Ken Pomeroy blogs about "no skill at betting NFL."

[antifoil]

Is this true?

yeah man. check out this week so far the points haven't mattered. it's a small sample size but this has been the case for years.

[LT Profits]

Is this true?

Yes (83% since 1985) but it's a skewed number because when the underdogs win, the cover rate is 100%. When the favorites have won straight up, the cover rate of all favorites is 74.1%, and as you might expect, the percentage gets lower as the spread gets higher. For example, winning favorites of -7 or more have covered 60% of the time and winning favorites of -10 of more have covered 56% of the time. In other words, it is a stat that does nothing to help your handicapping.

[Wrecktangle]

Yes (83% since 1985) but it's a skewed number because when the underdogs win, the cover rate is 100%. When the favorites have won straight up, the cover rate of all favorites is 74.1%, and as you might expect, the percentage gets lower as the spread gets higher. For example, winning favorites of -7 or more have covered 60% of the time and winning favorites of -10 of more have covered 56% of the time. In other words, it is a stat that does nothing to help your handicapping.

Nice to see someone post analysis based on actual results vs some hinky stat test.

I was going to post something to the effect: picking the winner, now thats exactly what it's all about isn't it? LT did a much better job than one of my snarky comments.

[Bsims]

Interesting discussion and some good links to real studies. But whether or not we can beat the books regularly is probably irrelevant. We are going to analyze, handicap, and bet because we enjoy it. We are just paying for entertainment.

[Inkwell77]

Furthermore, with each successive week, the worst players have much less incentive to perform well. The worst players have lost their chance to win big money, while the best players have large sums of cash on the line.

If my understanding is correct there is a side pot to keep players that start the season rough to continue pressing. Some type of 2nd half of the season contest. You have to enter the contest a couple of weeks before the contest cutoff date to be eligible.

[Wrecktangle]

If my understanding is correct there is a side pot to keep players that start the season rough to continue pressing. Some type of 2nd half of the season contest. You have to enter the contest a couple of weeks before the contest cutoff date to be eligible.

Yes, there is a last 3 weeks mini-contest usually set up to keep the losers in. And with wk 16 & 17 coin flip games, anybody can win.

[antifoil]

yeah but that gets me wonder, if there is a mathematical advantage to playing moneyline rather than spread on nfl dogs. i am just a small time player so i don't have big databases and the like.

but on smaller spreads like 5 and under or whatever number is it advantageous to play both the favorite spread and the moneyline on the dog. i have no idea if this is profitable or not. i guess you would have to add all the push rates 5 and under, but i wouldn't know i don't have a mathematical background to formulate such calculations.

[podonne]

If my understanding is correct there is a side pot to keep players that start the season rough to continue pressing. Some type of 2nd half of the season contest. You have to enter the contest a couple of weeks before the contest cutoff date to be eligible.

Funny, in Levitt's study there was a payout to the person with the worst record. Would have loved to have seen the picks of the worst 5 guys in week 17, trying like hell not to win.

[Firefox14]

Yes (83% since 1985) but it's a skewed number because when the underdogs win, the cover rate is 100%. When the favorites have won straight up, the cover rate of all favorites is 74.1%, and as you might expect, the percentage gets lower as the spread gets higher. For example, winning favorites of -7 or more have covered 60% of the time and winning favorites of -10 of more have covered 56% of the time. In other words, it is a stat that does nothing to help your handicapping.

Interesting. Thanks for the helpful info. Antifoil as well.

[gregm]

Well, I'm not really interested in the loser's tail, only the winner's. And I doubt that anyone is making safe bets as you can completely fall out of the money in one week, so everyone must continue to press.

The point is, if the actual winner's tail is better than the winning tail of a set of 50% picker binomials over the years, given the number of initial folks that played; that's good enough for me, but I could really give a sh*t. But regardless, if that is the case, it would go some way towards saying that some skill is actually involved.

BTW, I believe the serious players typically don't play in the contest anymore. I seems it's mostly touts, wanna-be touts trying to build a rep, and joe six-packs, sprinkled with a few serious players who live in town with time on their hands. So in the last several years, realizing how much luck is really involved, the better players have stayed away. Given that, the winner's tail may be thinner than one might think, and KenPom might be proven "right", but for a wrong reason.

Your post may have some truth to it but why wouldn't some of the "better players" not try and place here, irregardless of their results. The Vegas sports book world is a rapidly dwindling scene. The Hilton contest, luck or not, has some incredible payouts.

[Wrecktangle]

Your post may have some truth to it but why wouldn't some of the "better players" not try and place here, irregardless of their results. The Vegas sports book world is a rapidly dwindling scene. The Hilton contest, luck or not, has some incredible payouts.

Well, they do. Fezzik won twice and he certainly is one of the better players, even though he is now castigated for going tout. But I've talked to several folks who used to play, but don't anymore. If I lived in town again, I'd play, but I don't as I don't trust runners.

But on the other hand, that 1500 can be working all season, vice sitting for 4 months waiting for a result.

[roasthawg]

Very bad article... drawing a huge conclusion from the smallest sample in the tiniest of contests.

[Creditsforedits]

JR007 is proven to lack credibility and honesty. Protect yourself!

http://forum.sbrforum.com/nfl-betting/1240999-2011-nfl-pro-picks-john-ryan-p64.html#post12486495

[darrell74]

Oh, another longwinded poster that says you suck and I am great, how original.

[kcDdegenerate]

[suicidekings]

As mentioned above, the assumption that entry into the contest implies that the group consists only of skilled handicappers is flawed, as is the objectivity surrounding the requirement to play 5 games a week (which is some weeks comprises 50% of the games). He also assumes that the people at the bottom are mailing it in at the end for some reason (which is speculation as to their intentions, not hard data) and fails to mention that this Hilton supercontest has the largest number of entries ever this year, which would obviously dilute the field.

He raises some good points, but makes assumptions that don't really hold up, IMO.

[evo34]

Your stubbornness is laughable. Laughable negative arguments, like "Sun does not rise from the East" or "Law of gravity does not work in New York City" are predictably and easily destroyed. Thats why they are laughable. In order for "No one can beat NFL by skill alone" argument to be laughable you should be able to correctly predict that you will win ATS every time you bet. Can you do that? Hey, what the hell. Let me make it easy for you. Can you correctly predict that you will win 5 Hilton contests in a raw? Can you do that? What about 4? 3? 2? Can you correctly predict anything NFL related drunk monkey does not have a chance to do just by throwing darts at the sports tables? I know it's insulting for our egos to admit that with all brain power and sophistication we posses we are still no match for randomness and randomness does rule the world (speculative areas of it for sure), but hey, what can you do?

I sure as hell hope English is not your first language. Or second, for that matter. In any case, why the fuk would you claim that one is not required to "prove a negative?" Pomeroy claimed foolishly that consistently winning NFL bettors cannot exist. In order to say something cannot exist, you have to supply proof. You don't go looking in a tiny subset for countries for a rare species, not happen to find anything, and claim that the species cannot exist anywhere. That is what Pomeroy is doing. What is complex about this? Trying to draw any conclusion whatsoever from Pomeroy's "study" is completely wrong.

[Avenger]

I've suspected this for a long time. spreads in NFL are too sharp.

that being said, ML parlays and teasers are the way to go.

I've consistently been able to hit over 60% ML in NFL, every year. This year, I thought, fukk this, why not just parlay or tease to cut the juice and stop betting 1H and spreads. First year EVER I've made a profit in NFL and it's been a great year.

Another NFL money-maker are the prop and future bets.

But I agree, NFL EV+ is UNBEATABLE. Or a very small percentage can consistently win.

[Pokerjoe]

Now that I've won the Leroy's NFL contest this year (not a thinly veiled brag, it's quite overt), I get to come back 8 weeks after starting this thread and say to Mr. Pomeroy ... nothing, actually.

The contest is no biggie, winning it doesn't prove much, though 20k is a nice hit for me (to be precise, it's about 15k for splitting first, but I made 5k hedging). And Ken Pomeroy is a smart and nice guy and I wouldn't talk smack to him, not that I'm a smack talker anyway. But what's more, I wouldn't talk up this win because these contests aren't much good for testing handicapping. And that's the point. That's the problem with his conclusion. Though at least, by winning this, I avoid the charge of being "a bitter, sore loser who disparages the contests." I'm a happy winner ... disparaging the contests.

Here's the thing: the players in these contests SUCK. The contests are +EV for anyone non-stupid. I did no handicapping on prob about 15 plays this year (of 85), I just stale-lined, with an average expectation for those 15 plays of prob 56% wins. There were plays with huge edges, like Det/GB under yesterday, 45' in the contest, 41 in the real world Saturday evening (which, yes, lost, but that's not the point), which went unclaimed by the vast majority, including contest leaders (and there were 10 people fading that line move, only one of whom I'd say had a ballsy game theory reason for it). There can be game theory reasons why you'd have to pass on such plays (I had to pass on them myself in about weeks 8-12, iirc, but even then I wouldn't have passed on one that size), but that wasn't what was happening, people were just clueless.

You might argue that Leroy's entrants are weaker than Hilton's, but I doubt they are, neither contest has exclusionary buy-in fees, and even if they did, the bigger the fees, the more likely you have tout wannabees only entering, because they have ancillary profit expectations. In fact, I think the touts in town should get together, have a contest among themselves, claim a 100k entry (it would be fictional), and then one of them wins and advertises YAY I'm great! and two more come in 2nd and 3rd and advertise YAY I'm pretty great! and the rest brag about how they don't care, 100k is chump change to them, they win so much.

So, analyzing NFL contests is not going to settle the question as to whether the NFL is beatable.

These contests are, at best, tests of contest skills and handicapping, not purely handicapping. And they are not made up of sharps, not at all. They're embarrassingly bad players, most of them.

So KenPom is wrong about the field being sharp.
He's wrong to think the samples are meaningful.
He's wrong to think the format doesn't cut a lot of the skill out (as a poster above pointed out, requiring 5 bets a week is arbitrary, though at least Leroy's allows totals to be used, and the fact Hilton doesn't is why I can't enter there, although I did enter it once, and split second, back in 1987).
He's wrong to think game theory isn't going to sometimes warp picks.
He's wrong to think that the question can even be settled.

The guy has a great site and I recommend it. But he suffers from the illusion that "if I can't do it, it can't be done." Hell, I still meet plenty of people who think it isn't really possible to play poker for a living, because ... they tried and failed. Brilliant.

Happy New Year.

[Wrecktangle]

Congrats, Poker. Nice to see one of the good guys win a good prize.

[mikemca]

How can something be predictable when the teams don't care about covering the spread so the expected effort that you are betting on isn't measurable .You and your side of the bet aren't trying to reach the same goal.It is a little different in college sports where it pays to win by as much as possible but still the thought of covering the spread never comes into play for the team.

[big0mar]

Sharp gamblers do not enter the LV Hilton contest.

[bobby heenan]

omar gimme a goddamn stone cold lock

[Pokerjoe]

How can something be predictable when the teams don't care about covering the spread so the expected effort that you are betting on isn't measurable .You and your side of the bet aren't trying to reach the same goal.It is a little different in college sports where it pays to win by as much as possible but still the thought of covering the spread never comes into play for the team.

You're thinking of it wrong.

When we bet on sports, whether we know it or not, what we're doing is saying "I make the midpoint of the distribution curve of results differently than the market does."

Think of it this way: If one poker player has pocket aces and his opponent has kings and they go all in preflop, which player should you bet on? Let's say the price was 5-1. The odds on KK beating AA are ~4-1, so you'd bet on the dog. If you only think in terms of "predicting", you'd have to bet AA every time, no matter the odds, which would be really, really dumb, and which is, in fact, the psychology behind squares overbetting faves.

If you laid 5-1 on that race and I took the bet and we ran it out 4 times and I lost them all, most bystanders would be snickering and calling me an idiot. Then on the 5th race maybe I catch a king on the river and those same bystanders would go crazy, calling me a luck box, and claiming it's all unpredictable. Yet the truth is that the kings are supposed to win one in five races, and how they win, king on the river, four-flush board, whatever, doesn't matter, that's random, that's unpredictable, that's irrelevant, and that's not what you should be focusing on. It doesn't matter how you win or lose bets. There are no bad beats. It's absolutely predictable that if you play enough football games, one will be decided by a missed extra point on the game's last play. That isn't a bad beat, it isn't "unpredictable!" it's actually perfectly predictable.

Stop trying to predict results, and just try to estimate chances, and then compare that estimate to the market's estimate.

The market estimates an average score for the game, which we call "the line." When your estimated average score varies from the line, you bet. If you are better at estimating average scores than the market, you profit. If not, the juice eats you up. That's the game.

[thebestthereis]

My daughter is 2. She wins and knows two words, fade Lang. No luck, no skill, yes bankroll.

[ApricotSinner32]

Just because one guy doesn't know how to win doesn't mean it's not beatable.

[Pokerjoe]

But to be clear, I'm not saying that Handicapping contests are tests of handicapping skill, I'm absolutely not saying that. Better to think of them as contest-playing contests. Handicapping skills won't much show in a mere 85 games, especially when those 85 picks are forced to come in packets of 5 per week.

But the contests are overlays precisely because most players are ignorant of the contest skills. I think that, roughly, in Leroy's you could probably have a 54% or so average win chance per pick just stale-lining (I'm guessing, and I'm not going to research it further).

You'd still have to get really lucky to leap up to the 66% or whatever you'd need to win, but nonetheless you'd have a big edge in what would otherwise be a coin-flipping contest.

A perfect example is the guy I shared first with. He had no business losing to me. Period. He didn't fail as a capper, that's mostly luck. He failed as a contest player. He had a 2 game lead at week 15 and should have stale-lined his way home. In fact I gave up on catching him and stale-lined week 15 myself, to defend my 2nd place position, because there were 5 games with 5-6% line value, and I just played them. When you have a lead in a contest like this, by stale-lining you close off everyone else's chance of catching up to you by using those stale-lines. It's a great defense and you have to play it. You can just make everyone chasing you climb uphill to do so.

And in that week 15 the stale lines went 5-0, so I caught up to him. Yet I can't really say "I went 5-0" because I didn't handicap a lick that week. He just massively failed to play fundamental defense. But the fact that he did so is why these contests are +EV.

Yet they're also kind of tedious and payoffs are so lopsided that, personally, I wouldn't recommend them, and prob won't play again. I mean at best, what's the EV on a contest? At best, maybe, equal to the buy-in? I'm guessing, but you'd have to guess a pretty high ratio to make it worth the PITA of actually playing in them.

If you're a regular capper anyway, then you just apply your numbers to the contest lines, you think a moment about which stale lines to use, etc, make your picks, drive to the casino and enter them ... if it's an extra hour a week, that's 17 hours a year, that's ~15 bucks an hour, with a 1x+EV on a $250 buyin. So, not exciting, once you break it down. Kind of stupid, actually.

[byronbb]

Ken Pom lost some money capping NFL.

[BettingWizard]

he destroys his own argument when he says the top players do extra homework.

[JR007]

NFL the most efficient market bar none, knowing that going in should be enough incentive to tread lightly.........
there are other sports out there,to exploit.... public likes losing their money in NFL though, not going to change 47% profit in vegas derived from Nfl the last two years

[KingJD31]

The NFL is not beatable.

Why you think the books let you bet so much on these games?

Im 39-16 since november and intertops wont let me check my history before and its pretty good so idk what your talkin about

[Glitch]

You have no skill at betting on NFL games

11.09.11
...The reality is that you can save your energy researching things like how the Chiefs have done against the spread in their last ten games against the NFC North and just flip a coin. ...

how about instead of researching dumb shit like that, you just know factors that matter.

if a team has weak defensive line and a secondary that needs a lot of help on assignments, then drew brees and cam newton are going to put up mass quantities of points on them.

his thesis here i suppose is that there do not exist variables and factors relatively constant to individuals and teams that are measurable and observable.

is he saying theres no skill in sports/athletes??, no strengths and weaknesses to try to exploit as inversely correlative variables? or is he saying that these skill variables are invisible and cant tell when someones good at throwing/ not getting tackles or when someone is bad at tackling/running???

if all it took to travel back in time was a stale line, i would be having a 3some with myself and a sexy redhead from years ago at this very moment.

-this contest puts people in a box- you must pick exactly 5 games every week, you must use this stagnant line. it's results are semi-irrelevant to whether or not strategic ats predictions are helped drastically by analysis.

[SteveRyan]

Im 39-16 since november and intertops wont let me check my history before and its pretty good so idk what your talkin about

Yes, the NFL is beatable. Just tail Paco and Trigger and everything going be okay

[JR007]

how about instead of researching dumb shit like that, you just know factors that matter.

if a team has weak defensive line and a secondary that needs a lot of help on assignments, then drew brees and cam newton are going to put up mass quantities of points on them.

his thesis here i suppose is that there do not exist variables and factors relatively constant to individuals and teams that are measurable and observable.

is he saying theres no skill in sports/athletes??, no strengths and weaknesses to try to exploit as inversely correlative variables? or is he saying that these skill variables are invisible and cant tell when someones good at throwing/ not getting tackles or when someone is bad at tackling/running???

if all it took to travel back in time was a stale line, i would be having a 3some with myself and a sexy redhead from years ago at this very moment.

-this contest puts people in a box- you must pick exactly 5 games every week, you must use this stagnant line. it's results are semi-irrelevant to whether or not strategic ats predictions are helped drastically by analysis.

the theme here is that you cannot beat the NFL long term, analysis is data-mining, reflection of the past, people that think like you belong in John Ryan's thread, check out how his analysis did this week,...poker Joe has it right

[apalm8]

Because people like you are there to (indirectly) take the other side. Without uninformed money flowing in, limits would drop.

haha I was thinking the same thing