Remember guys, always ask yourself "Why would the book be offering me this bet?". Carolina +3.5 imo is a huge BSP(bar stool pundit) pick this week, and Vegas usually wins in these cases(by usually I mean around 55%, so I'm certainly not saying its a lock). I already gave my reasoning for this in the "Carolina will lose this week" thread, so just look there if you want it.
Imo Baltimore is the most undervalued team in the early season. Football Outsiders loves them, and I usually find their analysis spot on. They are much better than the public percieves them to be, and they represent great value both this week and in coming weeks imo.
I also am loving the Den/NO under. An interesting post I found over at Fezzik's place:
There's a couple of NFL games totalled in the 50's this week. Games with a 50+ total are 53-65-2, 55.1% going back to 1989 (57.7% since 2002 for those that believe the market has sharpened up in the last few years).
It's only 120 games so not much sample, right? I agree. The thing is though, pretty much every single market I have looked at across the board- even fringe stuff like CFL and WNBA - has always shown the same pattern: high totals go Under >50% of the time AND low totals go Over >50% of the time as well.
At this point it's not about handicapping the game anymore. All these small subsets add up together into one big subset and point to a very clear conclusion: the market in general tends to inflate big totals and "deflate" (couldn't think of a better word LOL) low totals.
I think the tendency should be stronger at the beginning of the year when there's an opportunity to overreact to a small number of games. I went ahead and played NO/Den Under 51 -107 for fear of losing the strong 51. No need to jump on GB/Dall just yet since it's an SNF game.
9/18/08 11:48 AM
PC is spot on here...
i don't think my previous explanation was very clear. so i will give it a simplistic attempt.
lets go back to the fictitious league, lets also pretend that we created all the teams fairly equal at least in the totals matchup. league average is 41. we play a couple weeks with our 8 team league, and we see that after 2 weeks that a single team played to totals below 35 both times, another single team played to a total above 47 both times. Since we created the league of equals we KNOW that we are simply looking in hindsight at a sampling. We know that it is just the natural distribution of scores.
in reality there are teams that have higher totals than the league average and there are teams that have lower totals than the league average, and there true mean is nowhere near the league average. However when you combine all the effects especially, 1) the sampling bias, 2) the public betting trends, it only points to real value on very high totals and real value on very low totals. you are seeing a small sample of what is to come and some teams overperform the total and others underperform it, but most of the league is more on par. just as we would expect in a natural distribution.
my lack of mathematical explanation notwithstanding, this is a real "trend" that isn't a traditionally -ev trend. it is a product of how totals are made. it is made from data. leaguewide though conclusions can only be made with the data that they have.
i noticed a very sharp bettor this week betting these totals. he probably bet 10 or 12 totals this week. however he actually handicaps totals based on performance but the performance data should mimick this system to a degree. in the case of this week it mimmicked it very well.
good job.
Baltimore will continue to be 2 unit plays for me until the public catches up to how good they are. I'm kinda pissed they have to play at Pit next because if they win there, then the public may finally catch on.
I by no means expected Baltimore to be 2-0 right now, so they are better than I expected. But what makes you say they are so good - ultimately, all they've done is beat 2 overwhelmingly bad divisional opponents at home. Not to discredit them, but they aren't making the playoffs IMO.
You guys who are into football betting should start reading Pro Football Prospectus and footballoutsiders.com a bit more. I mean no disrespect to footballguys by this, but I think FO is way more sharp when it comes to predicting outcomes than FBGs(but FBGs is easily the best fantasy football site online imo). Especially on the message board here on FBGs we see way too much results oriented thinking and way too many people interested in bragging about their predictions that happened to come true than to honestly look back at their predictions and evaluate whether they were actually good predictions or just 50/50(or worse) predictions that got lucky to hit.FO had Baltimore as the best team in their division and a 10 win team coming into the year I believe.
I won't go into all of the reasoning, but long story short is that the public and most of the square bettors simply look at record and not how they arrived at such a record. For example, the Browns ran insanely well last year to get the record they did. They avoided injuries, they had an easy schedule, and they flat out got lucky to win a few games in which they were outplayed by most metrics.
Conversely, the Ravens were a 13-3 team two years ago that ran horribly last year. Most people are now way underrating them as they just look at their record from last year.
Also, stop looking at just record. Imo point differential is just as important(if not moreseo) than record for determining future outcomes(although I'd agree with you that taking SOS is important when considering either). The Ravens aren't just 2-0; They are 2-0 with a 45-20 point differential.
Conversely everyone was all over Carolina this week because "OMG Carolina is 2-0 and Minnesota is 0-2...how can Minnesota possibly be favored??!!!"...but Carolina was barely ahead in point differential, had played an easier schedule, and the game was in Minnesota.
I've been learning a ton about sports betting these past few weeks, and I still have a lot to learn. Right now I'm betting $500 or $1000 per game and while I'm off to a good start, I'm by no means confident. I'd like to continue to improve to the point where I can bet significantly more and use sports betting as a second income to my pro poker career as early as the 2009 NFL season.
OP doesn't like much; I love some of these lines. That's why Vegas always wins.Tease Buffalo down to -6.5 and kill it. They will have no trouble with Oakland. (If this game was on Sunday, the line would've been like 13 or 14 points. Make no mistake; Chiefs are a CFL-caliber team right now and Oakland still sucks badly.)Denver-New Orleans O51.5 and be quick about it. It'll go up. Forget the high line; it's only a single touchdown higher than an average total, and these two teams might score 10 touchdowns between them. Carolina +3.5. 2-0 (including at San Diego) and now you add Steve Smith. What do you get? A team that shouldn't be -3.5 to Tarvaris Jackson. New England -13. Just beat the Jets on the road by how many? Dolphins just lost to Arizona on the road by how many? Don't fear the line - embrace it.NYG - ditto everything I just said. They might win by 30.
That was some very good insight. Thanks.
