Making It Interesting (Sports Betting Thread)

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

MalkinIsMyHomeboy

thank you sir

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

I love the Nuggets to win the Western Conference at +150. It’s hard for me to imagine them losing before the conference finals and they will be favorites in them save for an injury

[mikey]

What terrible value.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

It should be minus odds imo so it’s good value. The Nuggets won the championship last year without being challenged at all

the Celtics are -140 to win the East. that is terrible value

[mikey]

The current #2 team in the West, and they have to win three playoff series...even in the circus clown league where there's only a handful of competitive teams, that's just bad value. Parlaying three seven-game series and getting 3:2 on it...particularly from a team that isn't even pulling away from anyone in their conference...

Worst road record in the top 5 in the West. Worst in-conference record of the only three teams in the West.

That's cheeks. Butt chalk.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

lol k

how much of the playoffs did you watch last year?

[mikey]

Oh, you're betting on last year's games? Well, that should be easy then...

[MWB]

I don’t know a whole lot about betting yet, but that seems like good value. A lot of nba regular season trends are tough to trust because of how little the teams value the regular season.

[mikey]

If this team was a dream team and was all alone, head and shoulders above the West...then, sure, that's fine...they're one of three teams, they're one home loss from being in big trouble in a series...he's parlaying 12 wins in a span of 12 to 21 games and only getting 3:2. It's horrendous.

Now, I'm a bigger value guy than most. So, I'd never consider touching that...that's something I might have done 15 years ago because of how good I thought the Nuggets were. But unless you're uniquely good at knowing player evaluation and team tactics, and then can project what an easy run they'll have in three series that have not yet been established, it's just a silly bet.

Their record against the 6, 7, 8 seeds is 4-5. Hardly confidence inspiring.

They've won of 8 of 10, so it's also bad timing. You want to wait for them to maybe drop three in a row. Go down 1-0 in a series. Then you try to get the value back if you really believe in the team. But this the pinnacle of sucker's time. Bad timing, awful value. Just a bad bet, conceptually.

[mikey]

What a big fat cover by those Long Beach goons.

9 for 9 on bets so far in march madness. Including 3 for 3 on a 12 leg parlay...$10 pays a million.

Let's goooooo

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

Oh, you're betting on last year's games? Well, that should be easy then...

I'll take that as a no

mikey, I know you're smarter than this. I'm not mad; just disappointed

[mikey]

I'm actually saying that back to you. You're a computer programmer, you must have some sort of math/logic back there somewhere. This bet is bad value. You're being played.

It may win. I'm not saying that. I'm saying betting like this is fundamentally flawed.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

this is why I’m disappointed mikey


I feel like any good bettor knows how to balance qualitative and quantitative analysis. All the stats you posted are real, yeah, but there’s a lot of context to them. The biggest one being that Jokic is on the precipice of winning his third MVP in 4 years (should’ve been four in a row but voter fatigue lead to Embiid winning it last year) and he and his team have been coasting in the regular season after winning last year’s title; mostly just trying to stay healthy for the playoffs


the NBA is different than the NHL where teams and players don’t have to try as hard during the regular season because overall the better players/teams can win. In particular it’s extraordinarily rare that the 5+ seeds will beat 1-4 and the Nuggets with Jokic breezed through the playoffs last year


so you’re right that I’m a computer programmer and a numbers guy (I have a physics degree). Like I said, their odds should be minus, not plus

[mikey]

I have hit 34 of 36 bets today so far.

My two losses...
South Dak St. +16.5 (they lost by 17)
Colo State (used a no sweat bet there only because My buddy works for them, so I'll just get that back)

This is the most bets I have ever won In a day before and one time I was in Vegas for March Madness haha

They're offering 180:1 to walk away from that 12 leg parlay I have up there right now...

[mikey]

Well...it finally came to an end. Drake falls to Wazzou. Oh well...hell of a run.

Lost in all this, it seems mimh doesn't understand or doesn't care for value betting...for folks that aren't big into gambling. This Nuggets team is getting +150 to win the Conference. The 1996 Chicago Bulls were getting about +180.

Hope it hits because it's gotta be a nice sized bet to even make it worth it...

[MWB]

I’m not sure which side of this argument is right, but that seems like a cherry picked year. Was +180 before the season, when Jordan was just coming back, Orlando had just beaten Chicago (with Jordan) in the previous season playoffs, and many considered the shaq and penny led magic to be the next great team? Or was it in March when it was evident that Chicago was known to be historically good?

[Orlando Penguin]

What is ‘value’ anyway? If Nuggets is his prediction, then why not bet it at the plus odds? Are the Wolves better ‘value’? If the Wolves get whacked 1st round, that value is a big fat zero.

Meanwhile, I wanna know how the f you came up with that 34-2 run, @mikey. That’s otherworldly. After yesterday, I feel like a basketball dumbass.

[mikey]

That's a good question...what is value?

There's nothing better than a winning bet, we all know that. What I've come to realize (vs younger me) is that no matter what you do - whether its an analytical approach, whether you're the best at diagnosing the game you're betting, whatever it is...you're going to be wrong...and you're going to be wrong a lot.

So, I evolved my strategy with that realization in mind. NFL game that's +275 or better? Auto bet. NHL game that's +250 or better? Auto bet.

I used to try to make parlays with -110, -200, -250, etc. all kinds of things like that...but then you need 3, 4, 5 events to go your way just to get ok value. Why bet on five coin tosses to make a buck, when you get just be right 1 out of 3 times to make the same buck? Again, assuming you don't have special powers, of course.

I'd put my hockey knowledge against anyone's on the planet...and still, I'll take a good value bet because you just don't know...games are tight. 20-25% of all games go to overtime. It's a tight league.

So, yeah, bottom line: I agree. If he thinks the Denver Nuggets are gonna win it all. Load up. That's fine, I hope it wins. But he's buying at just about the worst time, to date. And he's getting 1996 Chicago Bulls type of odds, which the Nuggets surely are not and are not close to. So, if I was serious about betting them, I'd look for a better entry point because he's parlaying three series at -500, -350, and -150 to get where he's going...it just doesn't need to happen at game 70 or where ever they're at. It's not a top 5 offense or defense, they're weak on the road, and they're weak against their potential first round opponents - and I get the NBA is an absolute joke and teams don't play some of the games and all that - but I'm going to need a little bit better of a look than weak chalk to consider future bet like this...

While Denver is hot, I might be sizing up a play down the table - which are probably +1200 or greater. And then hope I can circle back for something with a little bit of incentive later with Denver. +150 on a future bet is just bad.

[mikey]

Meanwhile, I wanna know how the f you came up with that 34-2 run, @mikey. That’s otherworldly. After yesterday, I feel like a basketball dumbass.

Honestly, it was a combination of reading two quick things about fast teams vs slow teams. Legit top 10 off/def teams that can win versus high seeds that probably can't and then a little bit of luck...because this week was the first college basketball I've watched this year.

But yeah, hit almost everything yesterday...missed on Mtl/Van, missed on Drake, and thank god I missed on Drake first because if that ending to Samford and Kansas had any bearing on me winning a million dollars, I would have ripped my c*ck off and thrown it so hard I would have impaled someone. You can review every single thing forever...you can add points minutes of game time after the play without even notifying anyone...you're sitting there reviewing if the clock should be at 4:59 left in the 1H instead of 4:58...and yet, the biggest play of the game, where you call a tournament ending foul that wasn't close to a foul - now your hands are tied?!?! **** all the way off with that garbage...

Either way, rent is going to be free for the second month in a row it looks like, so I can't complain about that...

[Orlando Penguin]

Meanwhile, I wanna know how the f you came up with that 34-2 run, @mikey. That’s otherworldly. After yesterday, I feel like a basketball dumbass.

.because this week was the first college basketball I've watched this year.

This might be the most infuriating thing I read the entire day.

[Orlando Penguin]

That's a good question...what is value?

There's nothing better than a winning bet, we all know that. What I've come to realize (vs younger me) is that no matter what you do - whether its an analytical approach, whether you're the best at diagnosing the game you're betting, whatever it is...you're going to be wrong...and you're going to be wrong a lot.

So, I evolved my strategy with that realization in mind. NFL game that's +275 or better? Auto bet. NHL game that's +250 or better? Auto bet.

I used to try to make parlays with -110, -200, -250, etc. all kinds of things like that...but then you need 3, 4, 5 events to go your way just to get ok value. Why bet on five coin tosses to make a buck, when you get just be right 1 out of 3 times to make the same buck? Again, assuming you don't have special powers, of course.

I'd put my hockey knowledge against anyone's on the planet...and still, I'll take a good value bet because you just don't know...games are tight. 20-25% of all games go to overtime. It's a tight league.

This is a sensible explanation. Too many times I hear people scream that a pick 'HAS NO VALUE' and they never explain themselves. I admire people who can just have that automatic filter on +275 or better, etc. I know someone who was planning to throw $10 on every ML underdog in the first round no matter who it was or what the odds were. I told him that I'd thought he'd win 5 games total in the 1st round. He'd have won 5 out of the 16 games just yesterday and with the Oakland & Duquesne wins probably would have been close to break-even.

[mikey]

Dukes ad Oakland winning was +350 and +700, respectively. Remove the 16's because they really don't win. And bam...you're most of the way there. And then if you're someone like you that can apply advanced knowledge of the sport...maybe you skip an underdog or beef up another, and you stretch your value.

And/or you're aware of "stuff" going on...Duquesne's coach is retiring, LeBron gave them shoes...they're gonna be hot to start. Do 3 point shooting teams travel well? Do they start on time with what feels like a 10 or 11 am start? Race to 10, Race to 15, 1H cover. Same thing with Long Beach. Momentum, coach is on the way out it seems, Arizona is a perennial choke artist...1H cover. Maybe a race to 10.

The cool thing about this is the shortness of the game (minus endless official's reviews to ensure that everyone is sitting properly on the bench with their seatbelts securely fastened). That's a player advantage. Short games benefit the untalented and allow for randomness to have a bigger role.

If I play Michael Jordan 1 on 1 for 48 minutes...the scoreboard would not be able to properly house the score that he beats me by. But...if I played Michael Jordan in 30 second game of 1 on 1 and he misses his shot, I get it and throw it full court as far as I can and have it bank in...I can win, theoretically. I can...I won't...but I could. In a 48 minute scenario (or really, anything above 30 seconds), it's impossible for me to win.

So there's ways to chip away at a game with little intuitive things...so even Long Beach wasn't close in the second half because the game got too long for them, I still benefited from the circumstances and I got good value for what it was...

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

“value” is hard to define because it’s so subjective. It’s really just what you believe to be the odds of something happening vs what you can find at a book. If you believe something has a much higher chance of happening than a book has it as, that’s great value. This is typically going to be something more efficient with longer shots (a team might be +3000 but you might believe their odds should be at +2000, so you get great value on that bet) but it can apply to favorites as well

in this example, I think it’s very unlikely that the Nuggets end up losing in the first two rounds (they have one of the best players of all time and the best starting five in the West) and they’ll almost certainly be favorites in the conference finals so soon their +150 odds will turn into minus odds. Which is value


mikey disagrees with me but also mikey doesn’t watch basketball so I can quickly discard his opinion. Like even if the Thunder who are currently the 1 seed finish with a better record, anyone who follows basketball knows their biggest weakness is not having any presence at center and Jokic will eat them up in a playoff series

[mikey]

I guess I'm failing to communicate it...but I'm not talking about basketball when I'm saying this stuff. I'll concede all the basketball knowledge, I don't care. "Value", the way that I'm using it here, is actually way more objective than your "well, they have the best starting five in the West" because my value has a parity point. If most games are 50/50 and you get X far away from the vig, you're getting - perhaps - undue value.

This is another instance where I feel like I'm talking past you for whatever reason, and maybe it's my fault...but the basketball is unimportant here. It's important - to some degree, I don't know your basketball knowledge...I imagine it isn't elite, but I don't know - to your bet, of course. But...uhhh...I don't know where else to go with it. I guess it's just a philosophical thing at this point.

Like, is there any reasonable circumstance in the last five years where you would have considered an NHL or NFL bet of this nature? +150 to win the Conference at game 65 (or game 12) of the regular season or where ever it's at?

[Beveridge]

They're offering 180:1 to walk away from that 12 leg parlay I have up there right now...

I think if I were in that position I would have taken it.