[bookie]

I have a spreadsheet with a ton of my bets. I record both the price I came in for, and the closing line. Some are pointspread (including juice wins and losses) and some are moneyline.

What are some ways to evaluate this set of data to figure out how good or bad I am as a shopper?

The only thing that occurs to me is to figure the ROI for my bets and for the same bets made at the closing price, but I'm wondering if there are better ways to do it.

[EXhoosier10]

How much did you beat the closer by? Assume totals/spreads, .5 points is roundly 30¢ (or whatever it may be) For example betting o7 @ -110 is equivalent to o7.5 +120. The 30¢ is a rough number, but it's closer. Moving from 7 to 7'5 might be a different price. Also, convert everything to odds, first. Betting -110 when it closes at -120 it's much better than betting -200 where it closes at -210

[statnerds]

great topic for discussion.

my only input at this point is the earlier the better. if we trust the Market to be efficient, we want to bet lines prior to maturity.

[nash13]

great topic for discussion.

my only input at this point is the earlier the better. if we trust the Market to be efficient, we want to bet lines prior to maturity.

sorry but have to hang in here, not every market has early odds where you can profit from. the closing odds are not the right odds to settle for. rather evaluating if you took the right odds at the right time. here is a write up, i made based on the picks i took.

I finished my copmarative analysis of the odds selection process. I take the odds very early to have a detailed look at what is happening afterwards. The picks don't change in MLB or NHL but the odds do. So here is what I came up with. I will compare totals to money line bets and favorites vs dogs and over vs under bets.

I want to compare NHL and MLB just because they are very different in terms of stability and odds movement. The actions to take and the strategy will widely influence the profits in a huge way. First in the NHL i tracked my bet in comparison to the closing odds. I tracked 503 bets starting from January. I had beaten the closing line 248 times and got beaten 196 times (55.85%). But this is just the surface of the problem. If you loose all your bets, it won't matter if you beat the closing line or not. In my winning bets the relation is 131 to 101 (56.47%). This means in my winning bets the selection process is succesfull and NHL does a good job with my selections overall. When we switch to Profit Analysis the dependancy on that increases. Taking near to the Closing line would have made 191 Units Profit while taking my odds would increase the profits to 194 Units.
So now let's look at the bet types. ML Overall (Closing Line Profit:143.23, My Bets:144.97), ML Fav (Closing Line Profit:26.26, My Bets:24.38), ML Underdogs (Closing Line Profit:116.97, My Bets:120.59) So you can see that the main difference is dependent on the Underdogs. Taking them earlier in NHL is a success factor. In comparison to that you can see that most of my profit is from Underdog betting in NHL. NHL is a real good spot for that. In addition to tha we can now look at Totals. Totals Overall (Closing Line Profit:58.18, My Bets:59.37), Totals Over (Closing Line Profit:-17.29, My Bets:-18.33), Totals Under (Closing Line Profit:75.47, My Bets:77.7). To sum thing up my bets are really good at Unders and picking Dogs early. Both together are the main reason for my NHL Profit. Beating the closing line is the icing on the cake.

In the next part I will analyze the MLB selections so far. There will be a huge impact on being profitable or not. First of all we have to look if we are beating the Closing Line at all or not: We have included a total of 658 selections. 299 times we have beaten the closing line and 323 times we got beaten. And if we llok at the profits, we can see the huge swing this causes. Closing Line Profits are: 21.16, while my selections have made nearly no profit at all: 0.52. The question now is what kind of strategy we can squeeze out of this. Looking at betting types may help us more. ML Overall (Closing Line Profits:-3.84, My Bets:-12.72), ML Favs (Closing Line Profits:14.57, My Bets:13.18), ML Dogs (Closing Line Profits:-18.14, My Bets:-25.9). The first pattern here is that my Favorite selections are good and the timming is right. In addition to that I still believe that my Underdog picks will be successful too, but the timming is very very very important. Taking them early leads to more losses and leaves money on the table. The strategy here is: Taking Favorites early and Underdogs late. Now let's look at the totals. Totals Overall (Closing Line Profit:27.39., My Bets:15.9), Totals Over (Closing Line Profit:-3.09, My Bets:-2.94), Totals Under (Closing Line Profit:30.48, My Bets:18.84). And there you have it folks. Taking and picking the Unders is very very shaky in MLB and will decide about your fate of being a profitable bettor or not. The selections are good, but if you are leaving 12 Units on the Table when loosing vs the closing line, you are cleary doing something wrong. Or let's better say not 100% right.

Even shaky MLB would have incresed their profits by a huge margin. Main strategy for me here: Take Favorites in MLB early and Dogs late. Take Overs early and Unders Late. That alone would have caused a swing of 20 Units in Profit for MLB.

[KVB]

...Take Favorites in MLB early and Dogs late. Take Overs early and Unders Late...

Good Post.

Using your own betting history you've concluded and supported something that observant, solid bettors have known for years, and I do mean years. These axioms hold true for virtually every sport and have for decades. This has more to do with the psychology of the bettor, the fact that most bettors (for many reasons) refuse to learn, as well as one aspect of the markets that experienced successful bettors love…the new crop of unsophisticated bettors that are constantly entering the money pool.

These things that make up the psychology of the bettor and guide his decisions have proven consistent year after year. Regardless of the efficiency of the markets, tighter, looser, or however it plays out, if you can create a valid line, the conclusions you reached above will also be valid over time. Times have changed, but people have not…we are, in a general sense, predictable beings.

One more thing, I’ve often emphasized in past posts the importance of tracking your bets. I’ve written that one would be surprised at what you’ll find if you are tracking your bets. After all, they are your bets and can generate unique information, information even the most sophisticated syndicates couldn’t produce.

Nash, while you may not have posted unique conclusions in this instance, you gave the forum an excellent example of the kinds of things that can be learned from tracking results and manipulating your data. You demonstrate a type of creativity that is paramount among successful long term sports bettors.

The original poster, as well as the rest of the Forum, should take note.

Good Post.

[scottgodson1985]

Betting into a 20 Cent line (bookmaker) apposed too a 10 cent line (5dimes, heritage) makes the diffence between a small loser into a small winner. For all you rookies that's the most important lesson you can learn. I know limits are low but 99% of bettors dont bet more than $500 a game.

[HeeeHAWWWW]

If you're recording closing odds in your spreadsheet, an easy way to measure your performance vs the closing line: split your bets into quartiles by btcl%, then calculate the correlation between bin median btcl% and bin RoI. You can increase the number of bins with sample size.

If the closing price is indeed sharper, then higher btcl and higher RoI will match.


Vaguely related: record your +EV estimates for each bet and do the same thing.

[bookie]

If you're recording closing odds in your spreadsheet, an easy way to measure your performance vs the closing line: split your bets into quartiles by btcl%, then calculate the correlation between bin median btcl% and bin RoI. You can increase the number of bins with sample size.

If the closing price is indeed sharper, then higher btcl and higher RoI will match.


Vaguely related: record your +EV estimates for each bet and do the same thing.

Thanks HeeeHAWWW, that's just the kind of suggestion I was looking for.