Showing posts with label college football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college football. Show all posts
Botched Back Alley Abortion
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Labels:
college football,
in review,
super bowl,
the nfl,
waste of money,
whining
That's how I'm describing this football season. Not only did I have my worst personal season as a gambler (after starting a blog that was supposed to teach my friends how to gamble properly), but I go 0-5 in the Super Bowl, and the team that I hate the most, with the most obnoxious fans, is the World Champion. Oh, and Penn State got their ass handed to them in the Rose Bowl. This has been the absolute worst football year ever.
How Contrarian Was College Football Season?
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Labels:
college football,
contrarianism
The research project I mentioned on Saturday night is a quantitative assessment of the contrarian-ness* of the college football season. There are some huge caveats here. One is, of course, sample size. The second is the binning of Wagerline percentages. Different ways of binning will yield different results.
I think this last caveat is most important. While people like myself, Vegaswatch, Jonny, and Moneyline are attempting to make sports wagering a quantitative exercise, quite obviously there is a lot of subjectivity involved. What makes me place a bet on one five-point dog receiving 38% of the action at Wagerline versus another? Subjectivity. One of those teams might be Ole Miss the other might be Fresno State. I feel like Ole Miss is an underrated football squad, so there is value in taking their side. The opposite is true of Fresno.
In the figure below, "Wagerline %" is the percent of Wagerline users who selected the FAVORITE. Therefore, a value of 39 indicates there is a public dog and a value of 75 indicates the favorite is extremely public. The record and winning percentage are again for the FAVORITES. Here are the results for all 684 Division 1 NCAA Football games that statistics were available for on Wagerline.
Here is a philosophical question. If we agree that contrarians generally bet on anti-public underdogs successfully, and that gambling markets are efficient, then shouldn't there be a way to exploit favorites? The answer could be yes or no. One possibility is that since we know that gamblers tend to bet on favorites, we need to relax our definition of an anti-public favorite. Perhaps 54% on a favorite constitutes being "anti-public," however we define it? The other option is that favorites cover slightly more across all "public" bins.
With the obvious small sample size caveat, I think that, in general, favorites getting less than 55% of the action at Wagerline are worth looking at. It also appears that contrarians using only Wagerline numbers did not do well until the percentages were greater than 68%.
Another factor that I consider when placing a bet is home field advantage. I think it is just anecdotal over the years, but I prefer to be on a home team than a road team. In the figures below, I've separated out the sides for home favorites and road favorites.
EDIT: When you upload more than one image at a time to blogger, they come out in reverse order of the way you uploaded them. Also, proofread your posts before you put them out there for the world to see. Idiot.
In this case, "anti-public" home favorites are even better than an ordinary favorite. Likewise, "anti-public" home dogs (bottom image) are better than an ordinary underdog. While certainly not exhaustive, I think these statistics do show some evidence for home field advantage in football wagering.
Lastly, I looked to see if the percentages changed much given a larger spread. The following four tables show how winning percentages change among consensus numbers for spreads less than 3, between 3.5 and 7, between 7.5 and 14, and greater than 14.5
Because sample sizes start getting really small here, it is difficult to gain a lot of information, but I hypothesize that short "anti-public" favorites and moderate "anti-public" dogs were the most profitable bets to make.
EDIT: It would help if I had uploaded the images correctly. Long (>7 pts) "anti-public" favorites appear to be profitable. The part about moderate "anti-public" dogs still stands, though you can probably add short dogs to the list as well (<14 pts).
Feel free to draw your own conclusions from the data and put them in the comments below.
*I can make new words out of contrarian, too.
I think this last caveat is most important. While people like myself, Vegaswatch, Jonny, and Moneyline are attempting to make sports wagering a quantitative exercise, quite obviously there is a lot of subjectivity involved. What makes me place a bet on one five-point dog receiving 38% of the action at Wagerline versus another? Subjectivity. One of those teams might be Ole Miss the other might be Fresno State. I feel like Ole Miss is an underrated football squad, so there is value in taking their side. The opposite is true of Fresno.
In the figure below, "Wagerline %" is the percent of Wagerline users who selected the FAVORITE. Therefore, a value of 39 indicates there is a public dog and a value of 75 indicates the favorite is extremely public. The record and winning percentage are again for the FAVORITES. Here are the results for all 684 Division 1 NCAA Football games that statistics were available for on Wagerline.
Here is a philosophical question. If we agree that contrarians generally bet on anti-public underdogs successfully, and that gambling markets are efficient, then shouldn't there be a way to exploit favorites? The answer could be yes or no. One possibility is that since we know that gamblers tend to bet on favorites, we need to relax our definition of an anti-public favorite. Perhaps 54% on a favorite constitutes being "anti-public," however we define it? The other option is that favorites cover slightly more across all "public" bins.
With the obvious small sample size caveat, I think that, in general, favorites getting less than 55% of the action at Wagerline are worth looking at. It also appears that contrarians using only Wagerline numbers did not do well until the percentages were greater than 68%.
Another factor that I consider when placing a bet is home field advantage. I think it is just anecdotal over the years, but I prefer to be on a home team than a road team. In the figures below, I've separated out the sides for home favorites and road favorites.
HOME FAVORITES
ROAD FAVORITES
EDIT: When you upload more than one image at a time to blogger, they come out in reverse order of the way you uploaded them. Also, proofread your posts before you put them out there for the world to see. Idiot.
In this case, "anti-public" home favorites are even better than an ordinary favorite. Likewise, "anti-public" home dogs (bottom image) are better than an ordinary underdog. While certainly not exhaustive, I think these statistics do show some evidence for home field advantage in football wagering.
Lastly, I looked to see if the percentages changed much given a larger spread. The following four tables show how winning percentages change among consensus numbers for spreads less than 3, between 3.5 and 7, between 7.5 and 14, and greater than 14.5
FAVORITE GIVING 3 OR LESS
FAVORITE GIVING BETWEEN 3.5 AND 7
FAVORITE GIVING BETWEEN 7.5 AND 14
FAVORITE GIVING MORE THAN 14
EDIT: It would help if I had uploaded the images correctly. Long (>7 pts) "anti-public" favorites appear to be profitable. The part about moderate "anti-public" dogs still stands, though you can probably add short dogs to the list as well (<14 pts).
Feel free to draw your own conclusions from the data and put them in the comments below.
*I can make new words out of contrarian, too.
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