big crib in France.

How'd you make so much money hits?

Sigs, do you ever bet on total field goals or total first downs? They both seem like things youd handicap anyway if youre capping full game. I guess first downs are harder to find but I see total FG way more than total sacks. I did very well on first downs but not so much on FG's

This thread is popping! Everyone is here! It's like a party.

Thanks for the input. I appreciate your perspective.

Any guys that aren't frauds that I can follow?

Kyosaki has a pretty shady history, so I have ignored him for the most part. Though I still find that Rich Dad, Poor Dad was an enjoyable read. A good introduction to thinking about finance.

If you don't get a fellowship+stipend to attend grad school, you're doing it wrong.

Regardless, an MBA tripled my salary for 20 months of drinking and watching college basketball and dating nursing students. Plus whatever you make interning which can be substantial for 3 months 'work,' which generally includes lots of partying both on and off the corporate dime, including other firms' corp dime in the same city. Enron threw some killer parties back in the day.