What's the simplest angle that was +EV in the past thirty years or so? I assume all such leaks have been plugged by now with the amount of data that current books use, but I'm interested in plays that were surprisingly simple and that were +EV for a surprisingly long time. Wong teasers are about the simplest thing I can think of, but presumably there was something simpler that the books missed for a long time. For example: Taking the home team in CFB when a team travels three time zones west and kick-off is after 7:00 at night. Taking the over in MLB when the temperature and humidity are above a certain amount. Fading any NFL team that starts 4–0 because they're probably overrated. Stuff like that.

Anyone have any recollections of winning long term with these kinds of modeling-free bets?

Not mine - but a well-known story.

Haralabos Voulgaris made his money by exploiting how bookmakers estimated an NBA game's total score. Bookmakers would estimate the total for the game, and then roughly divide it in half.

But generally speaking in Basketball, more points are scored in the second half.

Bob would take the over in the second half.

Line Shopping / Steam Chasing
Wong Teasers
Buying NFL 3 for 10c (Before my time)
NFL Parlay Cards
MLB Slaughters (Only B00T remembers)
Correlated Parlays
Leveraged If Bets
Texas Rangers 2½ System

Was there actually anything to the Texas Rangers 2.5 system? What was the thesis there, anyway, and why did it stop being profitable? Since you could write out 10,000 conceivable systems like this, there will of course be a few that are statistically significant winners even though they are complete BS luck.

Here you go: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/4...system-463112/

The Overs on any B00t eating contest.

Odds-on horses to place worked for a long time, but faded out about 20 years ago. Around the same time as TVG and online betting started.

I mean negative show pools still abound.

Ive googled a bit about negative show pools. Feels like there is some potential edge...
How could you exploit it?

and what about mandatory payout on carryover.
Here too it feels like (together with negative show pools) are +EV spots...

When I was in high school and college (mid 80's through early 90's) betting the NFL was stupid easy. Could blindly take home dogs and profit. Playing surface was huge as the fields were widely inconsistent. Teams with natural grass home fields hosting teams with artificial turf home fields were huge winners. The reverse was also profitable just not as much.

Data was not overly accessible back then and if you had it the NFL was a cash machine. Kept me in some good spending money through school.

Betting against popular teams if they have an unpopular team opponent especially in CFB. The trick is it isn't a leak. The bookmakers want the money evenly split and popular teams get more emotion money bet on them so the line favors the unpopular team so the brain money gets bet more on them.

A few people exploited this one.

When OT is included, yes.

Getting in early on rules changes when properly analyzed is +EV. Easiest was NFL 1988 when game clock rule was changed from stopping on OOB to effectively running, outside of 2 min in 1st half and 5 min in 2nd half. Few years back NBA changed play clock to 14 on off rebound. Made money, but not for long.

It depends on the game and the expected rotations. Value of overtime is obviously dependent on pregame spread/likelihood of overtime but typically isn't worth more than a point. Take a look back at the pregame FT and 1H totals for the Warriors series (roughly) to see how expected 1H/2H ratios can vary even within a series:


G1: 214/104.5
G2: 213/103.5
G3: 214.5/107.5
G4: 213.5/108
G5: 211/103
G6: 210/106.5

Value of OT is prob of OT(s) * expected points in OT(s).

Of course there are variances in individual games, but in general 1H < 2H + OT

That's not the value of OT. Sports betting isn't about mean outcomes.

Wrong. Last season:

1H average: 55.6 ppg
FG average: 110.3 ppg

Season before

1H: 56.4 ppg
FG: 111.8 ppg

And yes, I realize I used means right after saying sports betting isn't about mean outcomes, but saying in general is different than trying to value something.

Apples and oranges. The discussion was around this:

I was referring to expected points, not distribution. The formula I noted above is correct in determining the value of OT in estimating the expected points in 2H+OT. That is, expected value.

To address what you are introducing, we need to discuss the affect on scoring distributions.

A first order approximation of course would be to derive the value of OT noted above. Then, determine if the frequency of OT is independent IRT 2H scoring. If it is, then including OT should basically shift the pdf right about a point.

If the frequency of OT is NOT independent on 2H scoring, for example let's say OT was actually "extra 5 minutes only if 2H scoring was <70 points", then the distribution above, say 90 or higher points, would be less affected than <90 points. The left tail of the pdf would shift right to account for OT, while the remainder would remain about the same.

IRT to recent NBA scoring, you got me there. For years 2H+OT expected scoring was > 1H. Although I see it is not much of a difference. I'm guessing that might be caused by more foul calls in 1H, more uniform distribution on winning margins, and changes in clock management late in games. I'm sure there are factors I'm overlooking as well.

A few years ago Rugby 7s

Are Wales playing?

Bet the over. They had a competent attack and incompetent defense and their totals were set at about the same as all of the other teams.

Hit at (without checking my data) something like 75%+ for the entire season at -110 to -120 range prices regardless of the number offered or who they were playing, might have been closer to 80%. If I recall there are about 60 games a season or so (6ish per tourney x10 tourneys) so it made me a ton of money when I worked out how far off their totals were only a few games in. Think the equivalent to being able to bet on a modern NBA team to score o195.5 or whatever. On every single game, for an 80 game season, at -110, with decent 4 figs to low 5 liquidity at the time.

Ah the good old days when Rugby 7s was liquid lol there were entire seasons where the lines just wouldn't adjust based on form or weather or anything. The previous season to 'bet the Wales over', backing Canada ML/Spread every single game netted an enormous profit too. If I recall USA ML/Spread every single game unless playing Canada showed a solid profit too that same season.

Steam chasing/line shopping still works on major-ish sports now, not as easy as it was a few years ago but you could still teach a complete amateur to be marginally profitable in like half an hour if they had access to a decent slate of books

This is a thread about betting angles in a sports betting subforum. Saying the value of something is expected points as a mean doesn't make any sense that context, particularly in response to a post where the term value was specifically used in regard to betting lines. The value of overtime can be more simply stated as "how often a game goes under x in regulation and then goes over x due to overtime".

1H has been higher scoring than 2H+OT for awhile now, probably since 2015, give or take a year. None of those explanations make much sense in the context of the lines from the Warriors/Celtics series posted above, which had games with 1H exp median totals both below and above the 2H+OT implied exp median totals, depending on the game.

Rugby liquidity, not just 7s, is way down from what I've seen, at least from US-facing books. Bookmaker used to post 5k max margin of victory props on Celtic League (now called URC). The widely available spread would be something like Leinster -10.5 so they'd put up Leinster MOV 13+ +100. Then the lineups would be announced and you'd see Leinster -15 WA but 13+ would still be sitting there at +100. Now I'm looking at current limits on Bookmaker and international rugby is $50 max.

It's still liquid in Australia but WAY less than it used to be a few years ago for stuff like Super Rugby/Gallagher Prem/major Internationals/Top14/etc for normal Rugby Union too

Rugby League liquidity is unaffected here but union is definitely way down, esp since they lost Fox Sports/Kayo deal and their games are on the vastly less popular Stan now etc

Used to be able to build a solid 5-figure BR very easily just through bonus whoring and almost no playthru requirements, plus many 100% depo & reload bonuses.

I miss the days when anyone outside the big 8 nations was incredibly undervalued and you could just bet Italy on the handicap in the 6 Nations/Argentina vs anyone and be profitable