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Thread: Who Are the Experts on Sports Betting on This Site

  1. #1
    I really don't know much about sports betting, but since online betting is now legal in MI I'm getting a ton of free sports bets from playing online blackjack promotions. Most of the free bets are just $5, but I had some $100 free bets and I have a $1,000 free bet on tomorrows football game.

    Since KJ seems to know who are the sharps at sports betting on this site maybe he can reveal some names.

    Anyway, on another site 21forme says parlay bets are the way to go for free bets. Is this true or is he full of shit? I always thought parlays were bad bets. Anyway for this coming week I have 13 free bets and most are parlays,

    If you are interested here they are.

    LA Rams -14
    Spread
    LA Rams @ HOU Texans (10/31 1:00 p.m.)
    -110
    Over 46.5
    Total
    LA Rams @ HOU Texans (10/31 1:00 p.m.)
    -110

    ARI Cardinals -17.5
    Spread
    HOU Texans @ ARI Cardinals (10/24 4:25 p.m.)
    -110
    Under 47.5
    Total
    HOU Texans @ ARI Cardinals (10/24 4:25 p.m.)
    -110

    IND Colts +4.5
    Spread
    IND Colts @ SF 49ers (10/24 8:20 p.m.)
    -110
    Over 44.5
    Total
    IND Colts @ SF 49ers (10/24 8:20 p.m.)
    -110

    Over 47
    Total
    CHI Bears @ TB Buccaneers (10/24 4:25 p.m.)
    -110
    CHI Bears +12.5
    Spread
    CHI Bears @ TB Buccaneers (10/24 4:25 p.m.)
    -110

    Under 49.5
    Total
    PHI Eagles @ LV Raiders (10/24 4:05 p.m.)
    -110
    LV Raiders
    Moneyline
    PHI Eagles @ LV Raiders (10/24 4:05 p.m.)
    -170

    LA Rams -14.5
    Spread
    DET Lions @ LA Rams (10/24 4:05 p.m.)
    -110
    Under 50.5
    Total
    DET Lions @ LA Rams (10/24 4:05 p.m.)
    -110

    KC Chiefs
    Moneyline
    KC Chiefs @ TEN Titans (10/24 1:00 p.m.)
    -220
    Under 56.5
    Total
    KC Chiefs @ TEN Titans (10/24 1:00 p.m.)
    -10

    NY Jets +7
    Spread
    NY Jets @ NE Patriots (10/24 1:00 p.m.)
    -110
    Over 42.5
    Total
    NY Jets @ NE Patriots (10/24 1:00 p.m.)
    -110

    CIN Bengals +6.5
    Spread
    CIN Bengals @ BAL Ravens (10/24 1:00 p.m.)
    -110
    Over 47
    Total
    CIN Bengals @ BAL Ravens (10/24 1:00 p.m.)
    -110

    Over 44
    Total
    CAR Panthers @ NY Giants (10/24 1:00 p.m.)
    -110
    CAR Panthers
    Moneyline
    CAR Panthers @ NY Giants (10/24 1:00 p.m.)
    -155

    MIA Dolphins
    Moneyline
    ATL Falcons @ MIA Dolphins (10/24 1:00 p.m.)
    -110
    Under 47.5
    Total
    ATL Falcons @ MIA Dolphins (10/24 1:00 p.m.)
    -115

    DEN Broncos +5
    Spread
    DEN Broncos @ CLE Browns (10/21 8:20 p.m.)
    -105
    Pays $952.38

    Over 44
    Total
    NO Saints @ SEA Seahawks (10/25 8:15 p.m.)
    -110

  2. #2
    Am I allowed to answer this my way, or will someone be unhappy?

  3. #3
    In general, unless you have access to open parlays that feature significant lengths of time to fill them or stay open in perpetuity, parlays are a bad idea. The primary reason they are a bad idea sans being able to keep them open for a long time is that numbers change. Therefore, if you commit to a number for one team at a particular place and at a particular time, the huge majority of the time you are not getting the optimal numbers for all teams on the parlay. Non optimal numbers carry an enormous long term cost. Casinos rely on people being too lazy or too naive to shop.

    For example, in college football, it's not uncommon for a third of the games any given week to feature line movements of two points or more on sides and totals. In college hoops, it's routine for sides and totals to swing two points or more on the same day. The last couple of years, especially with Covid, NBA has the same issues, sometimes worse. So any analysis of using parlays that doesn't address the problem of non-optimal numbers is kind of silly.

    It's like debating minutia of card counting in blackjack while playing at a 6/5 table. Any analysis is overshadowed by the context.

    Now, if you have access to long-term open parlays, then that circumvents much of the problem.

    In addition, while parlay cards in general are a great source of income for books and playing such cards willy-nilly is a bad idea, there are certain structured strategies for playing parlay cards that have been in use for more than 40 years. These strategies are useful enough that books have often set limits on them or shut them down. The strategies cannot be used for current or off-the-board parlay betting, however.

    Offshore, I have one place that currently allows open bets in perpetuity. That is rare these days. Another place has a 90-day limit. That is useful if not perfect. One place that previously allowed open in perpetuity has dramatically changed its rules so all bets must finish close of business Monday. That was a harsh change for those playing parlays or teasers.
    Last edited by redietz; 10-20-2021 at 08:19 PM.

  4. #4
    Thanks Redietz. Every bit of knowledge helps.

  5. #5
    You're welcome. To your point that you heard that parlays were bad bets:

    I've told this story a half dozen times on this site, but I'll close with it. At the (first) trial of semi-famous Pennsylvania bookmaker Mike Stockunas, one of his phone assistants was put on the stand. The prosecutor asked, "Can you tell us what a parlay is?" The assistant answered, "Yes I can." The prosecutor said, "Please continue." The assistant cleared his throat and said, "It's a really stupid bet." That resulted in some unappreciated chuckles and coughs from people in the courtroom.

    If you look up Stockunas, he got off on the first trial when evidence mysteriously disappeared from lockers. The feds eventually got him down the road.

  6. #6
    Redietz, the claim over on the other site was that since the bet was free, the parlay bet was the way to go. "The best bets for free play are always high variance bets you would never make with cash." Do you agree with this statement?

  7. #7
    Originally Posted by Midwest Player View Post
    Redietz, the claim over on the other site was that since the bet was free, the parlay bet was the way to go. "The best bets for free play are always high variance bets you would never make with cash." Do you agree with this statement?
    That is a real good question, and there are multiple ways to look at it. First of all, to me, free play IS cash, so I never treat it as monopoly money and say, "Oh yeah, let's play the lottery so I can make a fortune."

    Many sites cap the variance allowed on free play bets. Those caps vary wildly site to site, but quite often it's a +150 or +180 limit. So the case can be made that if books in general have vetoed certain ranges of payback on free play, and you can get something well beyond those limits, then it's in your best interest to use the free play that way.

    However, you still run into the issue of non-optimal numbers if you bet parlays, so you are cutting the books a break by sacrificing the best number you can get.

    Personally, I tend to treat free play as if it were cash, and as if I were making a serious wager with the intent of continuing to make serious wagers if I win the free play bet. So I would not personally use it on parlays. However, if somebody is given free plays (say, with those stingy CET "free bets"), and doesn't really know what they are doing vis-a-vis shopping for numbers, then I can't really criticize civilians for blowing the free plays on parlays. I cringe to think of people wasting free plays on what amount to lottery shots, but if they don't know what they are doing and have no intent to continue betting sports, then by all means (as my old friend The Scob used to say), "Get it over with."

    I take sports betting very seriously. As a general attitude, I would not start anyone on that habit of walking the parlay/lottery plank. One of my old partners used to say, "Parlays are for poor people." And in a sense, that's true. It's for people trying to make it big on the wings of fate, and that's just the wrong way to gamble.

  8. #8
    I neglected to mention the obvious, which is that one reason sports betting free play should be treated as cash is that it's always worth at minimum roughly half the value in cash since you can always bet half on the other side (or try to middle the full amount, guaranteeing one side or the other wins and taking a shot at both). So it's less cumbersome and more precisely predictable than trying to play free play on red and cash on black or playing slots or video poker with free play.

    Since you can always simply bet the other side for half the value, there's always a predictable cash measurement for it.

  9. #9
    Goddamnit.

    See, I told all of you (referring to my first post in the thread) that you're not the first person to think of it (especially since I thought of it independently of you) that I'm not the first person to think of it...so it's one where we should share the thought wealth so as many people as possible can maximize...because we all know damn well the promos are going away sooner or later.

  10. #10
    Mickey crimm and some other folks asked me about how best to approach free play use from Fanduel and various initial sign-ups quite awhile back. I answered them privately in more detail. Mickey mentioned it in a post or two.

    Most of these recommendations are Sports Gambling 101 stuff. They are not rocket science, and really they require no mind-melding. I'm sure mickey executed things perfectly with a five minute summary.

    The answers were the same 40 years ago, so there's nothing proprietary about it. The answers are automatic and obvious if you ask any professional sports bettor who's been there, done that.

    The trick in this particular case, and why a professional pulls the free play middle angle off better than a civilian, is that professionals can target games where they think lines are likely to move, and likely to move a lot.

    I guess this is serendipity, but in my "This is a Strange Week" thread, I mention that I bet more on this past Monday than I have in two years. Not because I liked the teams, but because I felt very strongly that the lines would move. Well, it turns out that I was correct in all six of the college games I targeted, and also on the NFL game, which middled last night. That is no accident. Getting seven for seven line moves right is not something a civilian can routinely pull off. Now it's true that the mid-week lines did not move (with the exception of Denver/Cleveland) as much as I thought. I thought ULL might go to -20. I thought SMU might go to -16 1/2 or -17. I thought Florida Atlantic might go to -9 or thereabouts. None of them did, so those middle shots weren't very good. But the point is, I was correct on all moves.

    Taking middle shots with free play isn't a math exercise per se. It's an opinion exercise.

    For the record, the last two games I bet Monday were Michigan and Ohio State at -21 and -19 respectively. So we'll see what kind of middle opportunities present themselves.

  11. #11
    The Michigan game wound up being -21 to win 1 Unit; +24 on Northwestern to win 2/3 unit.

  12. #12
    Midwest,

    Some very good advice from R.E. Dietz in here. No surprise, he’s a pro and knows just stuff.

    I think I can only add one point that I didn’t see covered. It’s pretty basic math, but important so worth mentioning.

    If your free play is the type that if you win, it vanishes (so if you bet $100 free play on a -110 line and win, then your account just has the $90.91 win and not $190.91 after), then you maximize your free play EV by taking long shots. That’s assuming you don’t have any edge in handicapping, so can’t do what RE is doing by middle shooting.

    A quick example may help. Let’s assume a line is fair from this NFL Sunday:

    Dolphins +14 -110
    Dolphins +650 (and Bills -1000)

    Dolphins + 14 had a 50% chance of hitting.
    Dolphins +650 has an 11.2% chance of hitting (I’m assuming the fair point is the average % chance implied by +650 and -1000, which really isn’t likely correct, but good enough for this example).

    Your EV of betting Dolphins +14 is 50% chance of $90.91 = $45.46
    Your EV of betting Dolphins ML is 11.2% chance of $650 = $72.80

    Pretty stark. And maybe what is driving people to say to use it on parlays as those of course are longer shots (though they suffer from paying worse odds than true and having maybe not the best numbers as RE points out).

  13. #13
    Originally Posted by unJon View Post
    Midwest,

    Some very good advice from R.E. Dietz in here. No surprise, he’s a pro and knows just stuff.

    I think I can only add one point that I didn’t see covered. It’s pretty basic math, but important so worth mentioning.

    If your free play is the type that if you win, it vanishes (so if you bet $100 free play on a -110 line and win, then your account just has the $90.91 win and not $190.91 after), then you maximize your free play EV by taking long shots. That’s assuming you don’t have any edge in handicapping, so can’t do what RE is doing by middle shooting.

    A quick example may help. Let’s assume a line is fair from this NFL Sunday:

    Dolphins +14 -110
    Dolphins +650 (and Bills -1000)

    Dolphins + 14 had a 50% chance of hitting.
    Dolphins +650 has an 11.2% chance of hitting (I’m assuming the fair point is the average % chance implied by +650 and -1000, which really isn’t likely correct, but good enough for this example).

    Your EV of betting Dolphins +14 is 50% chance of $90.91 = $45.46
    Your EV of betting Dolphins ML is 11.2% chance of $650 = $72.80

    Pretty stark. And maybe what is driving people to say to use it on parlays as those of course are longer shots (though they suffer from paying worse odds than true and having maybe not the best numbers as RE points out).
    Can you explain why this is true? While the math is simple, the reason it works out this way is not intuitive to me in the slightest. I'll likely figure it out tomorrow but these sorts of things are sorta important if you're serious about APing. The concepts jump around situations.
    It is official. Redietz will never be on Dan Druff's podcast. "too much integrity"

  14. #14
    Thinking about this a bit, it must be because on a freebet - you don't get your wager back. Duh, BUT the longer the odds the smaller the initial wager is in proportion to the payout. I'm still not sure this is the proper reason, but it is something like this. It seems the odds are more "incorrect" with the freebet math tacked on when the odds are lower. Hmmm. I will need to think some more. lol edibles.
    It is official. Redietz will never be on Dan Druff's podcast. "too much integrity"

  15. #15
    Originally Posted by accountinquestion View Post
    Thinking about this a bit, it must be because on a freebet - you don't get your wager back. Duh, BUT the longer the odds the smaller the initial wager is in proportion to the payout. I'm still not sure this is the proper reason, but it is something like this. It seems the odds are more "incorrect" with the freebet math tacked on when the odds are lower. Hmmm. I will need to think some more. lol edibles.
    Yeah that’s right. If instead you also got to keep the free play, which converts to regular cash then the math would be.

    Dolphins +14 is a 50% chance of winning $190.91 = $95.46
    Dolphins +650 is an 11.2% chance of winning $750 = $84.00

  16. #16
    Guys, just a note. Currently, most free play payouts are capped the majority of places in the +150 to +180 range. So bear in mind that having the option to pursue higher payouts is the anomaly.

  17. #17
    Thanks. The site I use does not have that limitation, but it will not let me use free play on a parlay.

  18. #18

  19. #19
    I follow Captain Jack Andrews on Twitter. Not long ago he was touring around the states checking out the sportsbetting. He posted a pic of a place I recognized in Whitefish, Montana, Bulldogs.

    So I tweeted "Hey, Cap Jack, how do you like those -118 lines in Montana?"

    He tweeted back "They're actually -125....but I still found some value. Exorbitant juice doesn't make up for bad bookmaking."

    MWP, perhaps you can compare the lines where you are to the lines in Vegas and find some value.

    PS: The Governor had the choice of turning over the sportsbetting to private enterprise of the State Lottery. The idiot chose the state lottery. I knew that would fleece bettors and kill the action. They came out with -118 lines. LOL.

    I have my own gig in gambling so pretty much ignored the Montana sportsbetting. It was thru Capt. Jack that I learned they raised the juice to -125.

    The Montana Lottery's answer to not getting enough action? Raise the juice!
    "More importantly, mickey thought 8-4 was two games over .500. Argued about it. C'mon, man. Nothing can top that for math expertise. If GWAE ever has you on again, you can be sure I'll be calling in with that gem.'Nuff said." REDIETZ

  20. #20
    Originally Posted by mickeycrimm View Post
    I follow Captain Jack Andrews on Twitter. Not long ago he was touring around the states checking out the sportsbetting. He posted a pic of a place I recognized in Whitefish, Montana, Bulldogs.

    So I tweeted "Hey, Cap Jack, how do you like those -118 lines in Montana?"

    He tweeted back "They're actually -125....but I still found some value. Exorbitant juice doesn't make up for bad bookmaking."

    MWP, perhaps you can compare the lines where you are to the lines in Vegas and find some value.

    PS: The Governor had the choice of turning over the sportsbetting to private enterprise of the State Lottery. The idiot chose the state lottery. I knew that would fleece bettors and kill the action. They came out with -118 lines. LOL.

    I have my own gig in gambling so pretty much ignored the Montana sportsbetting. It was thru Capt. Jack that I learned they raised the juice to -125.

    The Montana Lottery's answer to not getting enough action? Raise the juice!

    That reminds me of a story regarding the Los Alamitos race track in California a few years back. The state take-out was around 20%. The state handle was going down. They decided to use Los Alamitos as an experiment to see if raising the take-out to 30% at Los Al would adversely affect the Los Al handle. At least that was the story. If Los Al survived the bump-up in juice, then California would raise the take-out to 30% at all state tracks.

    So they raised the take-out at Los Al to 30%. The handle plummeted. Big players quit. The handle went down 30% from the take-out being raised to 30%. So obviously the "experiment" was a complete failure.

    What did the state of California do? They raised the take-out to almost 30% state-wide anyway. The whole thing was a sham. They were going to raise it no matter what.

    And that is why race betting is dying. Los Al, meanwhile, with the reduced handle, had to cut their racing days from four to three a week.

    Yeah, state IQ is nothing to brag about.

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