[BuddyBear]

Very intereting read....

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/...t-Shaving.html

[louisvillekid]

it was an interesting read and i'm a conspiracy theorist, but there is a lot of things that can effect those numbers. this one part got me,
"Gibbs and others have found that if you bet on home underdogs every time they face a 12.5 or greater point spread, you would win so much more than you lost that it would even cover the percentage (or "vig," short for vigorish) that goes to the bookie or casino."
they say you would win SO MUCH MORE that it would make up for the Vig. well i would hope so, what kind of percentage are they talking about? he/they act like its an overwhelming percentage, but if its just enough to come out ahead after figuring in the juice/vig, thats not "So Much More". i'm sure there is some corruption in the NBA or/and all sports, but its not on all games all the time.

[louisvillekid]

bump, anyone else have thoughts on this?

[greek]

agree --its there just not all the time ----but its there ,odds alway against you in vegas aint it?

[cartay]

I've always wanted to believe that there wasn't any issue at the professional level of all sports, that the stories were isolated/random incidents, and that the risk was too big.

But when you line up all the stories together (Donaghy, pro tennis rumors, consistently inconsistent refereeing in all sports, how many kids [many who eventually turn pro] are asked to do it at the college level), the body of work suggests smoke (and potentially fire).

I'm probably fooling myself into thinking it doesn't happen.

[cartay]

"Keep an eye on games, past and present, when heavy favorites fall just short of the spread. Do certain players or coaches seem to be involved in a strange number of those games? Gibbs says he hasn't looked into that, but says it would be pretty easy for someone to do so."

This would be -very- interesting if someone would just crunch the data

[butters]

Hey Guys,

I'm pretty new around here - this is my first post in fact. I don't have much experience as a handicapper, but I've looked over some of the posts in this and other forums on SBR and have found people to be pretty good-natured and supportive. Hopefully I can make some interesting or useful comments now and then, although most of you probably know a lot more about this stuff than I do. Anyway, good luck to everyone here.

I haven't read through the paper, but it seems to be well-received by other academics, so I'm sure it's pretty solid. The only thing that really jumped out to me was restricting some of the analysis (or at least the conclusions) to HOME underdogs of 12.5 points or more.

I don't know about you guys, but I haven't seen too many home teams at +12.5 or more this season or in past seasons that I've looked at. In fact, I did a quick analysis using the data I have to see how many games we're talking about. Now, I only have NBA data going back to the 1996-97 season, and my data might not match perfectly with the stuff Gibbs was using, but it should give us a better idea of what "much more" means. I found that:

Since 1996-97, home teams, +12.5 or more: 34-15 ATS, +17.3 units (betting one unit to win .95 units each time)

Although I didn't do a formal test for significance, this looks to be a substantial effect, agreeing with what Gibbs found, and is highly profitable. However, a lot of those games came during the first two years of the data set. If we look at more recent results:

Since 1998-99, home teams, +12.5 or more: 6-8 ATS, -2.3 units

Obviously, this effect isn't nearly as significant for the more recent years. It may be the case that there were more games in the data set Gibbs was using (before 1996) that I don't have, but in recent years, I'm not finding a whole lot of substance.

I did this pretty hastily, so there might be some errors, but from what I've seen, the findings from Gibbs' study might not be all that useful for those of us here on the forum. Any comments/feedback would be appreciated - thanks.

[durito]

I will read that article tomorrow. But, there is an obvious bias towards favorites by sports bettors which explains big home dogs doing well in football. I'm not terribly surprised that 12.5+ dogs at home do ok in the NBA.

I have 61-35-1 ATS for 12+ home dogs in the NBA since 1988. All home dogs come in at 49.1% so it's not the NFL where home dogs have been profitable at -110 all time (just slightly).

The whole idea is ridiculous to me. The average NBA salary is about 5million$. You can't bet enough to risk that pt shaving.

I'll look into this more tomorrow, but big favorites in the NBA tend to relax against lower teams, which is probably enough of an explanation.

[durito]

Ok, hang on. This is by a senior undergraduate student.

[louisvillekid]

hey Butters and Durito, thanks for the stats. i was curious as to the "so much more" line he/gibbs used in his article.

[butters]

No problem, louisvillekid. "So much more" jumped out at me too. Using durrito's numbers (which are more robust than mine), we're looking at about +25 units over the course of about 20 years, which I probably wouldn't refer to as a "so much more" strategy. I guess gamblers and non-gamblers may have different interpretations of the phrase...

[durito]

The link to the paper doesn't work, Stanford seems to have taken it down.

Anyone know where I can find it?

[louisvillekid]

The link to the paper doesn't work, Stanford seems to have taken it down.

Anyone know where I can find it?

i read the link Buddybear posted from myespn.com it works for me.

[pavyracer]

The link to the paper doesn't work, Stanford seems to have taken it down.

Anyone know where I can find it?

Here it is Durito. All 59 pages of it.

http://www-econ.stanford.edu/academi.../Gibbs2007.pdf