In SirFelixCat's recent thread there was some debate about the usefulness of this forum. Many of the regulars expressed the opinion that this forum is one of the most helpful, yet many get nothing out of it due to a lack of effort.

I'm personally trying to learn more and more about sports betting. In the past I've only done it recreationally, but I've gotten a bit more serious this NFL season($500 per unit) and I'd love to get good enough before the 2009 NFL season to where I can reasonably expect to use betting as a second income to poker.

So I thought I'd create this thread where motivated people who are willing to listen and learn could come and do so.

I read through the FAQ and many of the linked threads a few days ago. I also ordered Sharp Sports Betting by Standord Wong since it seems to be highly recommended here(for anyone intersted, I got it for $14 at target.com....retails for $20 I believe).

In order to prompt discussion, I'll do the following:

I'll read through the FAQ and the linked threads again, this time at a slower and more studious pace. I'll post my thoughts and questions here. Then I'll read through the book, and after each chapter I'll again post some thoughts and questions.

Hopefully some of the sharps here will be kind enough to chime in from time to time to help us out. I realize that getting good quality information on sports betting is tough to do, and I'd hope that those who have it would see the effort made by me(and hopefully others) in this thread to learn and, therefore, be willing to teach us a bit.

I've seen threads in the past where a group of people has read through a poker book and discussed every chapter(almost like a study group), and that kind of what I'm suggesting here.

Anyway, no time frame on when I'll read anything and by all means I'd love for others to start up other discussions too, so feel free to chime in with anything at any time.

A few questions off the top of my head to begin things:


-In poker, I think that I could teach anyone to beat low stakes live games. However, theres definitely a natural talent that is needed to beat tougher games. How would you relate that to sports betting? Imo there are a lot of stupid people in the world who just aren't very logical and fall victim to a ton of poor ways of thinking such as being overly results oriented. Do you guys believe that anyone could learn to beat sports or do you have to have some innate logical ability?

-Reading through the FAQ, the first thing that jumped out at me was how much profit the sharps claimed to get from arbs, middles, scalps, bad promos, etc. and how little they claim to have gotten from straight handicapping ability. I'll admit that it seems a lot more "sexy" to me to just get good at handicapping and to forget about the "work" of continuously looking for these. Is it foolish for me to think this way?

-When you say to "actively be looking" for arbs, middles, scalps, etc. what exactly do you mean? Does that mean that you are constantly checking vegas and online lines every single hour to be on top of every little move? Or is it just a casual glance each day to see if theres anything available? I really don't even know where I'd begin to "actively look" for those things. Clearly I understand that the more work one does, the more profit he can expect. However, I'd just like to hear more about it from those who successfully do it.

-I admit that when I first heard that its only possible to win 55-60% of the games, I thought that those figures were low. Now obviously I'm wrong because you guys know more than me. But I'm still skeptical. I'm sure you guys will laugh at this sample size, but for example I've had three 2 unit plays so far this year, and I've felt more than 60% confident on all 3...and all 3 won in convincing fashion. They were Baltimore -1.5 in week 3(they won 28-10), NE+2.5 in week 2(they won 19-10), and Buffalo+6 in week 2(they won 20-16). I won those bets by 16.5, 11.5, and 10 points and twice I picked underdogs that won outright. Am I dellusional to think that I'm >60% expectancy on my 2 unit plays so far?

oh come on

1. Dude, sample size.

Winning > 60% is almost impossible.

If you are winning > 60% and you don't have either (a) a college (football) level understanding of the game (b) a serious mathematical handicapping method or (b) some reason to believe that you are just that much smarter than everybody else, then there is a 100% chance that you are experiencing positive variance.

I've won 60% of my bets through a 4 year period with a sample size of several hundred, and I still think I'm running above my true picking mean. I am fairly certain that I am a >50% true mean picker, and I think that I am somewhere between 56-57%, but I don't think my true mean is as high as the percentage of games I've won.

...and that's coming from someone who watches ~18 games a week, has taken graduate level stats and game theory courses and has perfect or near perfect test scores in every standardized test I've ever taken, and knows numerous people within the CFB industry. (my ex high school coach is now coaching college ball and has a PhD from Caltech, many of my good friends at Cal were on the team and got me game tapes etc., I have HS friends that play on half a dozen teams, my roomate is in the sports industry, I work for a start up involved in the online gaming space, etc.)

IMO beating NFL or NBA long run for a significant percentage, unless it's your full time job, is almost impossible. CFB and NCAAB are much 'easier' because there is so much more information available, and the public is aware of so much less information.

2. As far as I know, most arbing is done by programs nowadays, but I could be wrong on that one. But really, forget arbing. There are people who do it much better and for much more money than any comon bettor could hope to, so what's the point of trying?

3. The main thing about sports betting that appeals to me over poker is that it's perfectly scaleable. If you are winning 55% of your games and betting $10 per game, you could hypothetically bet $10,000 per game and not affect your win percentage... unlike in poker where moving from NL10 to NL100 to NL1000 to NL10000 is like playing a totally different game.


4. I don't mean to discourage you, but sports betting profitably is not nearly as easy as it seems that you think it is. Money management itself is a subject complex enough that entire books have been written about it, and it seems like you're willing to dive into that.

Just don't over estimate your edge and bet >1 kelly on accident, or you will MURDER yourself. (I learned this the hard way last year)

Great thread. Even though I have been sports betting for years, I am still a square. I have read the FAQ, read the threads all the time and I have learned a lot. But a thread like this where someone can ask questions and not get flamed would be very helpful.

Bear with me here man....as I said, I'm still learning.

What I meant by that was this:

The main attraction to sports betting for me is that, while it probably takes a lot of work to get good at, it doesn't take a ton of time to handicap the actual games and many of the things necessary(watching all the games, discussing the games, etc.) I would do regardless.

However, as you can tell by my other question, I have no clue exactly how much work you guys suggest to put into looking for arbs, middles, etc. If its necessary to spend hours each week and be constantly looking for each update, then I most likely think it'd be -EV for me to take time off from poker to do that, and I wouldn't focus too much on that.


Regardless, maybe that was a stupid comment/question. I'm sure I'll have many more stupid comments/questions throughout this thread. Hopefully I won't get the arrogant responses like this one and instead actually can get some help.

As I said in my opening paragraph, I've seen many discussions here about the usefullness of this forum. One of my main complaints has always been that the regs here are way too harsh and condescending towards those trying to learn.....well look at that: I post a thread about trying to learn and the very first reply is one mocking me.

Reading your second post, I understand where you're coming from.

Anyway, like I said in my 1st post, I wouldn't worry about arbing, focus on picking the games and money management.

I'll also help you out with other questions, but even though I consider myself very knowledgeable, I'm still learning too... Even in the past few months I learned from Thremp about kelly betting in clusters, from hedgie about EV/EG nuances, etc.

Thanks for the reply.

I'm sure you guys are right regarding the 55-60% stat. However, I'm curious: Does that mean that you think you'll practically never find a line so off that you'll be over a 60% favorite to win it?

Again its probably just my inexperience, but I really felt as if Balt -1.5 was a huge edge(maybe 65%) for me yesterday, and it was confirmed by the line rising all the way up to 3, and then it was confirmed by Baltimore winning the game easily.



As far as my background, I minored in math in college and I've been a successful poker pro for the 5 or so years since I graduated, so I have some credentials. However, I'm sure I'm far behind people like you.



Ok, so forget about arbs totally then? Does everyone else agree with this too?


And I absolutely agree with your 3rd point. I think I remember reading that exact thing in Sklansky's "How to make $100K/year Gambling" book. Being able to raise the stakes without raising the difficult is definitely something that appeals to me.

Only a true idiot would choose to have a >60% win rate. It should be obvious why this is true.

Oh yeah, and get ready for Thremp's cryptic and mocking responses, those are pretty standard when you're learning sports betting

LOL.

Had Thremp on ignore, but thought that his response would be helpful since apparently hes respected in SB. Took him off ignore to read his reply only to see a vague reply that includes an insult.

Thremp, I'm willing to sit back and listen to you man, but jesus...do you really have to indirectly insult me in every reply?

I just don't understand what you think it accomplishes for you to continuously post in this manner. For someone who claims to be so logical, you'd think you'd understand this.

Sure, there are games where one team covers more than 60% (or more) of the time, although they are rare and of course you have to correctly identify them. (which is harder than it sounds, because I've found that very often when a team seems like a lock and everybody and their mother is on it (UNC last week, or VT in the Sugar Bowl) that it ends up being a loser.)

But, being able to go 54% on 30 games is better than being able to go 60% on 5 games, because you can invest more money and earn a greater return... identifying a few games here and there is great, but to earn a long term return you have to be able to cap more games than that.

I've only had two games in my life that I thought were > 80%, Oregon -7 @ Stanford in 2006 and Oregon +1.5 @ ASU last year. Oregon won both games in a blowout, and I am pretty sure would cover that line 80% of the time or more... beyond those two mortal locks, it actually turns out that my game of the week is only slightly more likely to win than the rest of my bets (~60% vs. ~59%) and not highly enough to be a verifiable difference or to justify any extra units wagered.


Your math/poker cred far exceeds mine, and obviously you probably know as much or more than me and most others about bankroll management and stuff like that so you should have no problem being a long term winner.

Are they wrong?

Some are. But recently I'd say my kill rate is quite high.

Lol, I just checked out Thremp's post history and like 99% of your posts are 1 liners.

Wong thread artificially bumped your kill rate, that's like killing the guy who is afk in a first person shooter every round.

Good thread - I'm casual about it too except i have no real desire to get serious about it, but the more education the better.

FWIW -
3rd&6 w/ 4 minutes left down 16-10 on midfield, you have +6. Evans needs to get off a jam, juke a safety on the fake-post, the OL has to give phenominal protection for this long developing route on an obv. pass and Edwards has to throw a perfect sideline throw & the ball needs to be caught in bounds...crazy how it's a game of inches huh? Not as easy as the 10pt cover may ultimately look.

Yeah, people who consider themselves very logical epic fail at teasers. They essentially believe that some random games have fundamentally altered scoring distributions from every other game, but aren't willing to take positions to back this viewpoint. Like buying a gajillion points on Pinny. Or taking TBAB style action points.

The "sharpest" people on this site have said for years that line shopping is the way to go.

Surprise surprise, all the mouth breathing ******s around here are busy trying to be "sexy" instead of rich, for years. That's why this place is flooded with stupidity, and the "sharps" have little to zero patience for the next idiot down the road coming here with tout picks, parlay cards, or various other stupidity.

If you could get over yourself (which is next to impossible imo) and the sarcastic replies you get, the information has already been provided. Did you ever see MT2R's thread mocking your picks? Let me guess, it just hurt your feelings and you didnt look at the meaning of it.

i guess here is some things i see a lot of people do which is really bad, figuring out why helps. i could be wrong with some of this, so let me know if i am.

a) restricting themselves to static unit sizes. most people are 1,2,3 unit people. occasionally they'll throw in a 1.5 or something, but almost everyone here stays to the positive integers. I tend to make ~100 bets a day and i can go many days without getting exactly 1% or exactly 2% to place on a bet. By restricting yourself to this you're either over betting or under betting your perceived edge.

b) over estimating or not understanding your edge.
I've seen several posts that go along these lines (using NFL):
I have -6 as fair, line is -4 so 2 units. Then in the same post they say something like I have fair line as -3.5, line is -2.5 1 unit. They don't understand that the edge with the second bet is much bigger even though it doesn't look like it (getting 1 point vs 2). Understand the value of points.

With overestimating your edge. When the lines first come out, yes the line might be 1-2 points away from what you think it is, but an hour before gametime there's no way you have a huge edge against any NFL line except if there's some late injury that only you know about. Even if you think you're smarter than the books, you're not smarter than every book + every syndicate + every guy who has been winning forever etc out there. If the line was as off as you think then it will be fixed pretty quickly.

In other sports such as college sports/wnba/nhl/mlb you might have find bigger edges, but thats the reason they have smaller limits than NBA/NFL.

c) understand what is the better bet, the ML or the spread. the ML might have more EV, but the spread could have higher EG or vice versa.

d) the notion that you should never bet more than XX% of your bankroll in one day, should never have more than YY bets a day etc.

there's 256 or whatever football games in the regular season. if you focus exclusively on the spread or totals you're really limiting yourself. look at other markets, props, etc. its only week 3, but i've already placed 149 bets. you're not really going to make a lot of money just focusing on one thing just because your return on each bet is pretty small, so unless you have a huge bankroll or run your risk of ruin insanely high you're not really expected to make a lot of money. personally every saturday i seen to put around 45% of my college football bankroll into play throughout the entire week. it seems like a lot, but its spread out over 50-60 bets that i think have value, so its not even close to throwing 45% on 2-3 games.

e) w-l record means nothing. bet sizing is more important. this goes back to the know your edge thing and not using static sizes and exploit every edge out there. in baseball this year i only won about 47% over 5200 or so bets, but i'm up a lot of money due to bet sizing. same with college football, i'm exactly 50%, but up a lot.

f) just bc its not SBR A rated doesn't mean you shouldn't put money there. there's a lot of B rated books on SBR that pay out and give you bonuses and they're easier to beat than any of the A rated books. if you haven't been banned from SIA yet i don't think you can consider yourself a "sharp"

g) if you really want to handicap a sport, find out what work other people have done. you're not going to reinvent the wheel yourself, but you can take work others have done and expand on it.

there's others, but this is a lot of the same problems i see a lot here.

Probably won't be my last comment in this thread but may as well get started...

If you care about your overall winning % you are doing it wrong. Period.

The only reason why it would matter is if you are literally betting nothing but sides and only at -110 and you are flat betting. If you are only doing that, you aren't a sharp. Hitting 60% on straight bets would mean passing on any edge lower than that, or to word it better, would mean turning down money. This is what Thremp was implying.

Agreed, and I've never seen anyone dispute this.

However, do me a favor and clarify exactly what you mean here. For example, each week I go to http://www.vegasinsider.com/nfl/odds/las-vegas/ and look at all the lines. I go to the Wynn unless I can get a better price elsewhere, then I'll go to Green Valley since I live right by it, and if I really have to go to one other place to get a good line I"ll do it. Is that all you mean by line shopping or are you talking about having accounts at all online sportsbooks as well as knowing illegal bookmakers in order to get the best possible line each and every week? If its the former, then yes I would never think of gambling any serious money without doing that. If the latter, then as I said earlier, while that may increase my EV from sportsbetting, I think that taking all that time(and thus taking time away from my poker playing) would be -EV for me overall.



See I disagree with you here, and I think I have some perspective because I've seen it from both sides(as someone just messing around and casually betting and as someone legitimately trying to make a profit from it). Two years ago I came on here, betting $1 per game, and just created a thread for my picks...basically I was just having a good time and not taking it too seriously. I made it 100% clear to everyone that I was just out to have fun and didn't mind losing a bit in order to enjoy myself. I definitely was not "touting picks" or anything like that. Yet I was greeted very rudely by the sharps here.

There are beginners in every single forum, yet imo no forum greets them as rudely as this one. This turns people away from the forum and discourages learning imo. Hell just look at this thread: I think I've been very open and willing to learn, yet there have still been a fair share of insults for no apparent reason(even if they're indirect). Why is this?

I suggested in another thread that we create a beginner's and an advanced forum, and I still think that may be a decent idea(although getting enough traffic may be tough).


No, I don't think I saw that thread, but if it was a year or two ago then I didn't care as my picks were just for recreation and the $$ was practically meaningless to me.

And nah, it wouldn't hurt my feelings. I'll be the first to admit that I joke around a ton and post silly material from time to time, so I can take any lighthearted abuse shelled out towards me. Its just the "you're an idiot" type of posts that I hate because they're not funny or productive. But if anyone makes a legitimate funny post at my expense, I'll probably just laugh along with everyone else...I can take a joke.

Not sure what you mean by "get over yourself." As far as getting over the sarcastic replies, I definitely do mostly ignore those while cherry picking the good responses...I just find it somewhat annoying that many of the regs who are always saying how helpful this place is are the first to post sarcastic replies and try to derail threads.

very fair point about the Jax/Buff game. I will note that even if that didn't go my way I'd still tie(and have a chance to win with a TD instead of the late FG they settled for), but I see your overall point.

understand and agree with pretty much everything here.

Assani,

Your biggest problem going forward probably will be that you actually like sports and try to analyze them from a handicapping POV. You aren't good enough to do that.

One of the big concepts thrown around on this site is the idea of the Kelly criterion, but I know I for one was one of the people that just ignored it due to laziness/cockiness/it being Thremp's main thing, etc. Big mistake. It's one of the most important concepts however, and not just because it makes for optimal bankroll growth, but because it really forces you to sit down and think about your edge and what it means.

You can look at BAL -1.5, for example, and be surprised that it's not a -3.5 or whatever, but when you translate that into an actual edge and then look at your Kelly bet size, you'll quickly realize that there's no way that that's possible and it'll force you to reexamine your assumptions. Reevaluating all your wagers over an entire season is time-consuming, but in the end it's just refining your methodology so that it's more accurate, which obviously is a positive for handicapping. This is what rsigley mentioned, but no one wants to be told they're wrong. It's more understandable if you put it in terms of "well, if you're right about your edge, why don't you put [some ludicrous amount] on this, huh?"

so you really think its possible to have > 80% win % ATS in multiple games like the example with oregon? unless the line was like -7 with huge juice on one side its not possible in such a big sport as college football. it was week 1 for the stanford/oregon game so the line might of been a little off, but no way it was that off esp since they play in the pac 10.

if we're talking about 2 division iia teams or whatever where 5dimes only takes 250 on one side and moves the line huge based on a max bet then maybe, but not happening in div 1a between two big teams like that

if you do then you're not going to be a winner at this sorry

a) Not sure I'm understanding completely here, mostly because I don't see why its anything more than a small mistake to be slightly off on how much you bet versus your edge. I mean, isn't any +EV bet still +EV regardless of bet size, and unless losing it prevents you from taking a larger +EV wager down the road, then I don't see the big issue of slightly overbetting or underbetting the game. Yes I somewhat understand Kelly and minimizing your risk of ruin. Maybe it doesn't apply to me as much because I'm not betting nearly enough of my overall bankroll to have any risk or ruin whatsoever(and I won't until I feel much more comfortable betting sports).

b) Agreed completely. Just last week, I pulled out of my Carolina pick because I missed it at 3.5 and it was down to 3 and that extra 0.5 over the key number was vital to me.

Regarding your second paragraph here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is how sportsbetting works as far as I know:

The books have teams of fairly sharp people who work daily to make money for their sportsbooks. The majority of the time these people try to put out a line that is so close to being right that it would be wrong to take either side if you have to lay -110 odds. Therefore, either side is a losing proposition and the book wins no matter what.

Sometimes, however, the books understand that the public is overvaluing or undervaluing certain teams and they purposefully put out lines that are off in order to get the public betting one way. If you're sharp, you recognize this.

With the first case, you're 100% correct. But in the second case, its very possible for the line to remain intentionally off all the way up until game time.

I very well could be wrong though, so feel free to tell me if thats so.


c) What is EG?

I've only looked at points spreads(not money lines) so far this season, so I'm probably making a big mistake here. Please clarify for me what you're saying though...

Are you saying that there is a usual correlation of how many points a team gives and what the money line is(can you link me to this or list it btw?). And that if the ML and point spread for one game does not line up with this, then take whichever one is better.

OR

Are you saying that the books almost always have similar MLs for games with the same point spreads. However, in some cases a team is more likely to win than the point spread would indicate. For example, say that you believe that Team A could easily get blown out by Team B. However, Team A is a young team that needs confidence, and if they keep the game close early on then they actually have a decent shot of winning. Therefore, Team A will be a big underdog according to the PS due to the liklihood of them being blown out but they shouldn't be as big of a ML underdog as the PS indicates and if they are then that ML is exploitable.


d) Wow that seems insane to me to have so many bets each week. It also seems to conflict with other advice I've seen which says to make sure you're not betting just for the sake of betting and to wait for what you truly believe are +EV plays because taking a line that is slightly +EV without the juice is not really +EV with the juice. If you don't mind, would you list(or PM me if you want) your picks from one of the previous weeks...I just want some idea of exactly what types of bets you're making and how the books could have so many lines that are exploitable. Moreover, I'd be interested in hearing if the other sharps here agree with this advice.

e) Getting back to point D then: Doesn't this mean then that you should've simply not bet on your small unit plays and just bet the big ones?

f) Sorry, but I don't think I understand any of those acronyms. I only bet at live Vegas casinos, although I recently got an offer from a poker friend for 5% juice(its not directly him...he works for a rather big book and gets a cut if he brings in losing bettors, and if they win then they usually tip him anyway for the lack of juice) so I may just bet with him exclusively anyway. Am I making a big mistake by not having online accounts? I don't think I've deposited to any poker/gambling site in years(subtle brag), so I don't even know how to these days.

g) agreed completely.


Thanks for the post btw, always appriciated.