Sharpest NHL playoff sides and totals

**Peregrine Stoop** · 04-15-12, 03:59 PM

is this a trick question?

**mathdotcom** · 04-15-12, 04:38 PM

Nicky Santauro Sports aka NSS

**wrongturn** · 04-16-12, 10:32 AM

Originally posted by Juret

What sportsbook(s) usually has the sharpest NHL playoff sides and totals?

Thanks

Most likely Pinnacle, BetFair and Matchbook, depending on time of the day and liquidity amount.

**Thremp** · 04-16-12, 12:22 PM

Market size and overround are the best heuristics for determining efficiency.

I would also hesitate to think that Matchbook is a unique market rather than one that is based off other lines.

**strixee** · 05-03-12, 06:58 PM

I don't know if this information will be helpful for you, but I took Pinnacle ML odds for regular season games since the beginning of 2008-09 season until Dec 2010 (2611 games) and made a following thing:
I summed up all probabilities of home and away teams wins based on the ML odds.
For example if the H-A odds were 1.91-2.03, I added .515 to H and .485 to A.

The results I got were extraordinary.
The actual record was 1463-1148, Pinny openers gave 1462.71-1148.29 and closers 1458.12-1152.88. So as you can see, Pinnacle is extremely sharp and I doubt any other sportsbook can be sharper. What is a bit surprising for me is that openers are so close to the actual record.

Is such a sharpness test method valid? IMHO it is.

**strixee** · 05-06-12, 03:23 PM

I repeated the test with a larger sample- 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12 regular season data of 3600 games.
Here is the result:
Actual: 1968-1632
Open: 1999.74-1600.26
Close: 1993.95-1606.05