[Ominous]

I have been wondering how often a team with high consensus win vs the spread in pro sports (NBA NFL etc.)? Let's say teams with consensus of 65% and above (according to sports insight).

I would be thankfull if anyone could provide some statistics for this, or if some of you who have been betting a long time would give your opinions.

[therber2]

I was wondering the exact same thing. Check out my excel sheet.
To me I find no correlation really as far as winning the spread, which makes sense. But this should be a good start to maybe mine and track this stuff for ML prob.

It would be nice if we found something; because it would be such a simple factor to include with a pythag expectaction calc.

check the attach:

Some important things:
-I got the info off of bettracker (not sure of the reliability of this source as far as checking the real concensus)
-unfortunately I wasn't looking for what you are wondering about.
-I would wager that as far as a team purely winning and losing the concensus would be correct avg. at least >50%
-**Keep in mind many people place their wagers based purely on line movement which bettracker is also supposed to track**
Line changes are simply a result of concensus wagering. Bookies want to keep wagers even.

Line change is a whole other animal so I think to test your theory ^ data should only be mined from public wagers that did not experience line changes....IMO. If a strong correlation between consensus bets with no line change and team victory is found, I think that alone could be a strong indicator.

[Ominous]

I make most of my plays based soley on lines that are off market and thus i often end up playing on a team which has had a favorable linemove.
My question about win% for consensus ATS is primarly relevant to me as I would like to determine how and if I should change my critera for play as a function of consensus on the the team I want to place a bet on.

Line changes are simply a result of concensus wagering. Bookies want to keep wagers even.

Many people will disagree with you here. There are sometimes linemoves where the line on the anti-consensus pick will drop (=reverse linemove).
Also, I think that there is some truth to all moves, even the consensus ones. If this wasnt true, then you could make a huge profit on playing "the other side" right before gamestart getting often as high as +150 on the opening line.

Furthermore, the sportsbetting litterature that Ive read sais that the bookies are fine with uneven action, as long as the believe they have the edge.

[therber2]

how do YOU track movement. I think it could be a combination of actual odds the bookies believe they have, but I think that the primary factor for line movement is volume. I see most line movements when the public moves one way or the other.

It is a smart idea to play untapped bets that are on "sale".

I think an interesting experiment would be to check win% for wagers 5 - spread or less, and see how often the public is correct as far as just which team wins.

What do you think? Shall we?

[Ominous]

Yeah the problem here is data mining. I have no exerpience with programming and I have no access to any database. To obtain anything useful one would probably need to monitor 1000 games?, I mean I doubt 100 will do.

Anyhow, the idea is interesting

[MonkeyF0cker]

1000 is even far too few.

[LT Profits]

RLM has won in every sport the last two years. At the time I wrote my article on the subject, the sample size was about 1800 games.

[mixpicks]

I believe you guys are on the right track, and I'm glad to see you guys are not wagering as "Sports Fans" but rather as Investors... I always say, &it works for me, "Capp The Market Not Only The Teams". Also, as many may know, Money Is What Moves The Line, Not Public Bets, (example)There can be 90% consenious/public on side "A" at -11 and line can come down to -8 even though there is say 80-90% on that team, Now of course that will indictate (smart larger wagers on team "B") may even be "Steam" If line drops fast, in that case I would JUMP on team "B" fast, but try to get it as close to the opening number as possible, even If I (U) have to buy pts. This happened in the past few Bowl Games, Ohio St is one great recent example, same thing with the Total, (Opened @ what 57 drop down to 52') With Public on the Over, Nice Under play, same with Ohio St (Side)Play. Tulsa was another real "Sharp" Side Play. (dog to Fav)Now, College Basketball esp.(Totals) are real easy to identify the (STEAM) I suspect that's, why a lot of books pull or don't offer many totals, and then limmit ones bet size... that's another issue. BOL Investors...