Fav minus the points, and Fav ML blend plays worthwhile?

[curious]

I have had a lot of success with the dog ML and dog + the points blend plays. X on the ML, 2X on the spread to hedge the ML.

I play favs on the ML only. I am thinking of doing the same blend of ML and spread with favs.

But, in this case I would play X on the spread and 2X on the ML.
For example, Niagara today is -330 ML. +7 1/2

So, the play would be
Niagara -7 1/2 -110 1.1 to win 1
Niagara -330 6.93 to win 2.1

[xyz]

I think you mean Niagara -7.5, right?

[curious]

I think you mean Niagara -7.5, right?

Of course.

[Data]

If you do Kelly staking then you will end up betting more on the spread and then adding some on the moneyline. I think your moneyline bets on favorites is an attempt to lower the variance but a better approach should be to lower your Kelly multiplier.

[Arilou]

The best reason to bet both is that at most books your effective limits are higher, usually substantially higher. However, if you're betting less than the limit of the best line offered (as you see them) you almost certainly want to take the one you like best and if I didn't have an opinion on the math involved I would lean heavily towards the one which offered the lowest juice.

[pico]

sounds like asian handicap lines

[curious]

If you do Kelly staking then you will end up betting more on the spread and then adding some on the moneyline. I think your moneyline bets on favorites is an attempt to lower the variance but a better approach should be to lower your Kelly multiplier.

There are two objectives. One is that I see higher value in the moneyline than in the spread sometimes, not all the time. And the second is what you said, to lower variance.

I did notice from having tracked this since the start of the year in NCAAB that after I filter out the teams where I think the line is just plain wrong, the moneylines win at a far higher percentage than the spread, higher than the numbers would indicate. I'm not sure why that is. I don't think my filter is THAT good.

What you are saying is to play the spread but play at something less than full Kelly?

Curious

[Data]

What you are saying is to play the spread but play at something less than full Kelly?

Yes, but not just the spread, everything.

The spread bets are going to have the highest edge and that is why the most money will go there. On the other hand, while having less edge, the moneyline bets are going to have much higher probability to hit and therefore will command putting in large money with the smaller edge. But since you already got down on the spread, you just adding some more to it.

One more thing, the moneylines and the spread are very much on par, the disparity you see could very well be incidental. Even if some disparity exists, the spread bets are still going to have higher edge.