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Old 11-21-2007, 02:16 AM
Lori Lori is offline
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Default Home advantage and capping.

First off, anyone who has been sports betting for any amount of time is likely to learn nothing from this post. I'd appreciate it if they read it though, maybe they could teach me a thing or two.

Something I've been fighting for some time now is the instinct to work out home advantage and then factor it into my capping.
It's fine, and likely neccessary, if you're using a mechanical system, however when you're using a mixture of stats and observing what is going on, it's actually a strange concept when you boil it down.

What is slightly perverse is the following.... I suspect at least 90% of the people reading this have done this before (I certainly have.)
It's typical to break down the two teams, see who you think is the better, make a line and then add a number according to home advantage.
This seems all very logical of course, until you think about what you're doing.
In the process of working out which team is better, you've had to eliminate home advantage from all your working (again, this is understandable in a purely mechanical system), work out who is the better team on a neutral field (which accounts for 2-3 games a season in football) and then add it back on. I'm going to hypothesize that humans are bad at this. (As can be seen by typical BSP scenarios)

Something I've found that has aided the non-mechanical side of my capping is to think about how teams play at home and the road, without assigning a specific number to it. If the Chiefs are playing at home to Denver, I consider games where I've seen the Chiefs at home, and Denver on the road. Obviously the conclusion I come to will be 6-7 points different (or possibly 8 or 9 in that exact extreme example) to the one I would come to if the roles were reversed, but the difference is that I'm not making assumptions twice... assumptions that at best cancel out.

Of course, I'm still using info gained from the games at the opposite fields to the game I'm capping, but I'm using those as a guide and to increase my sample size. I'm mentally attributing less weight to those games.

The reason I've started doing this more and more this season is quite simple. Not all points have the same value.
You could be in the position where a team is a 4 point dog on the road and a 2 point fave at home. Have you really done that team justice?

Similarly you could turn a 7.5 point road fave into a 13.5 point home one. All very nice, but have they gained anything?

On the other side of the swing, you could move a 8 point road dog into a 2 point home dog.

The above three examples are all viable, however it should be clear that they don't all carry the same strength.

I've found I've understood the game better since I considered teams at home and away as similar, but seperate entities where one helps you to increase your sample size and modify the other, rather than removing and adding points in a somewhat arbitary fashion.

All thoughts appreciated.

Lori
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  #2  
Old 11-21-2007, 02:28 AM
rjp rjp is offline
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Default Re: Home advantage and capping.

It's good that you realize home field advantage isn't something you can express as points (especially in football), as the numbers just don't add up right. In some cases you're giving too little and in others too much. Taking this a step further and treating all games as a winning percentage and you should be able to quantify home field advantage much better than the average Joe.

That said, home field advantage isn't something I've studied all that deeply. What I do know, however, is that it might bet better to look at it as away team disadvantage. Traveling and staying in hotels in an unfamiliar place takes its toll. It isn't always about how loud the home crowd cheers (or boos)....
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Old 11-21-2007, 05:34 AM
MicroBob MicroBob is offline
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Default Re: Home advantage and capping.

"It isn't always about how loud the home crowd cheers (or boos).... "


QFT.
As I mentioned in another thread, I did my fair share of traveling around in mid-major womens basketball. Crowds of 300 or so in 8k+ seat arenas.
But I would estimate that home-court advantage was still worth roughly 3 points even in that kind of league. This was especially easy to see because they would play most of their in-conference opponents at home and on the road and you could just look at the results.

Not necessarily comparable to the NFL of course. But it's all a part of human and athlete psychology I believe.
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Old 11-21-2007, 08:26 AM
Rustjive Rustjive is offline
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Default Re: Home advantage and capping.

[ QUOTE ]
What I do know, however, is that it might bet better to look at it as away team disadvantage. Traveling and staying in hotels in an unfamiliar place takes its toll. It isn't always about how loud the home crowd cheers (or boos)....

[/ QUOTE ]

How meaningful is that (not rhetorically)? For many cases, there may indeed be no home field advantage, although it can't really be an overwhelming majority. Home Field Advantage at places like Arrowhead and Lambeau are well documented, and while it may not be particular to a certain franchise (ala x plays well at home because of fans), teams are sometimes built for the type of physical environment (dome/turf combination) the venue offers.

The thing I really mean, however, is that the NFL in the vast majority of scenarios have a binary input - you are either playing at home or you are playing at the road. If we treat it as a road disadvantage instead of a home field advantage - po-tay-toes, po-tah-toes, right? Then add the possibility of there actually being real home field advantages as mentioned above, then what did we gain moving off the 3 point baseline? I certainly don't deny that HFA is complex, has tons of factors and generally the 3 points doesn't do it justice, but you have to work from somewhere, no?
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Old 11-21-2007, 10:08 AM
rjp rjp is offline
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Default Re: Home advantage and capping.

Rustjive, I just wanted to point out that there's much more to home field advantage than the infamous "12th man".

Teams built for specific environments is a very good point and should be taken into consideration. This obviously doesn't hold for basketball, but a good thing to know for football.
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Old 11-21-2007, 10:29 AM
digdeep digdeep is offline
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Default Re: Home advantage and capping.

Great post Lori... I think one thing to consider is the variance of a team's play. Those teams with higher variance in their play deserve a bigger edge at home vs. on the road. I.e. PIT this year in the NFL - a completely different team at home vs. on the road.

The teams that have low variance, which are generally the best teams and worst teams likely deserve less of a home/away adjustment as they are far more consistently good or bad.

Would peope generally agree/disagree?
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Old 11-21-2007, 12:36 PM
Runner Runner Runner Runner is offline
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Default Re: Home advantage and capping.

I disagree digdeep. I actually think the opposite is true more often then not.

Variance in play or inconsistent play will bring a team closer to mediocrity. It will make a good team worse and a bad team better. It will bring them closer to .500 and more likely to cover as a dog or not cover as a favorite (unless this is already factored into the line). I think that for teams that are just flat out inconsistent for any reason, home field advantage/disadvantage will actually apply less, and what they bring to the table that day will more then likely be the determining factor.
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Old 11-21-2007, 12:49 PM
1MoreFish4U 1MoreFish4U is offline
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Default Re: Home advantage and capping.

Good & interesting thread.
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Old 11-21-2007, 03:38 PM
digdeep digdeep is offline
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Default Re: Home advantage and capping.

[ QUOTE ]
I disagree digdeep. I actually think the opposite is true more often then not.

Variance in play or inconsistent play will bring a team closer to mediocrity. It will make a good team worse and a bad team better. It will bring them closer to .500 and more likely to cover as a dog or not cover as a favorite (unless this is already factored into the line). I think that for teams that are just flat out inconsistent for any reason, home field advantage/disadvantage will actually apply less, and what they bring to the table that day will more then likely be the determining factor.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your point makes logical sense. I was hoping to find a relationship where there likely isn't...

I quickly ran a correlation analysis, and your are right that there didn't seem to be a strong correlation with variance and home / away winning %.
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Old 11-21-2007, 06:29 PM
dankhank dankhank is offline
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Default Re: Home advantage and capping.

for an amateur handicapper like myself, i don't attach specific point values to anything. i acknowledge what i am doing is an imperfect science.

with home field advantage, what i'm looking for is a team whose HFA is big enough that they're always live to a fair market number. for a favorite there might be too much HFA built into a line at times, but with dogs, i think generally, the HFA is fair. if a HFA is undervalued in the public's eye (like boise's blue turf a few years ago), but you're aware of it, then you pretty much always have a live dog.

take denver on monday night. denver is always live at home. the number hovered around 1-2 all week, and then at kickoff, pick 'em was available. when i bet denver i didn't know if it was a 53-54% bet, but i did know that it wasn't any worse than 50-51%. with a good home field, and a little steam, there was no way that bet was bad.

the same is true for road favorites, in terms of, are they definitely going to have intensity, and not be affected by travel, in this upcoming game? take troy last night. it was a home game, but let's imagine they had to travel to tennessee. imo a team like troy who never gets to play on national television, is likely to get up for that game on the road. a road favorite with a strong mentality or with much superior talent is always live to cover a reasonable number.

obviously this is very, very rough handicapping. it's not about me coming up with a play from scratch. it's my process when i'm looking at the screen and seriously considering making a play.

like detroit +3.5 tomorrow. the lions HFA on thanksgiving has historically been under-valued. maybe that's shifted in recent years, but maybe it hasn't, because i can see how a person can logically say "why is HFA a bigger deal on thanksgiving than on other days?" of course it's not a HFA issue, it's a road team traveling on a short week issue. maybe enough people don't realize this and detroit +3.5 is a solid 54% play. but at worst, the lions are live to +3.5, and if i shop for the best juice, it's likely profitable.
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