Las Vegas is Not Disneyland, Part 8 (Cont. 3)

[LQQKer]

OK, I did have something serious to add. In Whiteshoe's post he mentioned that:

" "avg. number of points that teams win or lose by, compared to the line". This number hasn't changed much either way (for any sport) since 1984. "

Well, I see it differently for the NFL sides where I calc about a 1 point drop in the average from the 80's to the 90's indicating a sharper line over the years.

Am I missing something?

[WhiteShoes]

LQQKER: The NFL maybe, but not any
sport with 1000 to 2000 games per year.

Reno: The NBA totals example of two
teams averaging 220 points (league
ave = 200) making the line 240 has been
used since the ealy 80's I thought. Going
back to 1985 it looks as if this method
was employed most of the time.

w.s.

[Underdog7]

If I'm not mistaken, the highest total for a "regular" game as far as I remembered was 248 to 249'. This was in the mid 80's, Denver Nuggest vs Lakers.


****Note: Exhibition game (like all star) was 260. ****

[Underdog7]

whoops, that was Nuggets.

[WhiteShoes]

yeah Underdog7, those were the good old
days when players still could shoot close
to 50% and ran the court to boot. Though
now that the Czar has been de-throned
maybe "stall-ball" will lose it's appeal.
(it's good to lose by a less than we
would have??) Even college fans got
sick of seeing the four corners, and
now all we see is players stalling so
they launch an off-balance 3 half the
time. Do I miss real basketball?
Yeeeeeeeees. Do I miss being able to
bet on real basketball....yessssss!!!
Clang

w.s.

[reno]

Maximum Value, if you take all the teams in the NBA and calculate the average margin of victory for home teams, that is the league average home court value that I'm talking about. Usually, it's around 4 to 5 points each season. If home teams win by an average of, say 4 points, then visitors lose by an average of 4 points. The home advantage is always equal to the road disadvantage. If you calculate exactly what the league home court advantage is, say, 4.0 and what percentage of games the home teams win, say, 66.0%, you can figure out exactly what 1 point is worth. In this case, it would be 4.0%

A key to success in sportsbetting is doing correlation studies, regression-to-mean studies, and predictability studies. Say you have a great team that wins by an average margin of 10 at home and by 6 on the road. Therefore, on a neutral court, their average of margin would be +8. The home court is worth 2 point to this team. However, when handicapping, I would ignore this fact and use the league average over the previous 3 years, say 4.0, because my studies show it is a more accurate predictor of home court advantage than whatever a team's current home court advantage might be.

White Shoes, I arrived in Vegas sometime in 83 or 84. Crab had killed Vegas in NBA totals before I arrived. I never got a chance to beat up on the ridiculously weak early NBA totals.

I did a study on NBA totals a few months ago, and even though the league is much lower scoring than 10 years ago, the totals, on average, fall no closer to the betting line than they did then.

Mike Fratello will now be the Czar of unemployment. He'll get 5 mil next year for playing golf and sipping pina coladas at the pool.

[WhiteShoes]

Reno: What do you think is going to happen
with internet betting in the U.S. and
in LV for that matter. Since Internet
betting is currently prohibited in Nevada,
are the offshore books telling NV residents they can't bet over the net? (this seems
to me like one of those unenforceable laws)

w.s

[MAXIMUM VALUE]

Reno

Thanks for the information.

I would like to pick your brain one more time on this subject.

I have always believed that by keeping track of both home and away this would keep you very close to true form of teams ability.

For example there are some bad teams who for some reason tend to play better on the road vs the spread.

This example might only last a short while but if you keep current numbers say last 30 days the negitive swing should reveal itself before long.

I just seems to me that the name of the game is to figure out which way a team is headed up or down before the general public does and current home and away numbers seems to put you on that track the fastest.

Any comment on this would be greatly appeciated

MV

[Don Best]

-

[WhiteShoes]

Don Best: I think Vegas could clean up
if they went on-line within Nevada....if
they could open up business to the rest
of America, of course, they would really
do so. The credit card transaction
problem seems like a no-brainer (of
course the real reasons are more
involved) Just make credit card
transactions illegal with respect
to on-line casinos but don't outlaw
the casino itself. This will prevent
"little Johnny" as they put it, from
becoming a hopeless crack addict overnight
(as well as the compulsive gambler with
no money and a visa card) and will allow people with "real money" to gamble. The
kyle bill goes beyond sense though so it's
a bit hard to comment on with out realizing
that the motivation of the bill is heavily
biased, and for all the wrong reasons. yada,
yada, yada. Wish Bill Clinton would just
admit he bets heavily on the razorbacks


w.s

[WhiteShoes]

Max Value: I think that Reno is talking
about the "return to the mean" phenomena
that occurs often. So a team that plays
badly at home may have other reasons for
doing so. Whether it shows or not, teams
do have a homecourt advantage, and using
a common number for a "small league" such
as pro football or pro basketball is the
best way to determine how the homecourt
will affect a game.
There's no simple method for coming up with a "hard number", imo, that is far superior
than another method. Some may provide a
"more consistent" road map to looking for
plays but none will beat the 11-10 by
themselves. (for an appreciable number
of plays over time)

w.s.

[reno]

Maximum Value, if you can figure out which way teams are headed, you should become a millionaire, eventually.

Just because a team is on a hot streak on the road and ,say, covering a high percentage of games, what makes you think it will continue? At some point, the team must regress to the mean. Also, can you tell if the line has compensated for this fact? I don't believe in small numbers unless there is some strong, tangible basis. If you flip a coin 10 time and it comes up heads 9 times, then heads is on a hot streak and, by your logic, you should bet on heads the next flip.

[cashusking]

reno, regression to the mean sounds impressive but also a lot like the LAW OF AVERAGES to me which will make your bankroll real AVERAGE in a hurry.

also, what happened to crab? if the nba totals are no closer to the results now why isn't he still around killing them?

[reno]

Cashusking, the Crab killed Vegas in NBA totals in the EARLY 80s, before I arrived
in Vegas. By the time I arrived--probably my first basketball season was 84--the big mistakes in the lines that the Crab had exploited were history. What I stated was that the NBA totals now, on the average, fall no closer to the betting line then they did in the MID 80s, after Crab lost his big edge. I never had access to spread books for the early 80s, so I don't know how close to the lines the totals fell compared to the the mid 80s or now.

The law of averages does tend to make most sportsbettors' bankrolls average, or less than average, over time. That is the bookie's edge. The Linesmaker is generally more conservative than the players, usually opting for a longer-term "average" line. Players, generally speaking, are more oriented toward recent trends: hot teams and hot pitchers. Remember: the majority of players--I've seen estimates from 75% to 90%--lose, so regardless of their handicapping strategies, their bankrolls are destined to become below average, or less than what they started with.

[MAXIMUM VALUE]

Thanks Whites Shoes and Reno for helping me better understand the" home court edge".

MV