Making a losing scalp to increase overall expected growth?

**reno cool** · 01-08-09, 05:52 AM

no way does this make any sense. I assume you're making the original bet in the hope that the line moves the other way. You're using line movement as the sole factor in establishing value. Now that you guessed wrong, simply making another neg value bet accomplishes nothing.

**Wayfarer** · 01-08-09, 08:57 AM

With what I proposed there are some major assumptions that I made such as the market being highly efficient, which is certainly not always the case.

But lets say you have a model which you use to set your own line. You identify a play that according to your model has value and place your wager accordingly. As long as volume is significant as time passes and game time approaches the market should be increasingly efficient which should mean if the team you bet on had value the money would come in on them. If the money moves the opposite way this could be a strong indicator that your selection was incorrect. By betting the other side you could minimize the overall -EV from the outcome of the event. Of course one must look at more than just line movement, such as cases of nationally televised games where it is very likely square money will be pooring in as game time nears resulting in potentially misleading movements in the line.

In my mind I am not naive enough to think that what I am doing is so far ahead of everyone else that I should just ingore what the market is telling me about my selections.

**Wayfarer** · 01-08-09, 10:59 AM

Just to add I realize my thread title is misleading. As what I am discussing is not directly related to increasing growth, but minimizing loses from the negative value bets one ends up making. As reno cool correctly stated two negative bets can not become positive.

**Justin7** · 01-08-09, 12:05 PM

Reducing the volatility increases your long-term expected growth. There are times when it makes sense to make -EV bets to lower volatility... But as your bankroll grows, it gets harder and harder to place big bets, or hedge with enough volume to control your positions.