Originally Posted by
redietz
Originally Posted by
coach belly
Do you that's why the ditz didn't accept Singer's challenge...because he could lose?
Coach, you're such a sharp dude, it's amazing. I wish you were doing my taxes.
LOL. I don't even take 32 NFL sides in a year. I may have taken 32 NFL sides the last two years -- not sure. Certainly the last three.
Mission, I've explained this before. You basically flip yourself from an 11/10 underdog to an 11/10 favorite if you get enough followers and you're betting the games yourself. So a 55% handicapper, depending on number of subscribers, needs to hit 50 or 51% to turn a profit if people are paying him after they win. It's an odds flip. If subscribers are long-term losers, they benefit. The handicapper benefits. If the clients can win on their own, then they don't benefit. Simple concept.
If the subscribers are long-term losers, then the only thing most would benefit from is not betting on sports anymore.
Even ignoring the subsets of the Picks they are buying in terms of W/L ratio, as variance is always going to be a factor, if your argument is that the odds are flipped in favor of the handicappers by selling picks, then the odds against the buyers are increased as compared to what they would normally be.
Specifically, assuming that they are buying the Picks
for something then they are going to, at a minimum, need variance not to be against them over a given sample since they have a bigger hill to climb.
You make an interesting comparison, so I will do the same:
Let's pretend we have one handicapper who hits 54% on an average line of -110 who has one person who buys the picks at $10/apiece...but only has to pay if it wins.
(100 * 100/110) + 10) * .5) - (100 * .5) = 0.45454545454
What does that mean? What it means is, in this scenario, he doesn't even have to hit 50% to have an expectation of profit. The reason why for that is because the amount he is selling the pick for does more than enough to overcome the expected vig on his bet because he only pays the vig on the bet if he wins and the amount the pick is being sold for more than covers that possibility.
On the other side, we have the guy who paid $10 for the same pick. Just to keep it fair, we're going to have him still bet the full $100:
(100 * 100/110) = 90.9090909091
Okay, so that's the return if he wins. Let's go ahead and give the win probability 54% and apply:
(90.9090909091 * .54) -10)) - (100 * .46) = -6.90909090909
Oh no! What happened?
Oh, that's right. He only wins $80.91 if his pick is a winner because he has to pay the ten dollars for the winning pick. Even if we assume that the handicapper hits 54% long-term, and that none of it is variance, our player is still losing...and is, in fact, worse off...because he's not betting enough relative to what he has to pay on his winning picks. However:
(100 * 100/110 * .5) - (100 * .5) = -4.54545454545
He could reduce his expected loss by doing what he was doing before---betting $100, eating the vig and taking his long-term expected win probability of 50%.
Now, there are a few caveats to all of this:
1.) The touts are actually probably better off because, if they are smart, they are not betting 1000% of what they are charging their clients (in total) if the picks win. Depending on the ratio of what they are betting compared to how much extra they stand to get from clients on their winning picks, they wouldn't even have to sniff 50% over the course of an individual season to be profitable.
It must be nice for them not to be able to lose absent betting too high in proportion to the customer funds coming in or just having a truly abysmal year.
2.) This assumes that the client IS betting 1000% of what he has to potentially pay for his winning picks.
But, do they disclose that? Do any of them tell the clients what their average bet is going to need to be, and what winning percentage will need to be hit, before the client is betting sufficiently to at least be
as well off as he would be on his own...assuming the win rate will even be hit...but also how much the client needs to be betting to overcome not only the vig, but also the added juice of paying for winners?
(200 * 100/110) = 181.81818182
(181.8181818182 -10) * .54) - (200 * .46) = 0.78181818182
Flip the odds. My ass. It's a goddamn free roll is what it is. The seller doesn't even have to hit 50% to be profitable as long as he keeps his amount bet roughly at or under 1000% of what the client pays him upon a win while the client has to bet roughly 2000% of what he has to pay the seller upon a win assuming that the 54% is actually maintained throughout the entire time he buys the picks.
The buyer is more reliant on the tout's continued success than the tout is. The tout's juice goes away and the client's juice is increased.
Hey, maybe a tout hits 54% long-term and a client is betting 2000%+ of whatever he is paying on winning picks. Maybe he's betting 10,000% of that. I'm not saying that none of the buyers benefit; I'm saying that most of the buyers do not understand the conditions that would actually have to come to pass for them to benefit, much of the time.