Confidence: Sunday Gambling Preview

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
http://central.sonsofsamhorn.net/nfl/confidence-sunday-gambling-preview/
 

Kliq

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 31, 2013
22,668
Something I think is super important in the Seattle/SD game (which I teased) is that Seattle played last Thursday night, while San Diego played that weird 11pm ET MNF game. That is a big difference between the two teams, Seattle is pretty lethal heading into games with a lot of time to study their opponent.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
Kliq said:
Something I think is super important in the Seattle/SD game (which I teased) is that Seattle played last Thursday night, while San Diego played that weird 11pm ET MNF game. That is a big difference between the two teams, Seattle is pretty lethal heading into games with a lot of time to study their opponent.
That's definitely a factor taken into consideration. It will be more important as the season goes on.
 

knucklecup

hi, I'm a cuckold
Jun 26, 2006
4,235
Chicago, IL
General consensus is that I suck at life but there's no doubt I'm better than most at gambling on the NFL. I always like to let a week or two pass before making a determination. Tommorow is the day of reckoning.

Let's do this.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
Thanks my friend. Let's see! Weeks 1-4 tend to be the nost difficult. Do you go to UT? If so congratulations on your moral victory yesterday.

JL
 

HomeRunBaker

bet squelcher
SoSH Member
Jan 15, 2004
30,096
My head scratcher of the week is NO favored by 6 on the road. Cleveland +6 is the official HRB Play of the Week.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
The Browns will be without their three best skilled position players on offense. 
WR Josh Gordon - suspension
RB Ben Tate - sprained knee
TE Jordan Cameron - shoulder
New Orleans will have a soft landing for their defense to rebound in week 2. If they can't stop this anemic offense then we know New Orleans defensive coordinator Rob Ryan needs to make some serious adjustments. 
 

soxfan121

JAG
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 22, 2002
23,043
SMU_Sox said:
New Orleans will have a soft landing for their defense to rebound in week 2. If they can't stop this anemic offense then we know New Orleans defensive coordinator Rob Ryan needs to make some serious adjustments. 
 
You are too kind. If New Orleans can't stop this Cleveland offense, they are just plain bad. I like Hoyer and root for him to succeed but trying to score points without those players is going to be very, very hard.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
I only need New Orleans to win. I hope Hoyer and any other non highly-picked QB have great days. The odds are stacked against those guys. Was there any QB more enjoyable in his prime than the patron saint of long-shots, Kurt Warner? Hoyer's former Patriot status is just another plus.
 

johnmd20

mad dog
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 30, 2003
61,996
New York City
HomeRunBaker said:
My head scratcher of the week is NO favored by 6 on the road. Cleveland +6 is the official HRB Play of the Week.
 
I agree and I think that's the sucker line. They are begging for people to take NO. Watch for a late Cleveland score to cover the spread here. Cleveland could even win the game.
 

HomeRunBaker

bet squelcher
SoSH Member
Jan 15, 2004
30,096
johnmd20 said:
 
I agree and I think that's the sucker line. They are begging for people to take NO. Watch for a late Cleveland score to cover the spread here. Cleveland could even win the game.
Great minds.
 

johnmd20

mad dog
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 30, 2003
61,996
New York City
SMU_Sox said:
I only need New Orleans to win. I hope Hoyer and any other non highly-picked QB have great days. The odds are stacked against those guys. Was there any QB more enjoyable in his prime than the patron saint of long-shots, Kurt Warner? Hoyer's former Patriot status is just another plus.
 
I'm confused by your column, in that you're only picking games as teasers. That seems like an unfair way to pick games. Basically you're giving yourself 6 points in every game, but that is not the way teasers work, obviously, because it's multiple games. One loss and the whole bet is a loss.
 
How are you going to track your results?
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
John,

I rarely bet anything but teasers and tiny parlays. The parlays are typically for fun but last year I hit quite a few 5 play parlays. Last year by mid season roughly 82% of my teasers hit. If you randomly put together teasers you need each teaser to hit 72.36% of the time to break even. 72.36% x 72.36% = 52.36%. The typical casino return on a teaser is if you risk 1 unit you can win an additional .91 units. I have to win 52.36% of my plays to break even at that rate. The average 6 point teaser hits 68% of the time. If my system gets back on track that's a comfortable margin for success. If 80% of teasers teams hit you will get a return of 22.24% per week (on average).
 

Stitch01

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
18,155
Boston
Teasers and Parlays are both very fun (and I bet a lot of them!) but if you are serious about gambling to make money they are bad (teasers) and very bad (parlays) with the major exception of teasing through the key 3 and 7 numbers (so 7.5-8.5 favorites, 1.5-2.5 point underdogs) preferably getting favorable juice (i.e even money 2-teamers, which are fewer and farther between these days)
 
At even money you can almost bet any six point teaser that goes through key numbers blind of the teams and turn a profit).  If you cant tease through the key numbers of 3 and 7, you are 100% better off betting the games straight up in the long run, the extra points dont make up for the fact that you lose by going 1 and 1.  Stanford Wong's Sharp Sports Betting is a good place to get started (those teasers through the key numbers are known as basic strategy or "Wong" teasers) if you are more interested on the math details, he might have a website with an updated database of score results as well, its been 18 months or so since I last checked for the database.
 
This is a really basic overview.
http://www.onlinefootballbetting.net/wong-teasers/
 
Correlated parlays and correlated teasers (i.e. tease a massive underdog with the over) are also an exception, but books will decline the most obvious ones so they are hard to find.
 
Outside of those exceptions, doing teasers and parlays are really just burning expected value.  There's nothing wrong with playing them (I do it a ton!) because they're fun, but the idea that they are more profitable than picking games straight up is a sportsbook inspired illusion.
 
As careful as you need to be about small sample sizes careful extrapolating small sample sizes on teasers because there is (to use a professional term) a shit ton of variance, especially if you are betting 3 teamers and up.  You can go a long time before hitting that week where you whiff on 3 of 6 teaser legs, but it is painful as fuck when it comes (looking at you Bears, Lions, and Saints)
 
You also have to be careful extrapolating lines to teaser lines as if the juice is shaded at all they won't match up (i.e. 7.5 line wont tease to 1.5), some online books will shade to make sure you can't through key numbers, and more will shade or feed you a sharp line if you bet too successfully at the teasers.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,840
SMU_Sox said:
John,

I rarely bet anything but teasers and tiny parlays. The parlays are typically for fun but last year I hit quite a few 5 play parlays. Last year by mid season roughly 82% of my teasers hit. If you randomly put together teasers you need each teaser to hit 72.36% of the time to break even. 72.36% x 72.36% = 52.36%. The typical casino return on a teaser is if you risk 1 unit you can win an additional .91 units. I have to win 52.36% of my plays to break even at that rate. The average 6 point teaser hits 68% of the time. If my system gets back on track that's a comfortable margin for success. If 80% of teasers teams hit you will get a return of 22.24% per week (on average).
 
So, your column is intended to tell us what games you like in teasers, but not how to bundle them together?
 
Of the 5 or 6 games you listed, how did you actually bet them?
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
Good analysis, Stich. I see Wong teasers as a bonus. Recently though Wong teasers tend to just break even and a lot has changed in scoring since his analysis. 72.5% of wong teasers hit from 2000-2011. That's better than 68% but it's still not ideal.
 

Stitch01

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
18,155
Boston
Being able to bet blind and turn a profit is pretty close to as good as your going to find while paying a 5% vig, so I think that 72% number was actually pretty awesome.  Sigh, arbitrage never lasts in the gambling world.
 
Completely agree that its harder to beat the game just by betting Wong's blind today, your scoring point and books shading the lines after getting killed on Wong teasers work against you.  
 
Even Wong teases now being break even tells us that we should be betting teasers close to never if we're gambling with the objective of maximizing $$$ and not for fun (I assume all of us here are doing the latter)
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
Do you want to know my plays? My plan was to give 5 to 6 teams I liked a week and let the reader pick his or her pairs based on what was most persuasive to them.


My plays last week:
I had 3 teasers all at +6. 1) Denver-Seattle (missed), 2) Pittsburgh-New Orleans (missed), and 3) New England- Buffalo (hit).
For each bet I wagered .5 units to win .455. So I ended up losing .545 units. I can track my overall bet record and the % of teams that hit their end of the teaser.

Keep the feedback coming! Thank you.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
5% vig? I'm assuming 9 to 11% on average. This obviously depends on the casino and the day.
 

Stitch01

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
18,155
Boston
Id be interested to see you track your actual plays and track them vs. just betting all the sides that you like rather than the teasers.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
You don't see those nice even returns very often although there are exceptions (instead of moving a line the casino will increase the reward by lowering the vig).
 

Stitch01

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
18,155
Boston
SMU_Sox said:
5% vig? I'm assuming 9 to 11% on average. This obviously depends on the casino and the day.
You could get 2 team Wong's at even money for a long time so there was basically no vig on those.  The 5% was just a simplified description based on the standard -110 juice line on a purportedly 50/50 proposition.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
Does everyone here know what a Wong teaser is? This is a potential educational piece to publish.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
All of my teasers were -110. I do everything online though. It would be interesting to see what the vigs are at the actual casions around the US. Does anyone routinely pay more or less than -110 for a 2 team 6 point teaser?
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
Stitch01 said:
I linked to an overview
I think a getting to know the odds might make an interesting piece. A gambling dictionary might be needed as well. Thanks for the link stich!
 

Deathofthebambino

Drive Carefully
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2005
41,947
I'm seeing a ton of lines this weekend that fall within the Wong teaser territory, so I just threw a couple in for short money.  I did 3 team, 6 point teasers, which pay +156 at my site.
 
San Diego +8.5 @ Atlanta
Giants +8 vs. Houston
Auburn -2.5 @ Kansas State
 
and
 
UCONN +8 @ South Florida
Wake Forest +8.5 vs. Army
North Carolina +8.5 @ East Carolina
 
We'll see how it goes.
 

Dgilpin

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 19, 2006
3,774
PA
Deathofthebambino said:
I'm seeing a ton of lines this weekend that fall within the Wong teaser territory, so I just threw a couple in for short money.  I did 3 team, 6 point teasers, which pay +156 at my site.
 
San Diego +8.5 @ Atlanta
Giants +8 vs. Houston
Auburn -2.5 @ Kansas State
 
and
 
UCONN +8 @ South Florida
Wake Forest +8.5 vs. Army
North Carolina +8.5 @ East Carolina
 
We'll see how it goes.
Oklahoma -7 at WVU , seems like a good candidate for a teaser
 

johnmd20

mad dog
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 30, 2003
61,996
New York City
SMU_Sox said:
Do you want to know my plays? My plan was to give 5 to 6 teams I liked a week and let the reader pick his or her pairs based on what was most persuasive to them.


My plays last week:
I had 3 teasers all at +6. 1) Denver-Seattle (missed), 2) Pittsburgh-New Orleans (missed), and 3) New England- Buffalo (hit).
For each bet I wagered .5 units to win .455. So I ended up losing .545 units. I can track my overall bet record and the % of teams that hit their end of the teaser.

Keep the feedback coming! Thank you.
 
I understand now. Thanks for the explanation. I didn't see the New England or the Buffalo pick on the site but I did see the Titans pick. ;)
 
Thanks again, I know gambling is really tough and that's why I don't gamble on sports. But you do great work. Gambling took over my life for a while, so I just had to stop. (it wasn't the money, it was the insanity every weekend) But I love reading about it and following along. Thanks again!
 

Stitch01

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
18,155
Boston
I think I like Atl, Phi, and NO if you can get them under 7 and 10 and if I had to bet it NE.  Miami and Carolina, sort of a coin flip.  Could change later.
 
What am I actually going to do this week after the discussion above?  Probably bet a shit ton of teasers :p
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
I spent about two hours puring through the games to get into what went wrong. That New Orleans defense is shockingly bad.
 

Super Nomario

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 5, 2000
14,012
Mansfield MA
SMU_Sox said:
I spent about two hours puring through the games to get into what went wrong. That New Orleans defense is shockingly bad.
Yeah, I don't get it. They had the 4th-best defense in the league last year in both scoring and yardage (10th in DVOA). This year they are 31st in scoring 30th in yardage, 31st in DVOA. As far as I know, they didn't suffer any significant losses to the unit in the offseason or to injury, and they replaced Malcolm Jenkins with Jairus Byrd. I thought they would have an above-average defense, but instead they are garbage.
 

Stitch01

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
18,155
Boston
The Grantland podcast said in week one that they played safeties way off and didn't play physical with WRs off the line and the Falcons just crushed against that scheme. Not sure if they did that against Cleveland but would be real curious.

FO says Vacaro has been bad and is a main culprit. Also suggests more three safety looks.
 

HomeRunBaker

bet squelcher
SoSH Member
Jan 15, 2004
30,096
Stitch01 said:
NO home and NO away are like different franchises
Exactly. NO in Atlanta vs Ryan and NO at home playing in a desperate game vs Cassell and the Peterson-less Vikings are two completely different animals.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
Stitch01 said:
The Grantland podcast said in week one that they played safeties way off and didn't play physical with WRs off the line and the Falcons just crushed against that scheme. Not sure if they did that against Cleveland but would be real curious.

FO says Vacaro has been bad and is a main culprit. Also suggests more three safety looks.
The achillies heel for New Orleans defense is their terrible LB personnel and play. Rob Ryan played his safeties back in order to compensate for horrible LB coverage problems. Against the Browns I saw similar issues. The blown assignments were alarming and there were too many of them.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
The home/road splits for the Saints didn't exist in 2011 and 2012. Do you really think 2013's outlier like level split will continue? They are a dome team so it always will be there but it shouldn't be to this degree. Statistically New Orleans outplayed the Browns (dvoa).
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,840
http://espn.go.com/espn/chalk/story/_/id/11540512/bettor-loses-100k-payday-5-bet-philadelphia-eagles-last-second-win
 
A $5 bet was poised to turn into a $100,000 payday before the Indianapolis Colts melted down Monday night.
 
A bettor in the Delaware Sports Lottery picked 14 consecutive NFL winners against the spread over the weekend. His 15th pick would have turned the $5, 15-team parlay card into a $100,000 winner. Unfortunately, they took the Colts to beat the Philadelphia Eagles by more than a field goal.
 

Stitch01

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
18,155
Boston
Ats 2010: 4-4 home 3-5 road
Ats 2011: 8-0 home 4-4 road
Ats 2012: 4-4 home 4-4 road
Ats 2013: 7-1 home 1-7 road

I'm not expecting last year type splits, but I do expect a real split and I don't think the market has adjusted enough in recent years
 

johnmd20

mad dog
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 30, 2003
61,996
New York City
HomeRunBaker said:
I'd at least hope the guy got his hands on some cash and made a day trip to Vegas to hedge with 15-20k or so.
 
Agreed. When you're looking at turning 5 bucks into 100k and it's a Monday night game, he's an idiot for not hedging as much as he could have.
 

Deathofthebambino

Drive Carefully
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2005
41,947
If anyone is curious, of the 6 Wong teasers I played this week, I'm currently 1-0 after hitting on Auburn.  I've got UConn on the ropes right now though, getting 8, they are down 14-7 and pinned deep in their own end to start the fourth. 
 

Deathofthebambino

Drive Carefully
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2005
41,947
UConn hasn't run a single offensive play tonight from USF's side of the field.   That's pretty amazing.
 

Deathofthebambino

Drive Carefully
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2005
41,947
Yeah, so umm 2-0 now after a ludicrous back door cover by UConn.   UConn was having the worst offensive day in the history of the school and then somehow went 75 yards on 4 plays with less than 2 minutes left, and ended up losing 17-14.  They had a total of 57 yards of offense (net) before that drive.
 

PC Drunken Friar

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 12, 2003
14,540
South Boston
Deathofthebambino said:
Yeah, so umm 2-0 now after a ludicrous back door cover by UConn.   UConn was having the worst offensive day in the history of the school and then somehow went 75 yards on 4 plays with less than 2 minutes left, and ended up losing 17-14.  They had a total of 57 yards of offense (net) before that drive.
Haha, DoTB, your bet kept me watching that game. Incredible cover