What to do when you have beaten the closing number

[Johnny 55]

I have read nearly every thread on this board and thanks to the teachings of Justin 7, Ganchrow, Durito, Data, and others I have garnered a basic understanding of what differentiates a successful sports better from the other 99%. I feel as if I could predict someone's success simply by the tenor and content of their posts. I completely understand why beating the closing number blindly will always lead to long term success. My question is how to maximize this ability.

On to my question. Hypothetically, I am beating the closing numbers with regularity. I get a dime down on the Brewers this morning at
-103 and by game time they shoot up to -120/+118 or so. What do I do to maximize profits, arb out and take the guarnateed profit and profit from basically what amounts to arb speculation. Be happy with the good number and understand it portends success in my Brewers -103 bet or some kind of half or quarter arb. I am not averse to controlled risk and want to make as much profit as possible.

Another example and this might be slightly different is say I have Celtics/Lakers 0ver 200 and at halftime it is 55-55 for a total of 110 and the second half total is set at 105. I am now working with a 15 pt. middle opportunity.

Option 1- Sit tight as it has a huge chance of winning.

Option 2- Go for the 15 pt. middle and risk losing one bet and the juice in an effort to go for the middle

Option 3- Some combination, a quarter, half or 3/4 middle.

Is there some mathematical formula that I can plug in that relates to how big the middle opportunity or arb opportunity is and if the best long term money making play is to go for the middle or simply do nothing, or some combination.

Any suggestions, Thanks in advance

[Ganchrow]

Check out http://forum.sbrforum.com/handicappe...readsheet.html.

And welcome to the forum.

[ICE-BLOOD]

Okay Johnny 55, read your post and here's what I got. Hope this helps.
Personally, I can't give you a mathematical formula to maximize your profit for being able to beat the closing # and choosing whether to arb out or not.

somethings got me thinking though,

This "hypothetical beating the closing #".
Have you frequently beat the # while actually putting the action in?
Big difference on paper and actually doing it.
Seems like more actual plays are needed to get a better feel and results to work with.
Also, for how long has this beating the closing # been going on for?
Can you continue to do it?
For a 15 game daily baseball card, how many lines can you identify that will beat the # and by how much?
Do the plays you isolate early that beat the closing line show a profit?

For the basketball example, I would choose option 1.
You made a good play on the game already, why make another play on this game when this added play may not be a good one.

Summing up, IMO, if you can make a good play early (at what you think will be the best line and a good play), play it, keep an eye on the line, let it ride, and use this info and results for your future plays

GL

[FIRST CLASS]

I have read nearly every thread on this board and thanks to the teachings of Justin 7, Ganchrow, Durito, Data, and others I have garnered a basic understanding of what differentiates a successful sports better from the other 99%. I feel as if I could predict someone's success simply by the tenor and content of their posts. I completely understand why beating the closing number blindly will always lead to long term success. My question is how to maximize this ability.

On to my question. Hypothetically, I am beating the closing numbers with regularity. I get a dime down on the Brewers this morning at
-103 and by game time they shoot up to -120/+118 or so. What do I do to maximize profits, arb out and take the guarnateed profit and profit from basically what amounts to arb speculation. Be happy with the good number and understand it portends success in my Brewers -103 bet or some kind of half or quarter arb. I am not averse to controlled risk and want to make as much profit as possible.

Another example and this might be slightly different is say I have Celtics/Lakers 0ver 200 and at halftime it is 55-55 for a total of 110 and the second half total is set at 105. I am now working with a 15 pt. middle opportunity.

Option 1- Sit tight as it has a huge chance of winning.

Option 2- Go for the 15 pt. middle and risk losing one bet and the juice in an effort to go for the middle

Option 3- Some combination, a quarter, half or 3/4 middle.

Is there some mathematical formula that I can plug in that relates to how big the middle opportunity or arb opportunity is and if the best long term money making play is to go for the middle or simply do nothing, or some combination.

Any suggestions, Thanks in advance

JOHNNY

without ? #1

reason being, if you give the "BOOK" a 2nd wager @ The Proper Price, you are then at a slight Disadvantage . . . .

why not "Sit tight" as you put it with the %'s way in your favor

Granted you will Miss few opportunities to "Middle" or "side" your Initial wagers . . . . but those are few & Far Between, when you can get the %'s that much in your favor

ANSWER = SIT TIGHT & stay where you are . . . .

[u21c3f6]

I completely understand why beating the closing number blindly will always lead to long term success.

This is not necessarily true. If you can beat ALL lines then this has an overwhelming chance of being true. However, when you only have a subset of lines that you beat, it may not be true. You may only be able to beat the lines that turn out to be –EV wagers. There has been many a poster that has written about how they make many wagers where they have “beaten” the line and yet cannot show a profit. You will have to determine if the lines that you “beat” really show a profit.

On to my question. Hypothetically, I am beating the closing numbers with regularity. I get a dime down on the Brewers this morning at -

103 and by game time they shoot up to -120/+118 or so. What do I do to maximize profits, arb out and take the guarnateed profit and profit from basically what amounts to arb speculation. Be happy with the good number and understand it portends success in my Brewers -103 bet or some kind of half or quarter arb. I am not averse to controlled risk and want to make as much profit as possible.

My answer to this is to always arb. Here’s my reasoning: First, as I wrote above, it is not clear if in fact the lines that you beat actually will show a profit. The beauty about arbing is that it doesn’t matter. Even if the lines you beat are initially –EV wagers, if you have an ability to select lines that will move in your favor more often than not, by arbing you are guaranteeing that you will have an overall profit regardless if the initial wager is –EV or not (of course you can’t lose more in total on the wagers where the line moves against you than the total amount you win on the lines you beat). Even if you can determine that in fact the lines you beat do show a profit, I would still arb based on the concept I learned from Kelly wagering.

Kelly is basically edge divided by odds. At constant odds, the larger the edge the larger the wager and vice-versa and at constant edge, the shorter the odds the larger the wager and vice-versa. Let’s assume you have a 3% edge on 50-50 wagers. Full Kelly (and frankly I personally use half-Kelly) would have you wager 3% of your bankroll. Wagering more than 3% would subject your bankroll to wilder swings and a greater chance of hurting your bankroll. However, if you knew that you were going to arb the wager, now how much of your bankroll could you use? Certainly more than 3% because your success rate (based on assumptions above) is greater than 50% and the actual amount at risk is greatly reduced because you know in advance that you are not going to let the wager ride, you are going to arb. Once you have a track record as to the %’s of success and edge of your arb wagers, you can then calculate an appropriate % amount for your initial arb wager. As far as worrying about giving up some % by arbing with –EV wagers, that concern goes away because of the higher % amount you will be able to wager on the arb instead of letting the initial wager ride. For example, if you let it ride, you will wager 3% of bankroll on a 3% edge. However if you arb, you may be able to safely wager 10% of your bankroll on your initial wager and even if the resulting arb is reduced to a 2% edge you will make twice as much money because you can safely wager 3 times as much money on the arb then on the let-it–ride wager.

Joe.

[Johnny 55]

Joe- Thanks for the feedback, you have an interesting perspective on this matter. This morning I placed 4 $1,000 wagers on the Angels (-183), Reds (-132), Phillies (-179), and Twins (-112). As I write this at 12:30 EST all of the aforementioned lines have gone in my favor, some to a large degree. I will wait until 15 minutes before game time before deciding what to do but your advice is to arb out of all of them. $1,000 is about 2% of my bankroll. This is still somewhat confusing to me in the sense that I have recieved conflicting advice as to what is the best way long term to increase my winnings, is there some middle ground where a half or quarter middle might be warranted. Anyone else care to chime in and thanks again Joe for your perspective.

[Pancho sanza]

Don't overthink this, keep what you're comfortable risking, buy back the rest.

[Johnny 55]

Also Joe-

What is your perspective on the basketball situation I raised previously, would you treat that different than the baseball and go for the full middle.

Is there a simple version of the overlay calculator, I cant seem to figure it out which is probably due more to my own stupidity than to any kind of design flaw. Again, would appreciate all perspectives.

[u21c3f6]

Joe- Thanks for the feedback, you have an interesting perspective on this matter. This morning I placed 4 $1,000 wagers on the Angels (-183), Reds (-132), Phillies (-179), and Twins (-112). As I write this at 12:30 EST all of the aforementioned lines have gone in my favor, some to a large degree. I will wait until 15 minutes before game time before deciding what to do but your advice is to arb out of all of them. $1,000 is about 2% of my bankroll.

My arb advice also includes making larger initial wagers. I assume the 2% is your normal wager and therefore you are not gaining the advantage of being able to wager more initially by arbing. In this case, from a % point of view, you may very well be better off not arbing. From a risk point of view I always arb but in this case I also would have initially wagered between 5K and 10K (based on your bankroll) on your selections which would have necessitated that I arb as those wagers would have been much too large to let ride.

Joe.

[u21c3f6]

Also Joe-

What is your perspective on the basketball situation I raised previously, would you treat that different than the baseball and go for the full middle.

One of the reasons that I arb is the ability to wager a larger % of my bankroll on an event. So for me, I know whether I am going to arb or not when the wager is made. There is a % I use for my let-it-ride wagers and a much different and much higher % I use for wagers I intend to arb. In your basketball case, I either would have intended to arb that wager or not, make the appropriate % initial wager and that would dictate what I would do. However, if I determine that taking one side or the other of a wager is a +EV wager, regardless of what I already have wagered, then I would wager accordingly.

Joe.