line histories?

[thelyingthief]

anybody know a website that maintains odds line archives for both opening and closing lines?

ive checked covers.com and thegoldsheet.com, but neither have such an archive.

if not, is there an available source for the initial line? final lines are available everywhere.

tlt

[TomG]

Sports Insights Database Download.

[thelyingthief]

thanks, tom, but the lines there are live; i need them for past seasons.

appreciate the effort.

tlt.

[TomCowley]

TLT: can you give me a list of closing line archives that you know about that have at least most of 1994-2007? I know goldsheet/repole/winningpoints. If I knew an opening line archive, I'd help you out.

[TomG]

Their website is kind of difficult to navigate but the link I mentioned is exactly what you want... it has opening line vs. closing lines. See this sample from their webiste... SAMPLE OF DOWNLOADABLE FORMAT

Their archive goes back for about 4 years worth of data for which they charge $150 just to warn you.

[thelyingthief]

tom:

i use the pro sports edge software, which has the closing lines, scores by quarter, etc., for all nfl, college, and nba games back to 1984. you DO NOT need a subscription to access historical data, although the latest games are closed out after the fifth week into the season. unfortunately, i have to input the data from that program into an access db by hand (not as bad as it sounds, i use a form that speeds up things nicely). i wouldn't mind spending a substantial amount of money on a comprehensive college/pro db in .csv format, but the idea of forking over 150 for a single year of nfl data (the best price i've found) is absurd.

it's like paying $4 for tomatoes. i can afford it, but i'd feel like a fool.

tlt.

[thelyingthief]

[ QUOTE ]
Their website is kind of difficult to navigate but the link I mentioned is exactly what you want... it has opening line vs. closing lines.

[/ QUOTE ]


thanks again, tom, i'll look into it. much appreciated.

tlt

[TomCowley]

100 on stars or Paypal for that NFL closing line data (94-07) in CSV.

[LogistX]

[ QUOTE ]
100 on stars or Paypal for that NFL closing line data (94-07) in CSV.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was working on putting this data from goldsheet.com into a database for some statistical analysis myself. Goldsheet does not use a consistent format and my guess is that they do that to slow down people like me. Sometimes they list a team by city, sometimes by team name, and when they abbreviate it, they do it differently sometimes (G. Bay vs. Gr. Bay vs. Packers, etc.) Manually entering the data into the database would take about 30-40 mins/season and could contain inaccuracies.

This, however, leads me to my next point that I came across last night but was tired and waited to post until today. I want to bring up the accuracy of goldsheet.com. As an example, they have the lines from last week up. They list the Arizona Cards at +5.5 and the Falcons at +2.5. I was under the impression that the general lines were closer to +6 and +3. Anyone care to comment on this specific instance? Anyone else notice this general trend? Did the sharps move this line late? Or is this just a marginal difference that I will have to live with given that different books list the lines at different values and goldsheet just takes one of them. I compared it with my 2006 season bets and some other ones were different as well. Although I keep track of the date I place my bet relative to the event date, it's still hard to tell if the difference is due to line moves or just different books.

Also, if I ever do finish this project, I'll probably just give the database away. If some one else has a db, please pm me and save me the time.

[TomG]

I used The Gold Sheet's data to put together the last few year's worth of NBA results against the spread. I used the Text functions in Excel to clean up the data and that saved a lot of time, although it was still a tedious process.