What does an efficient market mean?

[oilcountry99]

and i will continue to do so. built my entire MLB approach on the belief in an efficient market and creating positive closing line value is the strongest indicator.

any acknowledge of subsets is made to discount and warn against fallible humans reaching back into to history to carve out situations that were previously successful. trend betting built marc lawrence a fortune, or should we say selling the illusion of trend betting being somehow profitable.

we can rip and filp historic numbers to fit any half baked (best movie ever) concept of profitable subset. they don't exist. if they did exist, and there was once was an Edge, it is gone because the market is efficient and continually evolves. the penalty for repeatedly making mistakes is to go broke. the sports betting market is darwinian, in the most basic form of jungle law.

the outcome of a single match does not matter. the accumulation of single matches at a specific line that stretches into the hundreds of trials will produce efficient results.

reality:
when producing +CLV my selections win money long term
when producing -CLV my selection loss money long term

perhaps we are going apples and oranges here, but if the market were inefficient, CLV would mean nothing. in reality, CLV is the defining character of a profitable bettor.

EMT,
Are you practicing your method strictly with MLB?

[KVB]

and i will continue to do so. built my entire MLB approach on the belief in an efficient market and creating positive closing line value is the strongest indicator.

any acknowledge of subsets is made to discount and warn against fallible humans reaching back into to history to carve out situations that were previously successful. trend betting built marc lawrence a fortune, or should we say selling the illusion of trend betting being somehow profitable.

we can rip and filp historic numbers to fit any half baked (best movie ever) concept of profitable subset. they don't exist. if they did exist, and there was once was an Edge, it is gone because the market is efficient and continually evolves. the penalty for repeatedly making mistakes is to go broke. the sports betting market is darwinian, in the most basic form of jungle law.

the outcome of a single match does not matter. the accumulation of single matches at a specific line that stretches into the hundreds of trials will produce efficient results.

reality:
when producing +CLV my selections win money long term
when producing -CLV my selection loss money long term

perhaps we are going apples and oranges here, but if the market were inefficient, CLV would mean nothing. in reality, CLV is the defining character of a profitable bettor.

I agree here but don't miss my point.

My point was that in the markets can be viewed through different lenses and I post constantly about the closing line value and how we aim and do beat it over 1000's of plays.

But I also acknowledge what I pointed out before, that the market is loaded with inefficiencies. I think this thread had an example where only one in three lines were "efficient" from the standpoint of "covering or not" but defining efficiency is still a problem for many here.

Remember, the line is "efficient" if it serves the book's purpose and they choose not to move it anymore...efficient market theorists that don't work behind the counter have no other definition. Once the game starts, outside of some late reporting, the line doesn't move anymore. These theorists are relying on the market info to make that decision, abandoning their own definitions of efficiency to do so without realizing it.

If you truly thought all lines were efficient and where they are supposed to be at the close, then you will never have a bet...unless you are here to gamble.

Beating the close is about picking off inefficiencies before they get there, but some lines never to get there. There are subset where you can not beat the close, but tie it, and still win. Good luck finding these but you'd better be capping the market to do so.

[franklee168]

Can we get a version from the OP?

[StackinGreen]

vampire assassin is correct. Most of you guys are chasing the white rabbit, the books will age, take your money, drive you thru insanity @ back, and spit you out. For the math geniuses that love for the learning aspect that's great, its not a risk cause your not stupid and already ascertain the inherit risk . This game is only for the 2% . Stock market, high yield cd(s), options, currency trading is way more beatable and far more productive then this.

I have been gambling for a long time and agree with this. One of the reasons I think it's that way is that you can play a time and momentum aspect of things in the real world "markets" ie you aren't constrained to a binary decision with far more randomness in a short time period (= a sports match).

The other thing that plays into it is that if you are a guy who values his time (and you would be if you are an older, wiser, wealthier man ... for others it matters not what they do with their clown time), you will understand that it is better to have smaller gains on less risky propositions, and also more money riding (risking) on that event. Which is why usually you chase big wins as a young kid who likes to have fun and brag, when the money means more to you, than when you are older and having more money and knowing what to do with it over extended time shines as the obvious thing to do. This is what has happened to me in the last 5+ years.

[StackinGreen]

It means less than nothing as the global gold standard is markets producing goods/services as inefficiently as possible, rather than the polar opposite.

I love this contrarian position as a way to make sense of it.

[Bsims]

Can we get a version from the OP?

The original question was,

"If a team has a spread of -4, what does that tell us? A few possibilities are.
1. They are more likely to win by 4 than any other score?
2. Their average winning margin will be 4 points?
3. They will win by more than 4 50% of the time and less than 4 (or lose) 50% of the time.
4. Something else."

I was considering studying different wagers to determine if some might be easier to beat than others. Hence I was looking for a single measure that could be used to shed light on this. One example would be basketball. The primary line is a spread. I'm convinced the game spread is too hard to beat. I would use #3 and expect to see past results split about 50-50 around the spread. The same applies to game totals. A long time gambler and friend suggests first half wagers. Before starting developing a first half system, I'd like to know if it might be beatable.

Money line wagers are a bit more complicated. Money lines tell us the probability of each team wins. I would group these probabilities and then count the actual winners in each group. Finally I would use correlation to see how accurate the money lines might be.

[StackinGreen]

I agree here but don't miss my point.If you truly thought all lines were efficient and where they are supposed to be at the close, then you will never have a bet...unless you are here to gamble.

KVB, great posts in here.


All this breaks down to instance vs. experience. Maybe your gut is, in that scenario, better than the market's, with the handicapping angle you are using for that single game. The problem is that you don't have that scenario, typically to reproduce. Which brings me to my horse racing point, which has been shown:

1. Even money horses win at that clip, 2-1 horses win 1/3 of the time, 3-1 shots 25%, etc. With a decade or so data set, you will see this every time. Where does everyone get burned then?

The vig. You have to be efficient over the vig. That's obviously not easy to do. The only pros I know in sports are guys that have sophisticated models and computer systems that can place wagers (get enough money in) before the auto line changes can react. That means openers, which are obvious the worst lines (and usually limited). This is why it drives me crazy when people say "Vegas is amazing" with number X, and in reality it's you and I making the number that good. Or bad, oh yeah, because we don't hear about how bad a line was when it's off by 20 points in a blowout game, do we? As we've said though it wasn't a bad line necessarily in the first place if it got the action that was desired ...

You can be good here and there, but do you have enough time to make many small +EV bets, or enough discipline with the balls (and someone who will take it) to make large wagers at +EV bet once in a long while? The problem with the latter is that you show you are a winner, and you are put in the sharps category, which blows you up, unless you go underground ...

[turbobets]

Depends on whose closing line you are considering. You can't lump all sportsbooks together. Beating Pinnacle's or Bookmaker's closing line is something totally different than beating most other sportsbooks closing number.

[KVB]

...All this breaks down to instance vs. experience. Maybe your gut is, in that scenario, better than the market's, with the handicapping angle you are using for that single game. The problem is that you don't have that scenario, typically to reproduce...

This couldn't be further from the truth, I have been doing this for decades and can run regressions to to build into the line I create.

The problem is that I am only willing to share so much and others will have to search on their own based on the suggestions I give. I am working on other projects at SBR right now and to be honest, are a bit more advanced than this, dealing with the effects of closing line value and unit performance as well as market prediction based on charting.

For me to go into this subject, which I delve into in pieces all the time, I would again need to teach by example. The detail in posting is tedious to say the least, even though it's all to build the bigger picture.

I believe it was the 2015 CFL thread that did this best. It was real time and helped get into how the flow of money affects the markets through an entire season. The blitz that one year where I posted a forecast and discussion on every March Madness game also showed this. I've also posted through the NCAAF Bowls and NFL Playoffs in the same way, also telling the story.

That's all I have for you now. Without reading that early course, it's tough to put anything meaningful down. Maybe I'll do a blitz again, but I suppose the best thing to do is follow the market "functions" that I track, and all the analyses that go with it.

[oilcountry99]

This couldn't be further from the truth, I have been doing this for decades and can run regressions to to build into the line I create.

The problem is that I am only willing to share so much and others will have to search on their own based on the suggestions I give. I am working on other projects at SBR right now and to be honest, are a bit more advanced than this, dealing with the effects of closing line value and unit performance as well as market prediction based on charting.

For me to go into this subject, which I delve into in pieces all the time, I would again need to teach by example. The detail in posting is tedious to say the least, even though it's all to build the bigger picture.

I believe it was the 2015 CFL thread that did this best. It was real time and helped get into how the flow of money affects the markets through an entire season. The blitz that one year where I posted a forecast and discussion on every March Madness game also showed this. I've also posted through the NCAAF Bowls and NFL Playoffs in the same way, also telling the story.

That's all I have for you now. Without reading that early course, it's tough to put anything meaningful down. Maybe I'll do a blitz again, but I suppose the best thing to do is follow the market "functions" that I track, and all the analyses that go with it.

Can you please post a link to any of these threads.

[StackinGreen]

I said, "typically" ... I didn't say it couldn't be done. But it takes new analysis and adaptation each time. That's all.