Originally Posted by kewlJ View Post
Red, you really do make it hard to defend you.

You are wrong on the subject of EV. Just as you are wrong on the subject of anonymity for Advantage Players, especially at the professional level.

But go ahead, make your argument.
See, I think that "APs" are the ones who have it backwards.

First, if "EV" is such a generic word, committing to nothing mathematical, why use it at all? It still boils down to opinion regarding something. Dressing up opinions with the phrase "EV" has no value. Everyone has his own subjective estimation of personal "EV" for every situation, just as everyone has the proverbial asshole. So what's the value? You have a pseudo-mathematical language security blanket to justify this or that going forward?

Second, the population of folks who go around trying to solve machines or blackjack, and who think using the phrase "EV" is worthwhile in sports because they use the phrase for machine play or blackjack, is swamped and hugely outnumbered by the population of people trying to beat sports. The vast majority of people trying to beat sports are not going to go around declaring "EV" for a game of opinion. They WILL use ROI and historical data to frame past results, but they are not going to pretend they are dealing with coin flips and march out "EV" and mathematical pseudo-certainty as a way to estimate results going forward.

Assigning "EV" to sports betting is, from the origin point, kind of silly, as spreads are designed to balance wagering. They do not originate so as to accurately predict outcomes. Wagering can come from any direction, from any person or cartel, for any reason. Money is just money. It doesn't have to be rational, sophisticated, or even attempting to be right. Spreads are designed to balance money, so they also don't have to be rational or attempting to be right as long as they come close to balancing the books. Coin flips are always coin flips. Sports spreads can vary wildly depending on which son of a Chinese billionaire decides to dabble in what sport any given month. Sports spreads are not coin flips, and going forward you can't treat them like coin flips, so why adopt math terms for something that is not anchored in math?