In the asianview, on the top of the page, next to "teasers", you have "Outrights". Click there, CONMEBOL - Copa America 2019 -> CONMEBOL - Copa America 2019 props -> Outright

Beta view:

Soccer -> CONMEBOL - Copa America 2019

In the top Three Tabs, it will apear Main Markets, Team Totals and Futures


You could still find Argentina +500, dont click there

Your war stories are top notch, this is not.

I've been thinking about this and you know what, I wish more bettors had your perspective. Personal humility and a respect for the bookmaker is rare and a healthier mindset than the far more common mindset of the guy who strolls into the book ready to bet the board. That guy has no respect for the bookmaker and the market that shapes the line. You do, and I think it's far more right than wrong.

I am going to post a bit of contrarian information in this thread and argue that most of what I have read so far is pretty inaccurate. I don't think that you need a much of a mathematical background to do sports betting. Some is good but it is not actually overly important. Same as with poker. Being able to build models for outcomes of games and being able to win at sports betting are two completely different skills, in my opinion. And I am surprised by how difficult some have described beating the high liquidity NBA lines, which I have had no problem getting ahead of. Just be on softer European books and its as easy as pie.

Another misconception is that the bookmakers want to set the sharpest line. Oftentimes they don't. They are either just trying to set the lines so money is dispersed evenly, or sometimes they shade a line and take the other side of the action. Just line shop on the soft books and you will already be doing better than 98% of models. The problem is that the day-to-day ins and outs of sports betting often do not map on perfectly to models. If you really want to win big in sports you need a very high volume of small edges, not a small volume of large edges. People underestimate the impact that compounding plays in sports betting. Think about this. It is not uncommon that I find games with 3% edges. The match is often over in a few hours. This is what a US government bond pays in a year. The ability to make huge returns, due to compounding, is outrageous if you can find even the smallest of edges. It's all about volume. The big players on this site don't really want to tell you the secret sauce but this is what the sharps know. I might speak more on how to find these edges if posts like these are well received.

I am also considering starting my own thread for golf betting in this forum and tracking my own personal results in real time. I just think that good modeling has little to nothing to do with good sports betting- at least in my experience. The key to riches is rapid compounding of small edges. If you miss this, you miss the forest for the trees. I can tell there are some smart posters in this thread but I think there is also a lot of misinformation. If you want to get good at sports there are a million ways to skin a cat. You can be a specialist or a generalist. One reason I like golf that you get 3 days off during the week.

I have plenty more to say on this, but I will stop for now since this forum is particularly prickly. I see more misinformation on this forum in general and there is not a lot of incentive for sharps to clean it up. Just my 2c.

I started this thread and I think this is a fair post -- I am relatively new to sports betting but have a basic understanding of the importance of line shopping. But I still do think there can be value in building some sort of model, even a basic one....or at least I think there will be value for me.

Fundamentally, sports books are offering you a price on a particular event and you need a way to determine whether or not the price is accurate enough to warrant passing on the wager or far enough off from the true price to warrant a bet.

I am analytical by nature, so I need some kind of way to quantify what I think the true price should be. The idea of identifying these advantageous prices based off of feel alone, while it may work for others, does not work for me.

I am not looking to build some "super model" here and bet based solely off that. I do not have the time to get that deep into the weeds for this hobby that's piqued my interest.

But I would like to build some kind of basic model that can perhaps help identify potential inefficiencies across the markets, which would thereby helping me narrow down the events on which to focus my manual research and lineshopping. And it sounds as if you don't need to get too crazy with the math to build something basic and worthwhile, which is great news to hear!

This is a great suggestion and something I'm going to tinker with over the weekend, for hockey.

This sort of thing is gold to me....something that doesn't require a compsci or math phd, but has some potential value.

Picking off slow lines at books that ban everyone under the sun as soon as they win any decent amount of money

Revolutionary idea, why hasn't anyone ever tried or thought of that

What about finding two books where if you bet the line at one and the opposite at the other you are guaranteed profit? Has anyone tried that before?

I'll message you sometime over the weekend when I get some free time. But I will warn you that I'm going to have some stupid ass questions along the way if we end up discussing things!!

I think that modeling can provide value for sure. If you also enjoy it and learn new skills from it then it is a win-win, but you still have to use your model in conjunction with the fundamentals good sports betting. Without it the model won't produce an ROI for you. I just don't want you to go down the rabbit hole learning to build this intricate model only to be disappointed that you can't beat the books. It all depends what you want out of this hobby, but I assure you that it can be lucrative.

My methodology has strong mathematical backing and I have never used a model.

This is kind of what I am emphasizing, I just don't want you going on a wild goose chase more or less. I am not sure if the sharps on here use models or not. If you only want to bet a few games on the weekends or whatever then I would pick a sport you like and compare where the lines are closing on the sharp books to what price you are getting. You can throw on $100 and get started right away. Sports bets scale very well so if you can consistently turn a profit on $100, through a real sample size, then you have the ability to get higher returns on much larger bets. But the edges are small so its not going to make you rich if you're betting a few games on the weekends. You really need to be making thousands of bets before the compounding really kicks in.

Lol. This is the exact reason I don't post on this sub more. I don't pick slow lines on books idiot.

??????

There are a million ways to skin a cat my dude. I don't chase steam typically.

Let's listen to John Murray of the Westgate, a true bookmaker's bookmaker.

It's the dirty little secret of this industry that the majority of professional sports bettors are just board cleaners. Board cleaners don't like us talking about this because they don't want competition from others doing it and they feel the term demeans their profession since there is a degree of nuance and skill to it. I say board cleaning is a good approach for people getting started because it's relatively simple to learn and then people keep doing it because it wins. You'll find no argument with me CodythePATRIOT because there are absolutely many ways to win in this business (and even more ways to lose). Welcome aboard buddy.

I think hockey is a solid choice. I'm a few years removed from the hockey analytics scene myself so maybe one of the more knowledgable posters can help. When I left off, Corsi/Fenwick were still the most popular metrics with some adjusted versions of those stats showing a lot of promise. I also remember people were experimenting with various expected goal metrics. This is something of a carryover from soccer so I'd guess the theory is a lot more developed in that sport and you can bring it over to go from projecting shots taken by players to goals scored. Then we can use Pythagorean Expectation to convert to a moneyline.

Here's a post to get you started on using Marcel to create hockey player projections.

USING MARCELS TO FORECAST PLAYER PERFORMANCE IN HOCKEY

There's so much information out there, everyone, you just have to look and then, of course, be willing to actually work on it.

Boy, what a shame.

I challenge you to an asking stupid ass questions competition.

PM me about the slack group.

This is exactly what I tried to convey when I was talking about being able to be objectively honest with yourself. You need to both be agnostic about approach and willing to adapt rather than just saying "variance" when it doesn't work.

In fact, variance should never factor in to a model on the whole, because you can always back test it to be certain it's helpful or not on the holistic level before you put it into action. Obviously there is nuance there that requires 2 paragraphs of explaining but I'm hoping I can leave it at that, you know what I mean and won't flame me like a pedant - I don't mean you Tom... but pedantry abounds here.

Hockey is my best sport, I actually disagree with you a bit on this. It's purely anecdotal, I haven't tracked the data, I haven't even been paying attention to it. But Vegas is a much bigger factor in my hockey model than any other and my hockey model is far wide margins the most accurate.

There were plenty of times I disagreed with an individual line, but nowhere else but hockey can I confidently narrow down my player pool just importing what Vegas says.

Makes me really want to take a second look now.

lol

lol glad someone else said something.

HITS that was cringe worthy. I know youre better than that

Good post and nice show off levels ,but this is No

Please. You dont know wtf youre talking about. If youre really handicapping then youre originating which means youre using a model. Anyone who claims to be beating NBA at 3% margins without using a model is lying, plain and simple.

What you pretty obviously seem to be doing is just picking off rogue numbers at slow "eastern european" books. Im the last person here to tell you that thats a "lesser" way to make money, but for you to be a scalper and come sauntering into a thread where real sharp bettors are discussing actual concepts that go into predictive modeling and say "umm actually u dont even need a model lol" is absurd. I get that chasing steam works and feels like printing money but it doesnt work for very long, trust me. Check back in in 3 years after youve been banned from all the places that put up a 3.5 when they should put up a 3 and lets see where youre at.

And I love the "Ill keep posting here if this is well-received" lol.

There is some middle ground between simple steam chaser (board cleaner) and originator. I'd call this middle ground a market-based player. This includes teasers, pleasers, parlays, props, derivatives and even futures. For example, after game 5 of the GSW-HOU series, and Durant's injury, the opening series line I could find (SB/BOL) was HOU +235 and a game 6 line of Rockets -7.5. You don't need to be able to model game 7 to identify that +235 series line is +EV, but in this case you are originating the series line. Maybe I'm just making this distinction between board cleaner and market-based player to make myself feel better as I fall in this category, but there is a difference IMO.

In my own experience, I dont really know anyone I can think of that only does ONE thing. Most people do a little bit of everything but concentrate their efforts more on different things. I would think that once you reach the stratosphere and can beat major market stuff that youd pretty much never look back but our own rsigly has proven that to be false.

da math patriot has logged on and is read y to explain sprots betting to us all

why leave $ on table if all you have to do is click buttons.

the easiest thing to do is learn how 2 code and then make views for all the things so you're just clicking buttons and min effort