Quick question.

The M posts lines for the entire football schedule now. Is there a way to turn this into a +EV situation?

competely uninformed guess: the T/V of your money is going to go out the window, and without knowing who is going to be playing above/below preseason expectation, i suppose you could just blindly pick a side in just about any game and bet it, and then middle them all fall when they come up and the line is obviously different by in some cases many points. or in the case where you're on the right side, obviously hang tight.

*shrug*

I assume it'd be like any other market where you choose where the movement is going to go, but I'm just starting to get into sports betting. Where is the flaw in my reasoning?

I think the lines would be significantly depressed for the poor performers last year who are most likely going to improve beyond expectations -- Rams, Lions, Chiefs, Raiders, and Browns. All these teams have made significant acquisitions in the offseason and seem to be working towards improving upon the =< 5 wins last year. I would not include the Bills in this assesment.

Conversely some teams who have made seemingly poor decisions in the offseason that have inflated values. I'm looking at you Philadelphia. They're resting their hopes on an untested QB / drafted secondary and they may fall significantly below the 8 wins predicted (8 wins u @ +117). Carolina might be in the same position but realistically they are probably going to be around 7 wins.

With both these situations, there is little chance that the teams get significantly worse than U5 wins / signficantly better than O8 wins, so there is a smaller chance that the lines moves against the prices that you pick at the beginning of the year and a relatively higher chance that the line gets better in your favor.

-Wiper/Lote

Thanks for the thought out responses.

I am thinking along the same lines. While I do well in MLB five innings, WNBA totals/halfs and NBA totals/halfs I have never been able to do anything well in the NFL. Totals is about as best I do and thats not very good. I need to try out new things and this seems like something to do. My first plan is to bet a bunch of games that are very close to considered even odds/spreads (i.e.):

Titans vs. Jags week #6 (PICK) or Saints vs. Falcons week #16 (PICK) or Patriots vs. Dolphins week #4 (-1 Pats).

Then I am also going to bet a bunch of -3 games. This seems like the most key number. Almost the only number at The M that switches the future odds to (-120/Even) is -3. So I will take a lot of the games that go for -110 on both sides and are -3 i.e.

Titans/Dolphins Week #10 (-3), Saints/Cowboys week #12 (-3), Ravens/Patriots etc.

When the season hits I will go from there. I will probably fail miserably as usual in betting football but I have a few rubles stashed away for new research. Lets go go 1 time finding a workable strategy to win betting the NFL.

I guess my point is that you would probably like to trade on the volatility of a game rather than the straight line. The best example would be New Orleans v. Minnesota. If you pick New Orleans at -4 right now thats a fair line; however, in the very real chance that Brett Favre retires, then the line will plummet to the -7 to -10 range because Tavaris Jackson -_-" . If Farve plays, then it will probably wont improve beyond -3.

Hi Lote,

I see what your saying but the scenario you gave to me just seems to speculative and year after year there are not enough of these spots to build a strategy around (they are too variable and too human assumption based as well it seems). Any type of injury in the NFL can happen at any moment and devastate a team at anytime so the chance of volatility for NFL futures seems built in already to some degree. What I want is to find lines that when I bet into the future are highly likely to be able to be middled, to wind up on favorable side, hedged, to sell out position for profit etc. Also in your example 4 is not that key of an NFL spread number thus reducing my line advantage even more. Let me give your scenario specific matchups some more thought as it might be the gold I am looking for. Thank for the feedback.

What about taking the points with viable underdogs versus teams that are "locks" for the playoffs late in week 17? Ie Colts vs Titans.

you talking just in week 17?

because if not, i really don't see any difference in taking favorites or dogs before then. basially, how the hell can anyone know who will be playing how at that point, even just 2 or 3 weeks into the season, let alone 10 or 12.

if you don't mind locking up the money, flip a coin honestly.

when that week rolls around, either you have a line that's beating closing by however many points, if not, and you have the weaker side, middle it.

worst case scenario, your money's tied up for 2 months and you end up getting a small vig middle (if you have multiple books and can line-shop at all).

Bjornb - That makes sense. The only issue is The M only has single game lines through week #16 and I only bet cash in vegas.

Wiper - I think in many cases you are generally right. However by Thremp posting the above picture and even responding to this thread would lead me to believe there is something more to it then just flipping coins. I am leaning towards betting specific lines for specific teams/matchups (i.e. -3's and picks and games like colts/titans week #14). I am also thinking in the few games that are listed as Even/-120 there might be something there as well. Oh well only time, research and money may tell me a better story. I guess until then back to failing betting on the NFL.

you'd probably be better off trying to find number just off the keys of 3 and 7, that way if they move you'll have the keys as a middle?

i dunno, guess i never really thought about single game futures.

Wiper - You never thinking about single game NFL futures is exactly why I am trying to bet large amounts of cash on them. I bet a boatload on arena football today. But ido no money in sports betting everyone solid.

I have talked about betting 3's a lot in this thread. Still think matchup checking and betting picks and Even money's/-120's > then 7 but most likely only thremp knows. I plan to try and find out. Wish me luck and knowing me I will most likely drop a few złoty's.

haha...OBV.

good luck, definitely.

i just hate having open bets for that long, especially if there'd seemingly be a TON of them for standard 1 or 2 unit bets.

i'm intrigued though.

This thread gave me a good hearty laugh.

Anyone who thinks these lines aren't fairly priced cracks me up. And even if they are slightly off, you're tying up your money for at least a month, sometimes up to 4 months.

The logic in this thread is sort of along the lines of someone who wants to bet a hand of blackjack at a casino, where the hand doesn't take place for a month but you put up your money now. And then if you get 11, you can double down and take advantage of this obvious +ev situation!

And why would you tie up money now in order to *possibly* get into a situation just so you can middle it and give up ev? You can do this every single day...just log into a site, bet side A of a game then log into another site where they offer in play betting, and then pray your team goes ahead...then you can middle it out and profit.

My best attempt at advice if you were looking for some system to possibly win some money would be simply bet the biggest dogs blind. The NFL is usually pretty topsy turvy and you might be in a highly +ev spot if a team +7 is now -3 when the game goes off. But you're just as likely to have a team +7 when the line goes off at +10 as well, so as I said before these are fairly priced imo.

bold #1 is why i won't do this.

bold #2 is why i'm intrigued to watch HIM do this. haha..

Yeah I'm not calling anyone stupid, I'm just really asking someone who would bet into these lines their reasoning behind it. Most people don't really have good reasons to bet at all, let alone lines this far out. The select few who have good solid reasoning behind a bet are the ones I want to hear from.

slinky saying that the reason he wants to bet a lot on these is because most people haven't thought to do it, like it's an emerging market with off lines.

now, on it's own, that's not a very good reason to invest heavily just to find out, but like i said, i'm curious.

just not curious enough to do it with my own monies.

i mean, betting $5 on 20 or 25 games spread over the year isn't going to kill anyone, and if it 'works', then maybe a little more next year.

or, variance could make you THINK you found something, and next year your head gets cracked.

like i said, it could be interesting to follow.

Have you ever re-read one of your posts and still thought "Man, I can't figure out why everyone hates me and thinks I'm a dick"? Didn't think so.

Im starting think youre just playing a part. Youre like the villian in professional wrestling or something.

Heel man. Atleast use some technical terminology to sound fake smart.

yes because my lack of knowledge of the WWE is the issue at hand

This whole thread has been a pretty epic pile of fail. I think being a nit about wrestling terminology might be the best part of this.

when youre right youre right

Why is every reply to one of my posts lately simply a personal attack and never, ever actually deals with the (entirely rational) points I make?

So let me ask you (and everyone else in this thread who is advocating betting into these lines), probably in vain, why you think betting into these futures lines on NFL regular season games is +ev.

If you aren't advocating betting into these lines, then GTFO.