It's clear you're not reading what NZ is writing.

You guys are going to be arguing two different things and this will never end.

Centris,

To use another food metaphor.

If you want flour (EG), you must have grain (EV). He's saying the grain is more important. Its kinda stupid. Everyone who's a farmer has ****ing grain, only a miller can make flour.

That analogy would of been 10,000x better if you found a way to fit boiling oats into it instead.

Steel cut 4 lyfe

But NZ would say that this is a bad example because most bettors don't have the +EV. So you see, in your example the +EV should not be the grain, which you say everyone has, but the mill.

And on and on we go...

NZ is so laughably wrong here. Given that EV is accounted for by EG, how is it that EV is more important than EG?

I like pizza. The dough is a very important part of pizza. Without it, you can't make a pizza. But is the dough more important than the pizza if my goal is to maximize my utility by eating pizza?

BUT IT ISN'T ***** PIZZA WITHOUT DOUGH!!!!

mmm pizza

Naples style > NY style >> New Haven style >>>> Chicago style

I'm gonna say publicly I prefer St. Louis style over Chicago.

What's St Louis style? Brick oven NY Pizza style guy myself

I hear people reference all the time that the sharp money is on this side or that, or went in early or late, etc.

how do you know which side of the line has the sharp vs the square money on it?

that's it... I'm in the coalition against Thremp now

I think it has something to do with Thremp being a part of the Illuminati

actually, I think it's some joke NZ made about Thremp's ROI

well... I don't have the answers to your specific questions, but I do have some side comments that you might find interesting.

For better or worse, I'm going with The Wisdom of Crowds argument as the term of use from a book written on the topic. Basically, line shopping and betting opening lines is good due to the Wisdom of Crowds. In any market where you have a diverse group of independent thinkers with various levels of expertise, the closing price is going to be the best single estimate of the underlying value. Basically, the spread at closing is almost always the 'correct' line based on all available information. This is why many sports bettors write parsing programs that grab the closing price at pinnacle and compare what they bet verse that line to come up with theoretical edge. You'll see it implied from many of Thremp's posts that beating that closing price is the golden goose. This is also why line shopping matters. The more edge you can get on that closing price, the better off you are. The bid-ask spreads are so small and there are enough markets that you should rarely be very negative in the theoretical edge. Now, this also shows why some sharps consistently beat openers. Openers come before the crowd has had a chance to bring all relevant information to bear. Some guys, well, a very, very tiny minority, are better at predicting where the crowd will end up in select instances than the guys that set the line. Notice that these are usually guys who put in a ton of work and they are picking off 10 to 20% of the lines as being 'off.' Third, there are many guys betting derivatives due to the relations found in the major markets. argh... my grammar sucks in that past sentence. So, the spread is the biggest market for most sports. It's the area where the 'crowd' is most likely to be correct. However, there are other markets, such as moneylines, halves, etc, that should have some relation to the spread. But, those markets are thinly traded and don't have a crowd. You can often pick off derivatives of the spreads. Fourth, there are still some betting markets without a crowd whereby great statistical work or expert toutaments will give an edge (such as MEAC NCAAB games or Turkish bball league). Fifth, there are areas where the crowd fails. Sometimes, they have a systematic bias. You can think of it as a stock market bubble. But, it can be that and much more. You should think about why the crowd is right and then look for instances were the requirements of the crowd fall apart. Ironically, this sometimes leads to edges in the most traded events (like college bowl games).

Now, piss off... I'm done helping all you n00bz

thanks, excellent read w/ a lot of info... I read it twice in a row!

I'm trying to apply what I'm learning to the NFL this season, but I'm still having trouble with some concepts. One thing I'm thinking about now....

I have no real opinion one way or the other on the KC@Car game. However its at 9.5 at most places. My book has it at 10, and I get -105 lines. I realize that 10 is an important number. If we assume that 9.5 is the correct line(which could be an incorrect assumption) then would it be +EV to take KC here?

I think that might be a good line...

I think +9.5 at -110 is the same as +10 at -115... +9.5 represents more risk, lower juice, while +10 represents less risk (safer), higher juice...

so if you have +10 at -105, when it should be -115, then I think you found a nice edge...

... but I am still a SB noob...

I thought you were reading SSB. Wong devotes like 20 pages to this question.

Have friends in town this week, so I only have a few minutes each day to devote to sports betting, so I've just spent that time on this week's lines. Will get back to SSB next week.

read Wong's point-push stuff
use Ganchrow's half-point calculator

Oddly, you still have plenty of time to ask for the answer here. Anyway, Wong has a chapter on this topic, and his little quiz at the end has little questions like

Q: "All around vegas the line is 9.5 on an NFL game. You see a book offering +10. You have no opinion on the game. Is +10 a +EV bet if you can get -105?"

+9.5 -110 is equiv. to +10 -122.6.

Assuming +9.5 is a fair line, take +10 up to -110.6.

That is infinitely hilarious considering what I posted twice was that you hadn't read the FAQ and you JUST posted this in your prior post:

See, I can read!


It's obvious you're trolling. Because it seems you can read also.

ROFL_coptering on my floor at this one.

'I have so little time... let me troll some more on SB'

and the Boom! Hedshot from Ortho.