[CrimsonQueen]

**Sorry for the repost, this one is CORRECT!**

Attached you'll find a spreadsheet where I broke down the Log5 statistical analysis from this article (by Ken Pomeroy) and I created true Decimal odds based on it for both future bets on Final Four and Championship odds. Then I broke down the offered odds from Bookmaker and Bodog and found all of the lines with ACTUAL STATISTICAL value.

Anyone betting futures for real will understand that there is a TON of juice on future bets and they are generally sucker bets. However, this Log5 breakdown actually contains 8 bets that MAY have value.

Lastly, I UNDERSTAND that the Log5 analysis is NOT 100% accurate and thusly calling the odds for a team to make the final four or to win the championship the "TRUE odds" is very misleading. HOWEVER... What this spreadsheet will allow you to do is have a VERY REAL jumping off point, one which you can then use to handicap a team in your own way and find extra value on a team that may be CLOSE to having real value as is, and will steer you away from betting a long shot that you THINK you are getting value on, but really you may not be.

** This is an updated version... Something happened in transition last time. I don't use Decimal Odds frequently (or ever) so that threw me off by 1 on every column accidentally.**

Good Luck!

[CrimsonQueen]

Feel free to comment.

[snapperman2]

Another way to calculate the probabilities of each of the sweet 16 winning the championship is to look at the odds provided free by Accuscore at their web site. See: http://accuscore.com/ncaab/tools/bracketcaster.

[CrimsonQueen]

Thanks snapper. I have no time to add their odds in too, but feel free to do so yourself and find more value on futures!

[snapperman2]

I put the decimal odds corresponding to the Accuscore percentages into the spreadsheet provided by CQ.

[CrimsonQueen]

Thanks snapper, can't wait to check this out...I'm on my Droid now so I can't download it...but do you know how accuscore determines their probabilities?

[snapperman2]

First they do a computer simulation of each possible matchup to determine the probablility of each team winning each potential matchup. Then they do 50,000 tournament simulations using these odds, and count what percentage of the simulations result in a team winning the championship or becoming one of the final 4. I have some experience with their predictions of which team will win a game and the results are not that impressive. However, the tournament simulations are the sort of thing that a computer could do much better than a human. Also the futures bets are usually not handicapped by the bookies as well as a game is. I had good results when I used their predictions of how teams would do in the last NFL playoffs as a basis for futures betting.