Gotcha. Yea, as I said in the above post, I only bet point spreads at -110 right now. My thinking was that I wanted to try to learn those before expanding, but if its a mistake then I'm open to learning.

Can you guys give me an example of a NFL play this year where you felt as if the ML was clearly the correct play and not the PS and explain why?

If you havn't already noticed, I'm continually going to asking for examples in this thread....helps me learn a lot better that way.

Ass,

Before you do anything else,, find and read that MT2R thread. It wasn't the mocking. It was what he did that should enlighten you.

As for the line shopping explanation. People who take the time to bet or cap, should take the time to shop. If its not worth your time as an amateur, so be it. Just don't expect your results to be any good. Like most other things, you only get what you put in.

That also explains why people who spent hours or years working on this stuff aren't going to hand it over to someone else for nothing. That is the basis for the sarcasm around here. That some guy makes a little sweetheart post and expects people to bend over backwards to help them, often at that person's own expense.

c) EG is expected growth. Hop over to SBR and read Ganchrow's excellent series of posts on Kelly criterion.


Wait... This is already included in the FAQ and numerous other threads about advice.

Back to trolling.

This is very true, and something I've widely considered already.

I don't bet on any NFC East teams for this reason because I'm biased(love the Skins, hate the other 3). This may cost me some EV, and I'm ok with that- imo its not close to being worth it for me to give up rooting for the Skins in order to bet on those 4 teams.

The Ravens are my second favorite team, and I was really high on them. If you go back and read some of the betting threads in here, I've specifically asked for analysis on the Ravens because I've wanted to make sure that I wasn't allowing my homerism to get the best of me.


I'm interested in hearing how others deal with this. Believe me, one of the first things I noticed once I moved to Vegas is that many people don't seem to have favorite teams but instead just care about betting. Should I focus on other sports then? For example, I know basketball pretty well but I never watch the WNBA. Should I bet on that because I won't be biased since I don't care about it? Or is the fact that being a fan means you'll naturally watch and analyze the games a lot more enough to make up for the occassional bias?

No, sorry for not being clear. I understood and agreed with the thought process behind his post. I have no opinion on those individual games as I don't remember them at all, and I didn't care to argue his 80% number because I'm certain he knows more than me.

Basically he was telling me that I wasn't as big of a favorite in some games as I thought, and I understood and agreed with that(although I still feel as if BAl -1.5 this past week was >60%)

If I was totally confident in myself I would've placed more than 2 units on that game, but I am not(and probably shouldn't be as I still have a lot to learn).

FWIW I thought the actual line should've been -4.5 or 5. I know that when your line is 3+ off from the book then usually you're wrong, but I felt as if this was different(although maybe I was wrong).

Regarding re-evaluating your wagers, I'm not sure where to start on that. Yes I look at each bet I made and what I did correct and incorrect, but I still get the feeling that I'm not doing what you're suggesting. As an example:

I bet Buff -8.5 this week. It grew all the way to -9.5 by gametime, so I felt good.

It lost and it wasn't one of those ultra close losses either. So I went back and asked myself "Is Oakland better than I gave them credit for?", "Is Buffalo worse than I gave them credit for?", "What happened in the game that I didn't expect?", "If the game was played again tomorrow, would I take the same side again at that line?".

It took about 5-10 minutes, and several of my answers were inconclusive.

As of right now, thats my idea of evaluating my bets. I'm sure that theres a better way to do things, so let me hear it...

out for now, will be back later to reply to some of the other posts

eta: thanks for all help so far

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/40...l-picks-19321/

is that it?

Getting paid > *

Perfect example of a point rsigley made earlier.

The difference between a spread of -8.5 and -9.5 is only about 1%, as in...if a team will cover -8.5 50% of the time, they will cover -9.5 49% of the time. I'll use this point to bring up a good example of lineshopping. Say you think Bills -8.5 has value at -110, covering 55% of the time, but there is a book down the street offering bills -9.5 -105. Any true NFL sharp knows to take the -9.5 without even thinking.


-8.5 -110 at 55% = 5.00% ROI and 0.100% EG at half kelly.
-9.5 -105 at 54% = 5.43% ROI and 0.116% EG at half kelly.

No.

Here it is.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/40...matters-56060/

LOL

ty

Oh, I thought that was a joke.

now i'm confused.

he mentioned the Inimical NFL Algorithm Spotting Systematic Addle-pates in that thread and it was done in assani style. seemed like a decent guess.

relation between spread/ml and total is involved a little. rjp has a good post about it on his site smartcapper which is in the faq i think

there's some many alternative markets for every game. multiple spreads/totals for halftime, multiple spreads/totals for 1Q, spreads/totals for 2q/3q/4q, 2H, props, etc. the total moves a lot, most of the time these alternative markets don't which is why they're more exploitable [and have lower limits]. all my bets are in a sql db but i exported some of the rows and imported to excel so here's most of my nfl bets from this week. i guess one thing you don't see tho is the juice because i didn't export the risk/to win column, but if a line seems off i was probably paying/getting good odds for them. oh and the first 50 bets or so couldn't fit in the screen. all my cfb bets are posted here actually in week 1/2/4 threads, i took off week 3 bc i was on a plane for most of the day. posted about 180 bets. out of my 149 nfl bets this season only 1 was a real spread. rest were alt spreads/halves/quarters/props

http://www.squaresportsbetting.com/week3.jpg


no, just bet every edge you find IMO. i tend to lay off really small ones after i factor in standard error just bc if the market moves even a little it becomes a neutral or a bet that has -ev

sbr is a site where the big books/whoever gives them the most affiliate money get good ratings and some good books who don't advertise there seem to end up stuck in the b/c rating abyss. most of these books tend to be smaller/recreational type books, but most of them have good bonuses and for some reason won't boot you. even a couple of them still offer +100 teasers for 2 teams with reload bonuses.

having tons of bets helps with the roll over too on these bonuses.

a lot of people don't play at these books though because they're not A rated books, but i'd rather take my chances on a B rated book who will take smaller bets and hang ridiculous lines than trying to beat the greek consistantly on full game odds

If you want to start betting sports seriously you need to find at least 5 outs.Make it a mix of illegal and offshore books.Reason being is illegal books sometime will move lines half a point on the basis of 3-4 big players,they will shade home teams ,example every book offshore may have Pittsburgh -3 but a bookie in Pittsburgh may be at -4 because of all the local money pouring in,so if you like the Steelers you lay 3 off shore,if you want to fade them you take 4 from the illegal book..Also illegal books typically don't shade their numbers,if a game is 3 -20 on all the online books illegals typically will just have it at flat 3,so you bet with the offshore if you like the dog and the illegal if you like the favorite.You can also bargain with illegal bookmakers,usually if you like the underdog.If a game is 7 you can just ask him if he wants any +7.5.If his bettors are laying it he usually will be happy to accomadate you..but don't abuse this and ask for a half every game,just do it once or twice at most over a weekend.Lastly settling up with illegal bookmakers is much easier..strictly cash and carry.Much easier then withdrawling offshore(in some places).

There are advantages to offshore books also though.Such as being able to place bets 24 hours a day,more props,lower juice at some,post up/reload bonuses and always being able to bet the "real" number.

When selecting a book to do buisness with(illegal and offshore)the #1 criteria,more important then all the bonuses,lower juice and locked or soft lines is will you be paid if you win.When selecting an illegal bookmaker you want to have a guy that is generally 35 or over(don't bet with college kids who decided to start taking bets on campus)and been in buisness at least 10 years.Word spreads fast through gambling communities of nonpayment by bookmakers and guys who stiff people their customer base dries up fast,so anyone that has been in buisness 10 years or more is usually really solid,with the amounts you are betting I don't think you have much worries about non payment by a bookie.

Assani,

My advice for someone who is starting to take sportsbetting seriously is to try and become a good judge of handicapping talent rather then trying to become a good handicapper yourself. This gives you more time everyday to try and spot good bets in many sports rather then becoming an expert in one league or sport. I follow many experts on various forums and bet % of bankroll according to how close I can get to the numbers they are betting. Doing it this way allows you to increase your volume of bets. If you are making good sportsbets in the larger markets you can only expect to skim a unit for every 30-40 units you bet. Increasing your units bet every week should be a high priority obviously. Also, by following good handicappers, you start to understand what they are betting and why and this helps you to handicap games yourself if need be.

.

some of these are like asking whether you played a hand correctly because villain has the one hand in his range that beats you. results-oriented. it may be important stuff to think about for the future weeks, but in evaluating a bet they aren't relevant.

the correct questions are:
did i beat the closing line significantly?
did i pay the least amount of juice/get the best price available to me, and if not, do i need to add other sources?
were there better ways to bet the angle i wanted?(rsigley's posts nailed it about betting halfs/qtrs/props/etc. comparing ML to spread, etc.)
did i evaluate my edge and bet it correctly according to my situation?(some of this is inherent in the questions you are asking, but you're also missing a chunk)
did i miss any information?

I actually have no disagreements with anything you've said in this thread....pretty sure hell just froze over. And FWIW the reason I originally started posting picks and methodology was to get feedback on the process. At the start I got plenty of feedback regarding things I wasn't considering, etc. and used that to find tune a lot of things I was doing. It then transformed into something else. The nagging begins, constant pms from people wanting to basically copycat all of your hard work, complaints from some moron whenever they follow you and go broke b/c they have zero money management, etc. It gets to the point where the fuss over your picks and the stress generated outweighs the feedback you get back. At this point posting becomes -ev, even if u just look at it from a time perspective. I'm sure Rsigley will echo this opinion.

shipitkthx, I would be interested in knowing what software you used for your analysis (I currently only have excel and haven't gotten JMP working yet) and where you obtained the databases for the sports you've bet on. I can do all of the work myself, but would be interested in some pointing in the right direction since I feel kind of lost in this forum.

Cmon let's not hijack the guys thread over which posters are jerks...that's a whole new thread.

I'm going to attempt to get this thread back in the right direction.


Excel + Matlab, My databases were compiled through massive amounts of googling. When you find a good amount of data you would like i'd suggest learning some Perl and learning how to parse HTML.

The entire point of this thread seems to have gone way over your head. Scroll up and click the link to MTTR's thread about betting the opposite side of a poster's picks and it should give you an idea about why your constant jabbering about your picks of worse-than-market lines is not useful here. Everything being discussed in this thread is completely the opposite of what you spew out on this forum. I'm done with you and have no desire to continue trainwrecking this thread so let it die.

Trying to leech picks against widely available near-closing lines is pretty much epic fail on so many levels.