No Trips To The First State

Delaware's sports lottery rules have been set. The only way I can see it being worthwhile is if there is a lot of line movement between Thursday and Sunday and the half point parlays actually have value, but that would take a lot of line movement.

The Plan for 2009-10

Caution: very crude approximations ahead.

My long term winning percentage is around 53.5% in college football, pro football, and college basketball. Using Matchbook over the last two years, I am averaging about -105 on the juice on each bet. Using these approximations, it works out to a Kelly bet of about 3%, since I make many bets simultaneously (I used 10 for the approximation). I recognize that I should be adjusting each bet based on the juice I am getting, but I doubt I that I have exactly a 53.5% chance of winning each bet.

With the above extremely crude approximations, it doesn't make any sense to bet "full Kelly." In fact, I am pretty sure that my efficiency would be way down if I bet the approximate "full Kelly" on each game. So, my plan is to make each unit 0.5% of my Tuesday bankroll. Normal bets will be 3x (or 1.5%) plays and big bets will be 5x (2.5%) plays. Every once in a while, I will break out a personal max when I think the edge is large for 8x (4%), but those will be exceedingly rare. These will all be flat bet in the same manner as baseball was, even though I'm not playing bases ever again.

These will go into effect starting Thursday or Friday, depending if I play Boise or not. Speaking of which, below are my leans for CFB Week 1.

CFB Week 1 Leans
1015p Boise State -4 (Thu.)
8p Tulane +13.5 (Fri.)
12p Syracuse +6.5
10p California -21.5
1030p Washington +17
330p Memphis +16.5 (Sun.)

If this list seems much smaller than year's past, it is, and it is exhaustive. Overall, I am committed to being a bit tighter this year, and even moreso in Weeks 1-3, since I always get my ass handed to me at the beginning of the season, which I don't think is a function of bad luck and small sample size. I'm also putting more emphasis on playing games that are higher volume. That means mainly games featuring BCS teams and off-Saturday games. It seems to me that games that have more volume will have a bigger need to balance square vs. sharp action (when a contrarian angle exists), and therefore, more value on the anti-public side.

Sunday 8/16

Tiger has to lose a Sunday lead at some point in a major, right? I floated this last night after reading what The Saw had to say and it got picked up.

Y.E. Yang to win the PGA Championship +2000 1x

At least I have something to watch today. Good luck.

The CFB Futures Positions

I'm glad I did quite a bit of price shopping while I was in Vegas, because I think I got decent value with these picks. We'll see. I'm not entirely settled on my unit size for football, so these are in current units, but I don't think it makes a huge difference for record keeping purposes.

Georgia Tech 75-1 4x to win 300x at the Plaza Hotel and Casino
Michigan State 125-1 2x to win 250x at Four Queens Casino

The rationale for these picks are somewhat square, but in college football, where there are no good metrics, there will be some squareness to any future pick. In my opinion, in college football, schedule analysis plays some role in determining how teams will do, and that was a driver in both these picks.

Georgia Tech is returning 17 starters from a middle of the pack ACC team last year, though everyone except Duke was middle of the pack last year. Their schedule is set up somewhat favorable, getting North Carolina, Virginia Tech, and Georgia at home. Their hardest road game will be in Tallahassee on October 10th.

While those are decent reasons for liking Tech, I have to admit that my opinion of them is driven strongly by the Flexbone offense they run. I'm a bit of a Smart Football fanboy and think GT will thrive in Year 2 of Paul Johnson's offense. With teams only seeing the flex once a year, it gives a strategic advantage to the offense (see: 2008 Georgia game).

The big question mark for Tech will be do they have the talent to compete for the MNC? North Carolina continues to amass talent and Virginia Tech always has a strong defense. Even if they get through the ACC unscathed, they would be heavy dogs to Florida, Texas, or USC in the national title game. Still, 75-1 is the best price I've seen on the Jackets since futures opened and that represents value in my mind.

Michigan State loses Brian Hoyer and Javon Ringer, but neither are big time losses. Hoyer was a typical mediocre Big Ten quarterback, while Ringer got a lot of touches but wasn't particularly explosive when he had the rock.

This pick is basically like Jonny's Penn State future on steroids. Ohio State is universally regarded as the Big Dog in the Big Ten, but have a lot of holes to fill on both sides of the ball and Terelle Pryor was not particuarly impressive throwing the ball in his freshman year (not because he was a freshman, either; the guy had the worst throwing motion I've seen from a D-1 QB). Penn State is regarded as their closest competitor, but again, faces big holes at WR, OL, and DB. Sparty has been picked mostly third in the conference this year and Dantonio has been bringing in good recruiting classes somewhat quietly, but like Tech, faces a talent disparity with the UFs and UTs of the world.

Michigan State's schedule sets up somewhat favorably. I'm not on the Notre Dame bandwagon yet, but the two Directional Michigans will be difficult non-conference tests. Once getting to the Big Ten schedule, they miss Ohio State and get Penn State and Iowa at home, so they couldn't have asked for a better set up heading into the season.

Obviously, all of what I have written is stuff that the books have likely considered in setting these lines, but the fact that I saw GT as low at 40-1 at many books and Sparty as low as 45-1 at one leads me to me think that these plays have value going into the season (or, at least, someone who matters banged these teams down).

I've got some cleaning up to do after getting back from Vegas, but I hope to put up a basic analysis of the futures I found in Vegas which maybe will illuminate some value at offshore books looking forward (or not, but it will be fun to play with numbers anyway).

Derby Night 7/13

Well, I guess it worked out for me.

Nelson Cruz +1050 2x to win 21x

I also had Gonzalez +900 out there, too, but it never got picked up. I'll be back with the record update later.

The 134th Preakness

I'm going to keep it pretty light for the Preakness today. I think the 13 is the class of the field, but so does everyone else.

$2 Exacta Box - 1, 5, 7, 9, 13 ($40)
$1 Exacta Wheel - 13/1, 5, 7, 9 ($4)
$1 Exacta Wheel - 1, 5, 7, 9/13 ($4)

Morning Lines
1- Big Drama 10-1
5- Friesan Fire 6-1
7- Papa Clem 12-1
9- Pioneerof the Nile 5-1
13- Rachel Alexandra 8-5

I'm looking forward to to the race coming in 13-9 and not even getting my money back on the box. 2- Mine That Bird and 3- Musket Man didn't enter into my thinking because they are horribly overvalued after winning and showing respectively in the crowded, muddy Kentucky Derby.

The horse I'm most scared of is 8- General Quarters. The horse is going off at 20-1 this morning but ran well at the other Grade 1 race it was entered besides the Derby, the Bluegrass Stakes, and achieved a Beyer score over 100 back in February. If you were looking for a long shot, I'd go with 11- Take The Points. That horse hasn't been below a Beyer 90 yet this year and has a good track record, which seems a little long at 30-1.

Good luck if you play anything.

Mine That Bird?! Really??

I was nearly even before the Derby, but ended up down about $150 for the day. Here is what I had:

$5 Exacta Box - 5, 6, 15 ($30)
$1 Tri Box - 5, 6, 15 / 5, 6, 11, 12, 15, 16 / 5, 6, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17 ($75)

That was going to be it until my buddy freaked me out about the UAE horse, so I added:

$2 Exacta Box - 19 / 5, 6, 15 and 5, 6, 15 / 19 ($12)
$4 Win/Place - 19 ($8)

Obviously, none of those hit. Which was neat. It was worse for my buddy. He crossed off a trifecta horse for Race 9 at Churchill that ended up hitting and costing him $1800. This was also the first year he didn't hit the winner in 15 years, but he bets like 3/4 of the field, so it's not like it was any sort of feat.

Horse Racing 101

For the first time in my gambling career, I am going to place some wagers this Saturday at an OTB. I know nothing about horses or how they are raced. I do know that a higher Beyer Speed Rating is better, but I don't know how to use it quantitatively, if at all. I am not a handicapper.

What I do know is this: there is a known bias in parimutuel betting. It is known as the favorite-longshot bias. Essentially, horse gamblers are bigger degenerates than sports gamblers. They like the satisfaction of being able to pick the longshot, and hence the heavy dogs became overvalued. Before tracks started taking such a large rake out of the prize pool, this meant that betting on favorites was likely a positive EV outcome. I'm not sure there is currently a positive EV outcome at the track anymore, but I'd like to wager as intelligently as possible.

Again, remembering that I know nothing about horse racing, I'm going to go through a couple of examples of the way I intend to bet on Saturday, with about $50 wagered as the goal. Remember, the idea is to maximize wagers on favorites.

Example 1
Eleven horse field
#2 - 2/1
#4 - 5/1
#10 - 8/1
No other horse shorter than 13/1
The way I intend to bet: $2 box 2-all ($40), $2 box 2-4,10 ($8), $2 box 4-10 ($4) = total $52

Example 2
Nine horse field
#1 - 2/1
#5 - 3/1
No other horse shorter than 10/1
The way I intend to bet: $5 box 1-5 ($10), $2 tribox 1,5-1,5-all ($28), $1 tribox 1,5-all-1,5 ($14) = total $52

Example 3
Ten horse Field
#3 - 2/3
#9 - 8/1
No other horse shorter than 15/1
The way I intend to bet: $10 Win 3 ($10), $5 box 3-9 ($10), $2 box 3-all ($36) = total $56

Example 4 - Kentucky Derby
Twenty horse field
#6 - 5/1
#13 - 3/1
#15 - 4/1
#16 - 4/1
No other horse shorter than 15/1
The way I intend to bet: $2 box 6,13,15,16 ($24), $1 tribox 6,13,15,16 ($24) = total $48
Current juice for the Derby sits at 37%. Those are solid bets.

Obviously, my two goals are going to be: get down on favorites and bet races on the simulcast that have a few big favorites and the rest of the field sucks. If I assume that the posted odds will attract people to longshots, this seems like a reasonable strategy.

Any horse betters out there care to weigh in?

I'm Bored

I have no desire whatsoever to touch the rest of this NCAA Tournament. Sparty is playable today, if you haven't had your will broken. On the other hand, I'd like to have some action before Tuesday's NIT/CBI games tip off.

Plays
5p Nashville +290 1x to win 2.9x
8p Colorado +236 1x to win 2.36x
Pass: Minnesota

Yes, that's right, hockey bets. I've been marginally following the league this year and know that Detroit is really good and Colorado is really bad. There isn't really much else you need to know about these wagers.

Streak for the Cash
220p Michigan State/Louisville U139.5 points
5p North Carolina/Oklahoma O163.5 points
8p New Orleans vs. San Antonio
Current Streak: 1

This total seems low given the way the rest of the second weekend has turned out. Of course, the Big Ten doesn't play offense (LULZ!). The line is down to 137.5 at Pinny, so whatever.

I've got no idea what to pick for the late hoops game. I'm going over on the assumption that the Sooners will put up some points, I guess, but 163.5 is a freaking lot.

Another coin flip upcoming. The split at Pinny is -115/+105 in favor of the Spurs. I'm taking the Hornets just so I can keep my contrarian card for the day.

Good luck today.

A Clarification

I should point out, from the post this morning, I think #1 is mainly responsible for the stuffy 2008-09. That doesn't mean that given the wealth of data available (records, units played, Wagerline, passes), I shouldn't do a post analysis on my results and attempt to find inefficiencies.

Streak for the Cash
10p Sacramento vs. Memphis
Current Streak: 0

Basically playing HCA here, since Sactown is a 3 point favorite. Whatever, we're playing for pride at this point anyway.

The Morning After

Nothing like another eight unit loss. I'm not even really all that angry. Either this is bad luck, variance's way of telling us that 2007-08 wasn't nearly as good as we'd hoped it was (or, if you're ML, 2005-06 and 2006-07 as well), or something is wrong with the system (not contrarianism, but the way it is employed). Those are really the three options at this point.

I'm passing everything on the card tonight. I'll probably just edit this post tonight for Streak for the Cash in the evening. The two golf plays in the morning/afternoon have very little edge.

Finally, if you really wanted to see a busted bracket, go look at the one I posted before the tournament started. When Gonzaga loses to UNC tonight, I'll be done. Not like done - I don't stand a chance of winning. I mean done - I can't gain another flipping point. KPom, you have wronged many this year.

Looking at Time Series, Part 2

In part one, I looked at time series analyses of my 2008-09 college gambling results and it wasn't pretty.

Tonight, I'm going to look at 2007-08, since most of my contrarian thoughts were forged during that period and, conveniently, I have statistics for them.

The graph from the 07-08 NCAAB season is shown below. It has an uptrend (that'd be nice), so I'm probably going to have to look at the first differences.



Now here is an interesting result. At first glance, it almost looks like a random walk again.

Type Coef SE Coef T P
AR 1 0.9881 0.0156 63.18 0.000
Constant 0.2549 0.1641 1.55 0.122
Mean 21.34 13.74

But, remember, I said I have to look at the first differences because of the upward trend. Here is the time series analysis on the first differences.

Type Coef SE Coef T P
AR 1 0.1142 0.0631 1.81 0.071
Constant 0.1444 0.1532 0.94 0.347

The constant term is not statistically significant, which kind of sucks. If it were significant, it would indicate skill. Regardless, the AR1 coefficient is marginally significant. I'm not sure if that really means there was predictive ability in 2007-08, but at least it shows statistically that I was more likely to win the game after a win (and lose after a loss).

The college football season from 2007-08 also had a positive trend (below), so a similar analysis will need to be completed on the first differences.



For the 2007-08 NCAAF data, the trend was so severe, the time series program died before converging, so we'll have to go straight to the first differences.

Type Coef SE Coef T P
AR 1 0.0203 0.0838 0.24 0.809
Constant 0.4808 0.2598 1.85 0.066

This is what I wanted to see all along. The AR1 term for the first differences is very close to zero and the constant term is positive and statistically significant. Basically, that is saying that each bet was totally independent and had an expected outcome of 0.5x. Statistical skill, finally.

For completeness, I suppose I should look at 2008-09 college football from Week 3 forward. Intelligently, I didn't even play the NCAAF in Week 2.



Not much change from the original.

Type Coef SE Coef T P
AR 1 0.0095 0.0856 0.11 0.912
Constant 0.5586 0.2693 2.07 0.040

No real change in time series statistics either. Hooray. One good season in the last six.

Clearly, I think the results show I had some skill in 2007-08. Whether that is attributed to blind luck, a different gambling market, or strategy changes causing a decline in my abilities, I'm not sure. Since it seems that contrarians in general have records that are worse this year overall compared to last, I'm hopeful, but not convinced, that 2008-09 is just a hiccup on the path to success.

Looking at Time Series Analysis of am19psu's Results

Well, I went ahead and downloaded Minitab so I could do some ARIMA modeling of my data. I have to admit, the preliminary results are a little disheartening. One thing to keep in mind is that the strategy is ever-evolving, so the results here may not have come from the same distribution, but I doubt that is playing much of a factor.

As you recall, the figure below shows my results through March 1st for 2008-09 basketball season.



I used disheartening above because when I did the time series analysis I came up with this:

Type Coef SECoef T P
AR 1 0.9712 0.0158 61.46 0.000
Constant 0.0645 0.1481 0.44 0.664
Mean 2.235 5.133

Basically, what that means is that my results are a random walk. The AR1 coefficient is the coefficient of the serial correlation term with p-value 0.000 and the constant is not significant (with p-value 0.664). Note that the coefficient is near 1. If it were exactly 1, it would be a true random walk. This pattern is one that is destined to fail over time. It's even been called gambler's ruin.

This result has many names: the level-crossing phenomenon, recurrence or the gambler's ruin. The reason for the last name is as follows: if you are a gambler with a finite amount of money playing a fair game against a bank with an infinite amount of money, you will surely lose.

And in general, we're not even playing a fair game because of juice.

This graph shows the results from 2008-09 college football.



The time series analysis for this sucks even worse.

Type Coef SE Coef T P
AR 1 0.9382 0.0300 31.26 0.000
Constant -0.8430 0.1800 -4.68 0.000
Mean -13.636 2.912

In this particular example, the AR1 term is a bit farther away from 1, meaning it is likely not a random walk, but the constant term is negative. That means I am a loser when it comes to college football, at least in 2008-09. Not that I had any inclination of that from the sidebar.

The next figure shows my NCAAF results with the first two weeks left out. One of the things that I've considered is that contrarian gambling early in the season is not profitable. ML has told me stories about Squeeky cleaning up in college football early in a season, 2004 or 2005, I believe. However, I have not had any luck whatsoever. This graph doesn't necessarily support that hypothesis, but it is fair to say that I never got out of the hole I dug myself the first two weeks.



These results are much more indicative of what I want to see. With a coefficient of AR1 around 0.84 and positive constant, I am showing NCAAF to be profitable for 2008-09 after Week 2.

Type Coef SE Coef T P
AR 1 0.8451 0.0445 18.99 0.000
Constant 1.0931 0.1816 6.02 0.000
Mean 7.056 1.173

Whew. At least, debatably, I'm not completely retarded. That said, when I look at the first differences, the p-value of AR1 is not statistically significant, so it is still possible that results are a random walk.

I'm not even going to look at the last two NFL seasons, since I readily admit I have no skill in that sport.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of these results, other than I have not been gambling skillfully in 2008-09. More questions and suggestions are always welcome in the comments.

In part two of this post, which will run Friday at 6PM, I'll look into my 2007-08 results.

Time to take a break

It's been a while since I had a week like this. I'm going to step back for a couple of days and re-group. Even though variance says it should happen every once in a while, it's kind of hard to shake off 4-11 -20.5x 5-10 -16.3x, especially given the year that I've had overall. I'll still post some passes this weekend, but I won't be playing anything. I'm sure this will be the start of the next great contrarian run.

Botched Back Alley Abortion

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.

Super Sunday 2/1

I guess people are realizing Duke is good again.

2p South Florida +2.5 +103 2x
Pass: Missouri State

Onto the Super Bowl. I hate to say it, but I like the Steelers in this game. All of the hype for Fitzgerald and Warner has actually pushed the non-betting general public to think the Cards are going to win straight up. At most other places, I'm seeing between 55-60% of the action coming in on Chicago St. Louis Phoenix Arizona.

620p Pittsburgh -6.5 -104 3x

It wouldn't be the Super Bowl without props either. Matchbook doesn't have a great prop market, but I think I found some lines with value. When I'm out 8 units at the end of the day, everyone can laugh at me.

James O39.5 Rushing Yards +110 1.82x to win 2x
Each Team Scores >14 - No +142 1.41x to win 2x
Fitzgerald U82.5 Receiving Yards +170 1.18x to win 2x - That price is a bit ridiculous
Warner U235 Passing Yards +174 1.15x to win 2x

For the record, +175 equals a break even probability of 36%. Fitzgerald was less than 82.5 yards 9/16 or 56% of regular season games. If you include playoffs, it was still 9/19 or 47% of games. I'm getting good value there.

Warner on the other hand, not so much. There were only 3/16 regular season games where he was less than 235 and one he had exactly 235, so that works out to a probability of 22%. Not good value. I wish I had thought to do these calculations before I placed the bets.

The other two props don't really have a good way of determining the probability. James was non-existent down the stretch for the Cards, but has been getting the bulk of the carries in the post-season. For the team totals prop, I don't think you can really look at it other than to see how many games the Steelers held their opponent under 14 this year. The Steelers did that half the time. So, there might be value in +142, which equals a break even probability of 42%.

Good luck with whatever you choose to play tonight.