[Gaze73]

why would only fools bet on -300 faves?

it seems -300 faves win at about the exact rate of +100

Sure they do, if you bet on every single one of them. Look, today I had 4 BB dogs at +278, +283, +273, +165 and 3 of them won. According to you it means nothing, that it was 100% luck, but to me it means my system works. I'll tell you a sharp secret of the trade - the very best bets in every sport are always dogs, because favs are too obvious most of the time to have any value. Anyone can pick the hot home favorite that won 5 in a row, but it rarely has much value. But if you can find dogs hungry for victory then they can overcome any odds.

Conversely, unmotivated favs often have ridiculously short prices just because they are better on paper. See Djokovic - Covered 0 spreads and lost to a +1000 and +440 dog in the past 4 games because he only cares about grand slams. According to your theory there was nothing special about his losses, just variance, and the people who bet on his ML simply got unlucky because the efficient market says he had 92% chance to beat Kohlschreiber.

[danshan11]

what you dont understand is over time eventually you do bet on all of them

[Gaze73]

Look what I woke up to, 3 dogs winning SU by 17, 10 and 1 pt respectively. Squares backing GSW at -500 on the road LOL. I knew Wolves would be eager to wipe off the smirk of their faces. And Auburn wanted to show off against the #1 seed and they sure did.

The bottom line is, you do you mate. I'm just saying that most of the edge in this biz is beyond the numbers, but you're too dead set in your ways. CLV, lol!

[danshan11]

good job keep it up!

[TommieGunshot]

a guy with a true edge could flat bet, fixed profit bet , fractional kelly or whatever normal method he wants would still win long term.

With a true edge the Kelly Criterion is the way to maximize profits. Without an edge, Kelly Criterion will minimize losses over any of the other methods (because it says to bet zero). For someone who miscalculates and thinks they have a positive advantage when it is really negative, if they make enough bets, bankroll will trend to zero no matter what. So in any example Kelly betting pretty much means either being better off than other methods, or no worse off.

There are some reasons people won't or shouldn't use Kelly:
-They don't even know the formula exists
-They don't understand the math behind it well enough
-They can't get enough money down -- in which case just bet the max
-They don't have an edge, but still want the action or escape that gambling provides
-They are only using estimates of their advantage -- in which case 1/2 or 1/4 would be better

[danshan11]

if you think you have an edge and do not and because you thought you had an edge wouldnt kelly recommend betting more since you are telling Kelly you have an edge when in fact you dont? Wouldnt this make Kelly cause more of a loss than if you were just flat betting?

flat bet bet $100 every game
Kelly bet you think on this game you have a 5% edge so you bet $125
so you would be risking more on a false edge right?

[Gaze73]

Danshan, what do you think about the fact that the sharpest of the sharps (1 in 1000 bettors) bet <2 hours before the games start when the odds are mature? That's exactly my style as well. You want to tell the guys betting $20-100k a game that they don't know what they're doing because they don't beat CLV?

And what are your thoughts on people like Mr Poison? If you don't know, he's the guy you can auto fade in every sport because his hit rate is so bad it's almost like he's cursed. He's 4-15 in march madness, cursing every team with his bets, luckily won by a hook in OT yesterday. Let's say he hits 40% at -110 closing lines over the last 1000 picks, do you think he's due a very hot run to get to 48%? According to your efficient market theory he should get to at least 48% eventually because long term every spread is 50/50.

[AsianmanSports]

Its not true that the very best bets are always dogs. Whats is potentially a valuebet depends on many factors and not always is the majority of public bets on the Favourite.

Also beating the closing Line isnt the only benchmark for success nor is it the only way to approach. The closing Line isnt always more efficient then an earlier Line.

[AsianmanSports]

According to your efficient market theory he should get to at least 48% eventually because long term every spread is 50/50.

he most likely will

[Roscoe3000]

You would be wrong. There are no arguments for using half kelly instead of full kelly besides emotion.

Making less money while also still having the same risk of ruin is absolutely retarded

I agree with you and Tommie that full Kelly is the way to go. What do you think about using the lower end of a 95% confidence interval to use as the estimate for Full Kelly bets?

[Gaze73]

Its not true that the very best bets are always dogs. Whats is potentially a valuebet depends on many factors and not always is the majority of public bets on the Favourite.

Also beating the closing Line isnt the only benchmark for success nor is it the only way to approach. The closing Line isnt always more efficient then an earlier Line.

Well, I'm doing Soccer, Tennis, Basketball and Hockey and 90% of my best bets are dogs. When a fav looks like a no brainer there is rarely ever value.

[AsianmanSports]

Most (soccer) favourites arent clear favourites to the average bettor at all. Most favourites arent in 1st place and crushing everything. Second half table teams are often favourites at home against teams above or near them. Also since most ( home ) favourites in soccer are somewhere below the top 5 they dont often string together a string of impressive results that makes them appear to be no brainers to the casual punter.

Another thing is that on average over all soccer leagues the vast majority of favourites arent big market Teams like Manchester United.

I havent seen any evidence over a wide variety of Leagues that it has been historicly true that underdogs have been better value in general, although it has been true for some leagues.

[danshan11]

Danshan, what do you think about the fact that the sharpest of the sharps (1 in 1000 bettors) bet <2 hours before the games start when the odds are mature? That's exactly my style as well. You want to tell the guys betting $20-100k a game that they don't know what they're doing because they don't beat CLV?

And what are your thoughts on people like Mr Poison? If you don't know, he's the guy you can auto fade in every sport because his hit rate is so bad it's almost like he's cursed. He's 4-15 in march madness, cursing every team with his bets, luckily won by a hook in OT yesterday. Let's say he hits 40% at -110 closing lines over the last 1000 picks, do you think he's due a very hot run to get to 48%? According to your efficient market theory he should get to at least 48% eventually because long term every spread is 50/50.

I have never seen any evidence that the sharpest of sharps bet <2 hours before kickoff, where did you get this data? Most people who analyze bettors say that most "pro bettors" bet when limits have matured, 1st pitch last game night before for MLB for example.

I have never said people cannot win and not beat the closing line. I think people need to use CLV as a cliff detector not an end all for betting success. I would argue that most successful long term bettors DO beat the line overall.

I think it proves your lack of understanding of the betting market that you think someone can be faded and you can have success. there are 2 kinds of bettors winners and losers
winners win say roughly 52-54% of the time long term
losers lose 50% of the time long term

even the worst cappers in the world lose long term 50% of the time unless you consider survivorship bias and in that case they can have deviations from the 50% but eventually, they will come back to 50%.

it would take some extreme skill to win only 40% of the time long term. if you flip a coin 1000 times for 10 sessions you will get about
1 that wins at 55
2 that win at 52
4 that win at 50
2 that win at 48
1 that wins at 45
rough numbers just trying to give you the idea of how SB works!

[Gaze73]

Most (soccer) favourites arent clear favourites to the average bettor at all. Most favourites arent in 1st place and crushing everything. Second half table teams are often favourites at home against teams above or near them. Also since most ( home ) favourites in soccer are somewhere below the top 5 they dont often string together a string of impressive results that makes them appear to be no brainers to the casual punter.
I havent seen any evidence over a wide variety of Leagues that it has been historicly true that underdogs have been better value in general, although it has been true for some leagues.

Liverpool today, 13-2-0 at home 44:9 goals against Tottenham which was 11-0-5 33:21 goals on the road, so that's a 22 goal diff between the teams. It's obvious why the public piled on Liverpool, but I was on Tottenham +1.5 because my numbers showed Liverpool to be very unlikely to cover, and I was right because they were lucky to win with a very late goal. Basically when the fav is 80+% undefeated it's very likely the public will be all over them, and such favs play every day.

[AsianmanSports]

If you beat the closing Line it means you can predict the market which is obviously great.

[Gaze73]

i have never seen any evidence that the sharpest of sharps bet <2 hours before kickoff, where did you get this data?

Here(original info is from twitter 2h ago)

"known" bettor just took kentucky $105k to win $50k on kentucky moneyline

even the worst cappers in the world lose long term 50% of the time unless you consider survivorship bias and in that case they can have deviations from the 50% but eventually, they will come back to 50%.

Clearly you don't know mr poison. I'm gonna keep fading him. The funniest thing is that his absolute biggest bets are the absolute worst.

[AsianmanSports]

Liverpool today, 13-2-0 at home 44:9 goals against Tottenham which was 11-0-5 33:21 goals on the road, so that's a 22 goal diff between the teams. It's obvious why the public piled on Liverpool, but I was on Tottenham +1.5 because my numbers showed Liverpool to be very unlikely to cover, and I was right because they were lucky to win with a very late goal. Basically when the fav is 80+% undefeated it's very likely the public will be all over them, and such favs play every day.

Youre using liverpool as an example which is one of the biggest sports clubs in the world in the biggest market league in the world and who have won 80% of their games. This clearly isnt the case for the vast majority of favourites. Also most favourites arent 1 goal favourites. Most favourites are in the -0.25 to -0.75 range.

Also do you have any evidence to back your assumptions for this game? Its very likely the amount of bets placed ( on the handicaps ) was much less lopsided then you assume.

[Gaze73]

Youre using liverpool as an example which is one of the biggest sports clubs in the world in the biggest market league in the world and who have won 80% of their games. This clearly isnt the case for the vast majority of favourites. Also most favourites arent 1 goal favourites. Most favourites are in the -0.25 to -0.75 range.

Also do you have any evidence to back your assumptions for this game? Its very likely the amount of bets placed ( on the handicaps ) was much less lopsided then you assume.

There is a difference between 80% won and 80% undefeated, there's plenty of favs in the latter category and they are usually the most popular bets of the day. You can see public bets on sites like Sofascore, 67% of bets went on Liverpool ML (75% and 87% according to other sources). Spreads don't matter. Nobody is saying that most favorites are clear, but there are at least a handful every day and the public is all over them like flies.

[danshan11]

Here(original info is from twitter 2h ago)

Clearly you don't know mr poison. I'm gonna keep fading him. The funniest thing is that his absolute biggest bets are the absolute worst.

most Twitter handles of touts usually have at minimum 2 accounts running and most times they have 20 different twitters with different bets on each.Smart touts know that survivorship bias is real and they know if they have 20 accounts running that after a few hundred bets a few of those accounts will be long term profitable and they then tout the shit out of that account until the well runs dry!

[danshan11]

A losing account long term will lose at 50% on average, and no one in this forum will disagree with that, find someone that does and let me know.

You post up all these useless stats on winning and dogs blowing out faves, but there is not long term data to support that as a method. The most successful bettors beat the line long term, NOT ALL but most.
I can't find the link, but I read somewhere credible that
3 or 4% win long term against openers
1or 2% win long term against mid-week lines
<1% win long term against the closing line

again not exact numbers but it was something similar, I will try and find the article and share the link.

We all have a lot to learn about betting but I think you Gaze, my man, you need to read up on the "reality" of sports betting. They should put you in that action show on Showtime; you would fit right in!

[TommieGunshot]

if you think you have an edge and do not and because you thought you had an edge wouldnt kelly recommend betting more since you are telling Kelly you have an edge when in fact you dont? Wouldnt this make Kelly cause more of a loss than if you were just flat betting?

flat bet bet $100 every game
Kelly bet you think on this game you have a 5% edge so you bet $125
so you would be risking more on a false edge right?

Given enough bets, the guy betting $100 every time will eventually lose everything. The guy betting with Kelly will only lose enough until he has too little left to make a minimum bet. So even in that example Kelly Criterion will mean being better off in the long run.

What all your criticism of this formula really comes down to is projecting the idea of being horrible at estimating probabilities onto everyone else.

[danshan11]

yes very true, I do believe most people live in fantasy island when it comes to an actual edge. People assume past bets are indicative of future edges, they model -175 and the line closes at +100 and they think that is an edge and many more crazy ideas and methods to determine an edge. I hear people say Pacers+6 has tons of value and I do not even understand what they could possibly mean if the game is near close and sitting +6, only thing I could assume is they somehow have information the rest of the world does not or they have designed a model that can out model the entire betting community consensus.

and Kelly will break you UNLESS you are adjusting your bankroll count on every single bet and that would nearly make Kelly impossible to use and opens you up to huge exposure to failure
the 10 bets at $100 win 5
the 10 bets at $90 win 5
could be a very risk way to bet. I think if you are going to use Kelly it would be recommended to not adjust your BR number until you have ran a complete cycle, if you go on a long losing streak at $100 a bet and adjust your BR to $50 and go on a hot streak you will never win!

Vote NO on Kelly!

[TommieGunshot]

I think if you are going to use Kelly it would be recommended to not adjust your BR number until you have ran a complete cycle, if you go on a long losing streak at $100 a bet and adjust your BR to $50 and go on a hot streak you will never win!
Vote NO on Kelly!

It's pretty clear that in addition to projecting your own deficits onto everyone else, you also don't understand the math at all. With a ~1% edge and making bets with ~50% chance of winning, while betting half Kelly, the chance of losing half the bankroll is well under 1%.

-----

With nearly the entire market saying the Pacers are +6, the edge of the Pacers at +7 or +270 is very clearly defined. Likewise if both the Raptors and Celtics are -6, nearly everywhere and one can be found for -5.5 and -220, while the other can be had at-5 and -200, one clearly has a bigger edge than the other. Betting the same amount on both of those is a great way to minimize profits when compared to betting more on the one with the bigger edge. But minimizing profits is what happens when you're only here to argue the same thing over and over instead of learn

[Vyasports]

danshan11
may i ask whats your favorite method then? like which one do you recommend to use for long term? surely you have an idea by now...

[Gaze73]

most Twitter handles of touts usually have at minimum 2 accounts running and most times they have 20 different twitters with different bets on each.Smart touts know that survivorship bias is real and they know if they have 20 accounts running that after a few hundred bets a few of those accounts will be long term profitable and they then tout the shit out of that account until the well runs dry!

He's not a tout, he's just posting info about the bets of the top 0.1% players and one of the worst billionaire gamblers alive. You said <1% win long term against the closing line, it doesn't mean it's impossible. The number being so low just proves how square everyone is. But actually it's not all that surpising because how many bettors actually put in the effort to make a living with this? Most people just do it for fun, trying to hit that big parlay. But if you offered a millon dollars to a group of 1000 college graduates and gave them the task to beat any major market within 2 years, assuming their discipline to work on it full time I guarantee you more than 1% would come up with a really profitable system. Possibly up to 20% of them would, it's really not that hard.

[HeeeHAWWWW]

But if you offered a millon dollars to a group of 1000 college graduates and gave them the task to beat any major market within 2 years, assuming their discipline to work on it full time I guarantee you more than 1% would come up with a really profitable system. Possibly up to 20% of them would, it's really not that hard.

That's probably true. To be net +EV isn't that difficult. However, to do it in markets of sufficient limits, against sharp books and enough volume to make proper money? Drastically harder.

Here (UK) there are a lot of pro gamblers grinding a small edge, basically making minimum wage. Various historical reasons make that the case: the legality of gambling, Betfair starting here, and above all no taxes on gambling.

[tsty]

Just like everything else in life

Who you know is more important than what you know

Having great contacts is the most important thing

[AsianmanSports]

There is a difference between 80% won and 80% undefeated, there's plenty of favs in the latter category and they are usually the most popular bets of the day. You can see public bets on sites like Sofascore, 67% of bets went on Liverpool ML (75% and 87% according to other sources). Spreads don't matter. Nobody is saying that most favorites are clear, but there are at least a handful every day and the public is all over them like flies.

Moneyline % are not an indicator or how many people bet the spread.

The moneyline bet% is always gonna be skewed towards the favourite, it should be like that. It doesnt mean that the same number of people bet the handicap that way. The handicap will be much closer then the numbers you quoted.

Its likely Teams like liverpool are always going to be somewhat lopsided even in the spread ( to much lesser degree ) because of their popularity but professional betting organisations and books will be aware of that.

The real question is does the square money outwheigh the sharp money.

Have you done any testing on this?

[danshan11]

danshan11
may i ask whats your favorite method then? like which one do you recommend to use for long term? surely you have an idea by now...

well I am in a toss up of flat betting on all games of say 2% of bankroll assuming avg odds of around 50%, the BR% would change if the avg line were far from 50%, like at 20% Implied I would probably go down to say .75% and for 70% implied I would go up to say 4%.

I also in my head think the fixed profit betting system is the best, but my historical bets doing this do not show much difference from flat betting.
Fixed profit is faves bet 1.XX to win 1 and dogs bet .XX to win 1. the only thing about this that makes sense is its probably a good idea to have more on things more likely to happen than it is to have 1 unit on a 20% probability and 1% on a 75% probability event.

my actual results flat betting

W	AVG ROI		L	P	Avg Line	Net MBTC
486	2.71%		435	15	49.29%	4609.35

my actual results fixed profit betting

W	AVG ROI		L	P	Avg Line	Net
479	2.47%		423	13	49.85%	6876.09

as you can see there does not appear to be any difference between flat betting or fixed profit betting over roughly 1000 games each way

[danshan11]

It's pretty clear that in addition to projecting your own deficits onto everyone else, you also don't understand the math at all. With a ~1% edge and making bets with ~50% chance of winning, while betting half Kelly, the chance of losing half the bankroll is well under 1%.

-----

With nearly the entire market saying the Pacers are +6, the edge of the Pacers at +7 or +270 is very clearly defined. Likewise if both the Raptors and Celtics are -6, nearly everywhere and one can be found for -5.5 and -220, while the other can be had at-5 and -200, one clearly has a bigger edge than the other. Betting the same amount on both of those is a great way to minimize profits when compared to betting more on the one with the bigger edge. But minimizing profits is what happens when you're only here to argue the same thing over and over instead of learn

that is because you think you know your edge, herein lies the problem, if you say man I got the Blueballs -190 and the book has them at +120, that is a huge bet with kelly when the Blueballs are probably really worth +120, you are thinking you have this huge edge and betting accordingly, this is flawed UNLESS you are a master capper who has a better line modeled than the entire betting consensus. how many of these master cappers are laying around?



you say I am not here to learn, then teach me something. What am i missing? explain it to me. now if you are talking about line shopping and using the current line to base your kelly%, you probably can have some success since we know the current line is the most efficient. the problem is most kelly bettors are not using the line to base their bet size on, they use their historic edge, their model edge and whatever other crazy ideas they can come up with!

Vote NO on Kelly!

[danshan11]

That's probably true. To be net +EV isn't that difficult. However, to do it in markets of sufficient limits, against sharp books and enough volume to make proper money? Drastically harder.

Here (UK) there are a lot of pro gamblers grinding a small edge, basically making minimum wage. Various historical reasons make that the case: the legality of gambling, Betfair starting here, and above all no taxes on gambling.

i think it is funny how easy people think betting for long term profit is. Books have been around a long time and will still be around after gaze teaches his college students. Casinos are still waiting for the dice player who plays fair to come in and beat them, they keep the doors open 24 7 and advertise making sure he has plenty of access to bet and knows they are there.

your point Heehaww is the same as mine was
sure more people can beat the small markets and small limits but very few can beat the big markets and high limits.

3 factors are necessary for REAL pay the bills success
VOLUME to overcome variance, big time pro bettors dont pick spots they bet their ass off because it is necessary to survive
LIMITS got to be high enough so you turn over enough money to realize that small edge in profit
OUTS need to have enough places willing to take enough at GOOD prices so they can get enough down to get that slim edge

and in reality actual pick winner or beat the line modelers are even rarer than the <1% figure because most of that 1% of successful long term bettors are arbing and finding soft numbers

[AsianmanSports]

Iam on the Side of flat betting. Like danshan11 said its actually very hard to know your edge for each pick.

I tend to assume an edge of 1%, maybe 1.5% since Iam not assuming I can beat the market by more in the long run.

I wont rate any picks differently, I look at my picks as a range of plays that have an average ROI% where there is too much uncertainty for each to bet to attach a specifc number.

I also dont want to go broke or change my betsizing so I go with 1% of my Bankroll, I can see 2% as well but I tend to be conservative. Ive seen 20+ Unit downturns and thats not good mentally if ur down 40-50% of your Bankroll and you propably would have to adjust ur sizings if this happens.

If you work with a small bankroll I can see beeing more agressive making more sense.

[danshan11]

He's not a tout, he's just posting info about the bets of the top 0.1% players and one of the worst billionaire gamblers alive. You said <1% win long term against the closing line, it doesn't mean it's impossible. The number being so low just proves how square everyone is. But actually it's not all that surpising because how many bettors actually put in the effort to make a living with this? Most people just do it for fun, trying to hit that big parlay. But if you offered a millon dollars to a group of 1000 college graduates and gave them the task to beat any major market within 2 years, assuming their discipline to work on it full time I guarantee you more than 1% would come up with a really profitable system. Possibly up to 20% of them would, it's really not that hard.

Dude it is not how square everyone is, its how hard it is.
Think of sports betting like this me and you go to math class we learn how to model, use C, use python and we are both really really smart, and we build these awesome models. Now you being the smarter one opens a book and me being the braver one starts betting.

Who do you think wins?
You who gets juice on every play with basically the same model as me or me who picks his spots and tries to find your bad lines and weak spots but still pays you the juice? This shit is hard, and people think a math class and some database scraping skills can make you a pro bettor and that is just wrong. People don't understand how close for the avg guy sports betting is to roulette or craps. In 99.99% scenarios, if you bet a -110 bet, the result is a coin flip long term, I don't care how many times you read ESPN insider or watch games. And in my another not so popular opinion around here, I believe modeling is dead, completely dead. I don't even think books are doing it to set openers, I think they are using sag or ken and just putting up a number and letting it settle. Now, of course, the books know will be extra dough on the Pats or Yankees and understand what happens over a zillion games if they put up Yankees too low or too high and they adjust for that type stuff, but in reality, modeling is gone with the wind.

[AsianmanSports]

Dude it is not how square everyone is, its how hard it is.
Think of sports betting like this me and you go to math class we learn how to model, use C, use python and we are both really really smart, and we build these awesome models. Now you being the smarter one opens a book and me being the braver one starts betting.

Who do you think wins?

This is a great point.

I believe modeling is dead, completely dead.

This is very wrong, modelling is happening and advancing as we speak (by people who place very big bets).

[danshan11]

This is a great point.



This is very wrong, modelling is happening and advancing as we speak (by people who place very big bets).

I stated my point wrong, modeling is alive and getting better but people are not modeling the same thing, they now use the base of sag and ken and they spend most of the time modeling conditions injuries, weather, team # twitter followers and more crazy stuff.

old days
90% of their time on a model for the game 10% on injuries, weather and others
now 95% of work time modeling other things and 5% of work time modeling the game
people are still modeling and trying to get to quantum levels of depth but they are not doing the same things. getting an opening line beater can be done with sag or kenpom easy, now getting a closing line beater requires something completely different.