Originally posted on 09/18/2012:

its worth what a book charges nothing more, there is nothing that determines what it is worth for that particular game.

any push rates are based on past performances over all games, therefore they are meaningless to specific games, all they do is give a guideline. This isnt cards or dice or something with a finite chance of happening. its sports where anything can happen.

But 'worth' and 'value' change. The 3 is the most obvious example. I have shown time and time again how much it has fluctuated over the years. Pre 2000 games lined -3 pushed about 11% of the time. From 1994 to present it is roughly 9.1% of the time. BUT even in regards to home and away the difference is staggering.

68 of 738 games lined -3 have landed with the fav winning by 3 since 1994 (to the end of last season). Of those the home team that pushed on 3 was 41 of 421 (9.7%) road team -3 was 27 of 317 (8.5%) pretty big difference in so called probability.

Now looking at games from 1994 to 2000 there were (only) 260 games 27 of them landed on 3 (10.5%). From 2001 to the end of last season there were 476 games lined -3, of those 36 landed on the 3 (7.5%) longer time frame many more games and a lot smaller result(chance). So the 'chances' of the 3 dropped from nearly 11% down to 7.5%.

So what do you do? Do you take the last 11 years or do you take the last 18? Or even more? Generally the larger the sample size the better, but that is based on math. Since football has changed it rules and its scoring and many other things you have to look at the most relevant data and use that, even if the sample size is smaller.

Again this is using past results to determine future 'probability'. Which isnt going to work, because anyone who thought in 2000 that they could pay 25 cents to buy off the 3 and be 'right' would have gotten buried because at 7.5% it isnt 'worth' nearly that much. At 10% it is barely 'worth' it.

As far as the -7 goes, over all since 1994 to 2011 there have been 313 games lined (closed) -7, of those 21 landed on the fav winning by exactly 7 (6.7%). Home teams lined -7 are 13 pushed of 225 games (5.8%) and obviously road -7 teams are 8 pushes of 88 games (9.1%)

So take these numbers for what they are.

But if you want to take it one step further Dallas has been a 7 pt favorite 19 times since 1994, they pushed 1 time. So 1/19 (5.25%); and to go even a step further TB has been a 7 pt dog (only) 14 times since 1994, considering how bad that team was that is a very small number, but that aside, they have one push in those 14 game. So 1/14 (7.1%).

And the final step Dallas and TB faced each other in week 15 last year and Dallas was a 7 pt fav, Dallas won by 16, and it wasnt even that close.

What does all this mean? Absolutely nothing but some guys think it does when they try to figure out what a half a point is 'worth' in a certain situation.