Recall, that these stats have been compiled from my list of Tuesday leans (Early) and what line the games closed at (Close). The blue indicates the record for the games I actually played.
Moneyline and Vegas have been hinting for a while that line movement scares them away from plays. An initial glance at the table seems to indicate that they are correct in their assessment. However, I remain convinced that reverse (or negative above) line movement remains a solid indicator that a wager should be made.
If the negative line movement was 0.5 or 1 points, then yes, playing those games during the 2008 college football season was a losing proposition (See how I subtly reminded the readers of the sample? That's how you get a Lemmy!). Those games were 29-39 at close. However, if you used games that moved 1.5 points or more, suddenly reverse line movement was a great way of pointing you in the right direction.
Obviously, more extensive research needs to be conducted. I'm particularly interested to see if the NFL, where lines move less often and at a smaller magnitude, shows a similar pattern. Regardless, this is one sport for one season. However, my empirical evidence over the last three years of gambling makes me think that these statistics will be replicated.
Feel free to tell me where I screwed up in the comments.
EDIT: I figured I would throw these together just for completeness. This also seems to follow what I had already thought about positive (or forward) line movement:
It doesn't look there is much +EV for games where the line moves in a contrarian's favor.
3 comments:
great stuff. i wanted to clarify if this was all games or was it just "contrarian" games?
On Tuesdays, I put together a "Leans - Week #" post. I took every game that made it onto those posts (mainly because I am lazy and didn't want to look up the opening lines for every game... the leans posts were convenient). So, they are mainly contrarian looks.
just absolutely fantastic stuff. thanks for the analysis.
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