I'm sure this debate has been hashed out in numerous places across the forum but I would like to see an ego-less, quantitative answer to this question. Is there long term value in laying the -1.5 for the runline? Will the profits from the better payouts from the -1.5 make up for the games that are lost by 1 run that would've cashed for an ML play?
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No.
A majority of the time you are effectively paying a higher price laying -1.5 at + money than just playing the moneyline.
Folks hate laying big chalk and feel safer laying -1.5 usually at + money.
The books know this and guess where most of the juice on the runline goes.Comment -
Over the last 95 days, the biggest opening ML of the day has won the game 54 times but not covered the 1.5, by my count, 11 times.Comment -
Thanks for the responses guys. You both confirm my instinct but I was hoping somebody would have a quantitative assessment of the MLs vs. RLs.
And also, do some teams tend to cover the RLs when they win more than others?Comment -
Found this on another site... not sure how accurate
Analyzing the Run Line
Many of you love betting the Run Line, especially with the heavy favorites because of the reduced chalk. In fact, you can turn a -150 Money Line Favorite into a Run Line Underdog. The reduced juice keeps your risk low.
The oddsmakers use the standard fact that 70% of Winners beat the Run Line to calculate the Run Line odds.
The first thing I wanted to test was how teams with a certain money line odds performed on the Run Line. Is there a correlation between the odds a team has and how it performs against the run line.
Probability of winning by more than 1 run given that the team wins the game straight up.
League Wide: 72.5%
+200 or more: 70.2%
+190s: 77.0%
+180s: 76.4%
+170s: 67.4%
+160s: 75.3%
+150s: 72.9%
+140s: 70.9%
+130s: 73.5%
+120s: 68.0%
+110s: 72.4%
+100s: 72.9%
-100s: 68.9%
-110s: 70.6%
-120s: 72.4%
-130s: 72.4%
-140s: 74.7%
-150s: 74.5%
-160s: 75.3%
-170s: 71.9%
-180s: 70.8%
-190s: 77.5%
-200s: 76.2%
Favorites that are -120 or better beat the runline at a higher percentage than the league average (73.6%). In fact, this indicates that betting the runline on these teams will generally be better than betting the money line. Turn these favorites into a dog.Comment -
I want to piggy back this question with a follow-up. What is the chance of making three run line bets all of which lose by 1 run? My answer (which I know is wrong) is 1.56% --->I think statistically 25% of wins are decided by 1 run so I just multiplied .25x.25x.25 (I know it is much more involved than this).
Thanks in advance.Comment -
Depends whether they are home or away. However, by using that 25% statistic, you are also including times that the underdog wins by 1. You could just take the implied percentage for a 1 victory from each game and then multiply the 3 together to get your probability. For example, if a team's no-vig price is -210 and the no-vig price for the runline is +100, then your implied probability for a 1 run win by the favorite is the implied percentage of the favorite minus the implied probability of the runline:
210/310-100/200= 17.74%Comment -
Is this just your opinion or do you have facts to back it up? Taking the standard assumption of 70% wins by 2 runs or more, here's the math:
-- Take 10 winners (if your team loses you lose the bet whether it's ML or RL).
-- Bet RL on all of them, you win 7 times and lose 3 you would have won on the ML. The RL typically pays 1.8 to 2 times the ML (although it's usually closer to 2).
-- Taking it at the low end, 7*1.8 = 12.6
-- Betting all MLs you win 10
-- Thus even at the low end you win 26% more if you bet RLs. If you give the proper 2x that RLs usually pay, it's more like 40% more.
With the example cited by floridagolfer, if 11 out of 54 won but lost on the moneyline, that means 43, or 79.6%, won on the RL. Assuming 1.8x higher payout, 43*1.8=77.4 units won compared to 54 units won if you bet the ML.Comment -
Based on past experience with the RL-1.5, I don't play them very often now. However, I've had very good success with playing a combination of the ML, RL-1, and RL-2. For big faves, playing the RL -1 at -160 is a lot more appealing to me than playing the ML at -225. If the fave only wins by one, I push and if the fave loses, I lose 30% less on my wager.
For smaller faves, a typical line for a home fave might be ML -135, RL-1 +110, RL-2 +215. I play the ML (x2), RL-1 (x1), and the RL-2 (x0.5)
Team loss: -4.2u
Win by 1: +1.5u (RL-1 pushes)
Win by 2: +3.1u (RL-2 pushes)
Win by 3+: +4.18u
As with every other strategy, it obviously boils down to good game selection when I would actually play these, but so far so good, with a limited sample size.Comment -
i like moneylinesComment -
Nobody even mentions totals in this discussion? The Think Tank has officially gone to shit.Comment -
The question you asked should be evaluated by each individual matchup. Are you getting value in selling 1.5 runs? To know that, you have to determine the value of a run for that team in that particular game.Comment -
Nice to see this thread bumped. I believe it was my first one in the think tank. I'm a year older now, though not necessarily a year wiser, but I at least have a model (probably not a profitable one, but a model nonetheless) now that gives me an expected final score. With this I'm able to better determine if the runline on either side has value, assuming of course my model is decent.
For what it's worth, here's a standard ML/RL payoff chart that I've come into:
HOME:
-200/-105
-190/+100
-180/+105
-170/+110
-160/+120
-150/+130
-140/+140
-130/+150
-120/+160
-110/+170
AWAY:
-200/-130
-190/-125
-180/-120
-170/-115
-160/-110
-150/+100
-140/+110
-130/+120
-120/+130
-110/+135
But there are of course other factors to consider - the total, as MF mentioned, being a critical one.
And now that I have an MLB database, I know that donjuan was correct in what he told me last summer that home teams are much more likely to win by 1 than favorites.Comment -
That chart is awful. You'll get killed taking -1.5 runlines in those scenarios unless the total is really really high. That article up there about "turning the favorite into a dog" is terrible too.
The one comment I can make is that the -1.5 runline in general isn't as bad as it was a few years ago, probably because more sharp bettors are aware that the -1.5 runline tends to be a donkey bet. Every forum donk and their brother seemed to be on the STL RL today, but I was able to get a better price on my HOU bet on the ML instead of the RL--Pinnacle closed ML +222, RL +1.5 -103, and the best RL on the SBR line feed, aside from the Bodog square line +1.5 +110 and SIA with the same line, was Legendz's +1.5 +100. In previous years you'd see HOU +1.5 +105 all over the place with a +222 ML and probably some stray +1.5 +110s.Comment -
is there ever value on the +1.5 runline?Comment -
So you are 100% bullet proof huh..... you are so full of shit you wreak it, apparently you can't read cause IMO means that and nothing more and this is all you or anyone else can give... C'mon peter pan this ain't never never land you need a serious reality check sunshine
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Well, I guess that would make you a moron then, Pauly. I think DJ covered his bases fairly well on that comment.Comment -
There was a time when people like you would get laughed out of the Think Tank. Sadly, there seems to be a lot of idiots in here like you these days. Perhaps, I should let you have the Think Tank. Most people with brains would want people like me here to contribute, but people like you make it a worthless endeavor.Comment -
you mean outta never never land
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I would go so far as to say the +1.5 has more value than the -1.5 a large majority of the time. There was a brief time when the -1.5 held some value in Colorado, but the humidor normalized that in a hurry.Comment -
"I am neither Square nor Sharp I am Me I am"Comment -
I wasn't around much before last year, but I've read most of the threads in the Think Tank and outside of Ganchrow leaving (which I understand is an enormous change), it doesn't seem like the average level of poster/information has gone down. It does seem like there are a lot more players talk people popping in every now and then with their new "system" but Justin does a good job keeping them at bay. I think there's a decent core group of guys here. I rarely see a thoughtful, quantitative-related question go unanswered. I realize I'm no sharp, but most of the times when I go to click on a thread and give my thoughts on a question posed in the title, I see someone has already done it in a more concise and helpful manner than I could have.
One of the problems with a forum like this is something that you've pointed out many times - it doesn't make much sense to discuss +EV stuff out in the open. I think one of the best parts of the think tank is that it allows sharps to identify each other, make contact through the PMs (when Willie Bee doesn't have you in PM time out), and share dbs, info, models, etc. that way.
I would probably agree with this. It kind of reminds me of the buying 3 points in hoops and laying the -170. It might not "look good" on the surface but when you do the math it all adds up.Comment -
This thread got derailed in a hurry... I find value in the +1.5 RL a lot more often than I find value in the -1.5 RL, although as I stated above, there aren't nearly as many good +1.5 RLs these days as there were a few years ago.Comment -
Well I was completely clueless when I started this thread last summer. Now I'm probably just as clueless but at least can pretend like I have an idea of what I'm doing, so my original question in this thread is irrelevant to me now. The thread can go wherever it wants...
re: RLs, I've never bothered to look but have any of you had success betting the -2.5 RLs or maybe the reverse RLs (dog -1.5)?Comment -
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+1.5 is the greatest bet in baseball because of the squares thinking that "Well, they're going to win, and it will probably be by more than 1." No square will willingly bet into the worse team and pay negative money on them. Alternatively, no one wants to take a +200 and turn it into a +100 because of one run. Some books know this, and in turn jack up the prices on these teams giving you terrific +EV opportunities on the +1.5 team. All the value in this sport is in the teams like Pittsburgh, Washington, Kansas City, on the run line.Comment -
look at sia's +1.5 lines one dayComment -
I personally avoid betting on +1.5Comment
