Thurs night NCAA football

[thelyingthief]

[ QUOTE ]
What I find amazing is that you can put time and energy into these posts and yet you still say basically nothing. You could have just said "I know little about sports betting and you hurt my feelings" and that would have pretty much summed it up.

Here's a question for you. Would you place a bet on a team you thought had only a 35% chance to win when given a line of +200 on that team?

[/ QUOTE ]

no, i would not.

1)it is unnecessary to expose your bankroll to that kind of pressure: there are any number of games weekly where the probable winner is offered at odds > .5. why chase low probability events? you need a bankroll large enough to sustain ~12 consecutive losses to avoid tap-out. and since these are independent trials, one can easily experience sparse outcomes that will require significantly larger insurances to withstand (e.g.:10L,2W;9L,3W;11L,1W). the variance can be extreme. i will not commit my resources where they are least rewarding.

of course, if you're thremp, and make money without working, that's another story. you DO claim to make money without working, don't you thremp? imagine, one amongst us who has found the finacial shangra-la.

--moreover, and this is more to the point:

2)the nature of football precludes accurate quantification (sorry, bean-eaters, oops, counters), arising from two sources.

--a)insufficient data sets.
--b)inadequate, non-objective handicapping methods.

therefore, since the evaluation of a football game for possible investment purposes requires the bettor to determine a distinct advantage between his selection and the bookmaker's offer to consistently make money, this margin must be large. Rarely will the margin be large enough on .35 probabilities; often enough on .6 probabilities, if my records are correct.

repeating from my original post: it is my contention that bookmakers expend huge capital resources on the statistical, mathematical side of the game: they have better data gathering abilities, better modeling capacities, and an unbiased commitment to determining the odds of any game posted based upon objective criteria. i suggest that it is folly to assume, as a bettor, that one can utilize these same techniques to isolate bets promising a +EV. and i further suggest, claims such as hedger and thremp make, that they do so, is improbable.

to make money betting .35% probability events because the books offer +200 on them assumes: 1) you have an objective means of identifying the probability, using long term results with precisely the same parameters attending each sample; and 2) that the books post odds without utilizing same said, or more accurate, data in their formulation of the odds.

i know of no sophisticated bettor who would willingly make such claims. this is attested in the literature, where one persistently encounters the observation that determining the optimal bet for any given event is unexpectable. the Kelly of an event utilizes, among its variables, an accurate rendering of the probability of that event. since, to repeat (apparently repetition is the only way to communicate with children), obtaining this precision is, in football wagering, certainly, questionable, one needs to accumulate all instances of a specific wager, determine the ROI, win %, and from these data decide a percentage bankroll unit which will optimize br growth, while maintaining a margin of safety for the inevitable variance.

i do not pretend to possess more than that: i know my win percentage (multiple years of data, sufficient to give me a 95% confidence level, football, 99%, horses), and my ROI on various bet types. I DO NOT KNOW, NOR DOES ANYONE WHO CONTRIBUTES TO THIS FORUM KNOW, WHAT THE PROBABILITY OF AN EVENT IS WITH SUFFICIENT PRECISION TO MAKE THE ASSERTION:

(an event having) "only a 35% chance to win when given a line of +200 on that team?"

i would suggest, that anyone capable of determining the accuracy of these two parameters, would be better served isolating opportunities more rewarding and with a higher win rate. and i would likewise suggest, anyone thinking they can so do CONSISTENTLY is due a rude awakening.

what do I know? i know that my selections overall have some certain win rate; i know that any individual event on which i wager may differ from this rate significantly; i know that the odds offered by a book are not apt to expose their operations to significant loss; and that, therefore, to involve myself in attempting to make money on bets that assumes the contrary are perilous to my income.

it is for these reasons that, when players (and i use this term for children) make witless claims about odds, value betting, etc., i am likely to observe their posts with statements like

"in being half right, you are totally wrong".

invariably, the basis on which these claims are made are just absurd. they are made by individuals with inadequate grasp of say the fundamentals, or have limited educations, or no experience. usually, it is all three.

so, you may well suppose that thremp has a fine following, since he promises, in his claims, that money can be had for nothing. people have been seduced by that brand of lunacy forever, and will continue to do so. thank god, for who would i have to take money from if not for said suckers? and who am i to deny it categorically, anyway? however, if anyone asks ME, well from my perspective, thremp's a damn liar.

and hedgie, are a damned fool.

and both of you in need of some fine old woodshed introductions to polite behavior and courtesy.

tlt.

[livin_a_lie]

This thread just wont die...

[thelyingthief]

[ QUOTE ]
This thread just wont die...

[/ QUOTE ]

no, but you will; take joy from this knowledge.

tlt.

[MicroBob]

Man, I thought my posts were long-winded.

[thelyingthief]

yeah, well, mine won't be from now on.

tlt

[silentbob]

You don't appear to be a fan of the Fremeau Efficiency Index either.

[thelyingthief]

[ QUOTE ]
You don't appear to be a fan of the Fremeau Efficiency Index either.

[/ QUOTE ]

all college game rating systems are to my mind of limited utility. however, i wouldn't think of playing the pro game without the prospectus.

tlt

[pirateboy]

[ QUOTE ]

Here's a question for you. Would you place a bet on a team you thought had only a 35% chance to win when given a line of +200 on that team?

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
no, i would not.

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? Getting +200 on a 35% probability, is, in the long term, very profitable. Any sports bettor who has approached the endeavor correctly should have the bankroll to make that play every time it comes up without fear of "pressure on the bankroll."

You only need +186 to make it a profitable (although extremely minor) play. At +200, I play a unit every single time, regardless of anything else.

[thelyingthief]

pirate:

please read the (ahem) above book i wrote explaining my avoidance of said bet. i do bet money line regularly, (OU vs. FSU, Denver vs. GB, fla vs. osu), but would not consider a bet on any team at ML that i did not think could win the game outright. i cash 75% of my ml wagers. i can understand other bettors exercising a more relaxed approach; i would counsel every independent to avoid attempting to quantify a dog with such precision, however, for it is impossible to do so accurately and consistently. i'm talking real world here.

tlt

[pirateboy]

I also am, and it's a bit insulting for you to say we aren't talking real world. Of the bettors on this site, it's impossible for you to be the only one with a grasp on "the real world."

I would like it if you followed my thread on ML dogs for the rest of this season. Information from 1985 through today is a very good sample size, thus giving us a pretty accurate and consistent idea of where our ML edges are.