NFL Week 5 early betting look: Valuable market trends to watch, defining expected value
Preston Johnson ESPN PLUS ($ MATERIAL)
We didn't have the upset mayhem in Week 4 that we saw in Week 3. The Bills are back to being the Bills after losing 22-0 in Green Bay. The Browns lost a game despite a fourth-quarter lead, a la 2017. The Patriots opened up a 38-0 lead over a Miami Dolphins team that people were buying as a contender after opening their season 3-0. In fact, only three underdogs won games this past week, -- but the point spreads were all under a touchdown, and the Bengals, Titans and Ravens are all potential playoff teams anyway.
We did see chaos and drama on a game-to-game basis. Nine of the 15 games went down to the final possession, and three went to overtime on Sunday alone. This usually makes for a fantastic weekend of football, and we didn't lose a single wager that we placed on these games to top it off. Find some time to celebrate, or what I refer to as "psychologically integrating the wins" (more on this in next week's Handicapper's Toolbox). Seriously, though, come out to Las Vegas and there is a dinner waiting for you on me.
Without further ado, let's dive into some of the other details that stuck out to me in Week 4 -- and how we can apply them to our betting process for Week 5. Though it's easy to overreact after three games, there are some clear trends emerging that are worth paying attention to. Context is key, and any given line can be imbalanced in either direction, but the state of these two teams in particular are worth keeping a close eye on.
The Bengals are the team that I have adjusted the most over the course of the season in my ratings, moving them from the 24th-best team to the 10th-best team in the league. I fortunately haven't found myself betting against Cincinnati yet this season (3-1 straight up, 3-1 against the spread), but each week the market has closed more favorably to the Bengals side than my personal number, and they've exceeded expectations beyond that.
I am intrigued by the prospect of betting the Bengals to win the AFC North division later this week when sportsbooks reopen the lines. Cincinnati has a two-win lead on both the Browns and the Steelers, and hold the early tiebreaker over Baltimore after defeating them in Week 2. The Bengals have the easiest schedule among the four teams in the division, according to Warren Sharp's projections, so if the price makes sense I think other factors are certainly lining up as well. The biggest game in the near future may be playing host to a Steelers team in disarray (see below) in Week 6. With Le'Veon Bell's potential return to the field coming in a few weeks and Baltimore headed on the road for three of their next four (home against the Saints), Cincinnati will be in position to pull away in the divisional race.
The Steelers rank 10th in offense and 25th in defense through four games. They have multiple injuries on the defensive side of the ball that are compounding their issues, but the shaky offense and league-leading nine turnovers aren't helping out the defense either. No Bell is taking its toll, and Antonio Brown tweeting about getting traded certainly isn't helping the team's morale. Ben Roethlisberger was quoted after Sunday's loss to the Ravens saying he doesn't feel like he is on the same page with anybody right now. He promised to be better going forward, but I won't buy it until we have evidence of improvements in the numbers. Pittsburgh is winless in the division and, according to Sharp's projections, has the sixth-toughest strength of schedule remaining. These aren't the Steelers of old and the market shouldn't be treating them that way. Early Line Moves: Week 5
Market move I agree with: The Texans opened at -3 for their home game against the Cowboys on Sunday evening, and have since been bet up to -3.5. If I was lining this game myself I would have released it at Houston -4.5. I liked the Texans last week getting 1.5 points in Indianapolis and believed they deserved to be the favorite in that game. They closed as the favorite at -1 before kickoff. The Texans led the Colts by 18 points late in the third-quarter before they fell asleep and let Andrew Luck work some of his magic. Houston pulled out the win in overtime regardless and I still think they are being undervalued in the market after starting the season 0-3.
The Cowboys won a close game over the Lions themselves, but offensively they still rank just 20th in the NFL in yards per play (YPP) and defensively they gave up an astounding 7.2 YPP. I don't trust Dallas to go on the road and immediately fix their Week 4 issues. My numbers suggest Texans -3 is a bet worth making, so kudos to those that hopped on it early.
Market move I disagree with: My projection for the Chargers hosting Oakland this week is Los Angeles -7.5. This is exactly where the market opened the point spread for the game Sunday, but it has since been bet down to -5.5. Last week we bet against a market move and overreaction in the Patriots game, and this is a case in Week 5 that I will likely be doing the same thing.
The Raiders wound up coming from behind late to beat the Browns, but they were fortunate to even get the football back down eight points, thanks to a curious reversal on a spot of the ball call that would have otherwise ended the game. There was nothing impressive for Oakland that I took away from their performance Sunday. The Chargers meanwhile "escaped" at home against a depleted 49ers squad. San Francisco fought hard for the entire game, but the number at -10.5/-10 was slightly inflated. There is no reason to suddenly downgrade the Chargers for their win in Week 4. A line of -5.5 offers value and I am perfectly okay trusting my numbers again in a spot that goes against the immediate market reaction early in the week. Handicapper's Toolbox: Positive and negative expected value
I referred to "+EV" on two occasions last week without giving much of an explanation as to what positive expected value actually is. One of the most important pieces to profitably betting on sports is being able to calculate the expected value of the bets you are making.
Expected value is the amount someone can expect to make or lose over time if they were to continuously make a given bet.
A clear-cut example to demonstrate someone's expected value is at a European roulette table (one green 0) is betting red or black. There is a 48.65 percent chance that someone placing a bet on red or black will wind up a winner and double their investment. There is also a 51.35 percent chance that this person will lose it all. To calculate a particular bet's expected value we need to combine the value of the two events happening.
For a $100 wager, the expected value betting red or black is equal to 100 * 0.4865 (event one, winning wager) + -100 * 0.5135 (event two, losing wager). This works out to be -$2.70. This would be what is referred to as a negative expected value (-EV) bet. For each time a $100 bet is placed on red or black, that person is giving the house $2.70.
I mentioned the psychology of betting teasers in this column last week and how fascinating it truly is that people are not mindful of the prices they are having to lay on teasers (let alone the numbers they choose to tease football games through). This roulette example takes gambling psychology to another level. People are guaranteed to lose $2.70 each time they place a $100 wager on a roulette table, yet there are millions of people every year that still do it.
Why?
Because almost half of the time, in this single event, they are going to double their money. If we had to pay the house $2.70 to walk up to a roulette table and watch them spin the ball around a wheel with numbers on it, my assumption is that not a single person would actually agree to this. The toughest concept for people to grasp is that betting $100 on red or black is the same exact thing.
What we should be trying to do as sports bettors is identify +EV bets, and then go out of our way to bet our money on these instead of the roulette wheel. Would you watch the house spin a ball around a wheel with numbers on it if they paid you $2.70 each time you wagered $100 on a particular event? Of course you would. We all would.
The Denver Broncos game last night is a prime example of positive expected value paying off in a sporting event. There were opportunities most of the week to bet Denver at +5 or +4.5. When someone is betting a team at +5 -110 and they are closing +3.5 -115 in the market before kickoff, we would refer to this as a +EV bet. It turns out that this game wound up landing in the middle as the Kansas City Chiefs won 27-23. People that bet the Broncos side at +5 or +4.5 won, but those that bet them at +3.5 lost.
Beating the closing market line by 1.5 points through a key number like four is going to be profitable long-term betting in the NFL, but the Broncos just as easily could have lost this game by 10 points and every Broncos wager during the week would have resulted in a loss. This concept is the equivalent of the house losing 48.65 percent of the time someone bets red or black at the roulette table. They know that long-term they are going to be profitable - no matter the result of a single event.
It's worth noting that the same goes for the reverse side in this game. If someone were to bet the Chiefs at -4.5 or -5 when -3.5 could have been had later in the week -- swinging the outcome of the bet -- we would classify this as a -EV decision and one that wouldn't be profitable long-term.
If you are able to regularly make bets that are beating the market closing line i.e. +EV bets, then this is an indicator that long-term you can be a profitable sports bettor. Behind the Box Score
Understanding the whole story
The numbers within a box score paint a more significant picture than a final score can and give us better pieces to solving the sports betting puzzle. I wrote about the importance of this two weeks ago here.
In Week 4 there wasn't a game that had a final score that stood out as misleading when I dove into the box scores. I'm going to bring these outlier games to everyone's attention as they occur, but I also won't force narratives that aren't there.
The closest game was probably Tampa Bay at Chicago. The Bears were absolutely the right side in that game. However, gaining 311 yards to an opponent's 483 yards usually doesn't equate to a 38-point loss. The Buccaneers aren't as bad as the final score suggests, and the Bears certainly shouldn't be considered an NFL powerhouse (yet). Week 5 slate standout
It is easy to look at the fact we made money this past week betting on the Jaguars and betting against the Chiefs. Surely we will look to bet on the Jaguars again in Week 5 then right?
Consider this: would you bet Jacksonville -21 in Kansas City? What about -14? -3? The deciding factor in placing a wager should ultimately depend on the number and price you are being offered.
There isn't a line for this game at the current moment since the Chiefs just wrapped up their Monday night game in Denver. My raw projection has this Kansas City -2.13. This doesn't account for the Sammy Watkins injury and it doesn't factor in the specific matchup and Jaguars rostering the league's best pass defense the last two seasons. While the Chiefs were able to rush the ball more efficiently tonight against the Broncos, it still has been their passing game with Patrick Mahomes under center that has taken the league by storm. Their biggest test to this point will be duplicating similar efficiency through the air against Jacksonville.
The market has been slightly higher on the Chiefs than my personal projections the last couple of weeks, so I'm hoping we get a shot at Jaguars +3.5 -110 when this game opens up everywhere Tuesday. Getting the hook on football's most key number when I have the true line closer to +2 is a bet I will have to consider making.
Weekly Futures Outlook
I recommended a bet on the Patriots at +350 last week to win the AFC as well as a bet at -6.5 against the Dolphins this past Sunday. New England won the game 38-7, and as of this morning the Patriots are still +350 to win the AFC. Check out my breakdown of that bet here.
The problem this guys, and all of the other frauds out there who try to compare table game odds to sports wagering is that table games, such as Roulette have an outcome decided by a device (in this case, a little round ball). The device does not get injured just before it is spun. The device does not have hidden personal problems. The little ball just spins around and drops into a slot when it runs out of gas. When you are wagering on humans, such is NOT the case. It is IMPOSSIBLE to know everything about every starting player. Who knows which player has been cut off by his wife? You do not have that problem with the little white ball. I also love the way these "know it all" phonies use the European odds, which you cannot get in the U.S. These guys look for way too many excuses to cover up the truth which is that they have no idea of what they talk about. If you do your homework, you should be as good as these clowns are.
SBR Top-Rated Sportsbooks
NFL Week 5 early betting look
Buy: Cincinnati Bengals
Sell: Pittsburgh Steelers
Market move I agree with: The Texans opened at -3 for their home game against the Cowboys on Sunday evening, and have since been bet up to -3.5. If I was lining this game myself I would have released it at Houston -4.5. I liked the Texans last week getting 1.5 points in Indianapolis and believed they deserved to be the favorite in that game. They closed as the favorite at -1 before kickoff. The Texans led the Colts by 18 points late in the third-quarter before they fell asleep and let Andrew Luck work some of his magic. Houston pulled out the win in overtime regardless and I still think they are being undervalued in the market after starting the season 0-3.
Market move I disagree with: My projection for the Chargers hosting Oakland this week is Los Angeles -7.5. This is exactly where the market opened the point spread for the game Sunday, but it has since been bet down to -5.5. Last week we bet against a market move and overreaction in the Patriots game, and this is a case in Week 5 that I will likely be doing the same thing.
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