Originally Posted by
accountinquestion
Originally Posted by
redietz
And Half Smoke just did a good job summarizing why sports betting and coin flipping do not belong in the same strategical universe. In sports betting, the next result, because it's ATS, is entirely dependent on the past. Especially early in a limited sports season like college football.
The original reason for the moniker "The Wise Guys Contest" was because contestants, in the initial format 35 years ago, had to make choices for next week's games without knowing what the lines would be. This is because the contest deadline at the time (9 PM EST; 6 PM Pacific) overlapped the initial line posting coming out of the Stardust, which was game by game. So you had to be a real "Wise Guy" to anticipate and make plays on lines that hadn't yet been posted. This is, of course, not the case with coin flipping, as prior results do not influence the lines to come, so to speak.
The reason coin-flipping does not share a similar strategy is that the edge in a coin-flip doesn't change. You can't vary your bet based on your edge only on the past results.
I'm going to ask Redietz a question in a respectful manner since that is how he's approached this thread and not just going off on APs.
Lets assume you had a source of really great handicapping and a book who had lines all over the place. With some lines reasonable and some way off. Would it not make sense to vary your bet size according to how far off the line was from the handicapper's line?
Thats all this talk of EV is except EV is calculating it down to a number utilizing historical results/stats.
What part of this do you disagree with or find flawed?
Most of it.
You have to understand the nature of why lines are made. They are NOT made to accurately reflect the probable outcomes of the two teams meeting. They ARE made to balance the books given the bettors who are wagering on a particular site.
So, what may seem to be radically out there or "incorrect" lines are likely reactions to wagers already made and thus seeking counterbalancing wagers to ensure profit or, if no wagers have been made, are simply the lines the books feel can anticipate the distribution of wagers likely to occur at that particular book.
Deciding whether a line is more right or wrong without having intimate knowledge of the teams is basically flying blind. You are relying on the wagers made by people of unknown expertise or you are evaluating, if no wagers have been made, the expertise of a population of likely wagerers at a particular site, who may or may not be more expert than you or the general population. You are, if you have little foundational expertise yourself, simply guessing.
I could go on for an hour or two, but this is fundamental stuff. It is the basic, vanilla context of sports betting. If you don't know this, you shouldn't be wagering.
I'm just going to undercut the "historical" argument with this -- and it's painfully obvious: You have no idea who is betting how much and you therefore have no real idea the expertise behind the money for any given line. I use this simple example all the time. A Chinese billionaire who likes teams with blue helmets could be the reason an entire array of lines being what they are any given week. Unless you know the Chinese billionaire is betting the way he is and is therefore the rationale for where the lines are, you are at sea UNLESS you have intimate working knowledge of the teams and can authoritatively say, "These lines are wrong." If, unbeknownst to you, the Chinese billionaire dies and his son starts betting teams with bird nicknames the following week, unless you know that, you are again totally lost and historicity is going to get you killed. That is, unless you have intimate working knowledge of the sport and the teams. A far fetched example, but the analogy applies to any number of cartels helmed by anyone from Billy Walters to teams of Chinese programmers to the old Score Lock of the Year crowd to people rigging games. Lefty Rosenthal's initial arrest and why he headed west, as I recall, was for rigging games.
Unless you yourself have expertise, you have no way of deciding if lines are wrong or right. This is Sports Betting History 101 stuff. Not sophisticated. Everyone knows it, at least in sports betting.
And finally, I think the pandemic generated opportunities with players out and massive line moves for a span of about 18 months where people could take advantage of "slow lines" and all that (note I didn't call them "soft," which is inappropriate). These transient opportunities, I believe, plumped up the chests of both line-shopping APs and handicappers (who do literally everything "APs" do plus) in a way that was confidence-inspiring. Those 18 months are in the rear-view mirror. Looking in that mirror isn't going to help you today. Welcome to the real world.
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