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When to Middle the Side Bet? By Reed Lonteen Years ago I became interested in gambling because of one man
and one man only … James Bond. I
pictured myself, dressed in a nice tux, waltzing in to a For those of you who do not understand the NFL pointspread – QUIT READING NOW. If you don’t understand the line, then quit reading and save yourself some time. For those of you who understand how the line works, please continue as this will get somewhat math intensive. I have read numerous articles by mathematicians who base their numbers on the point spread, but I believe this is incorrect. No I do not make it a habit of second-guessing those with superior mathematical intellect, I just believe that there are better ways to look at this problem. The Allure of Middles Th basic allure of middles is that we risk 1 unit for a return of 10 or even 20 units. Playing a middle, is truly not that much different from Roullette except we may get 2 numbers for a 10 to 20 unit return. One of the basics you must understand then is how a middle becomes a 10 or 20 unit return. The problem, if you will, deals with the bookend numbers that comprise your middle. As a rule, it is ALWAYS disadvantageous to use a whole number for a bookend. For instance, if we receive a line on the favorite of 3 and 4 our middle is 2 numbers. However, when we middle we only expect a return of 10 times our betting unit. This is how it works: we bet the favorite -3 for $100 and the dog +4 for $100 dollars. If the favorite wins by 3 or 4 we collect $100 for our bet or 10 times our $10 unit. When the favorite wins by 4 we win $100 for our bet on -3 but PUSH our bet on the +4 for a net gain of $100. Now let’s say our middle is 2.5 to 4.5; our middle numbers are still 3 and 4, but we no longer have a PUSH involved so when the numbers fall on 3 or 4 we win both bets for a net gain of $200 or 20 times our $10 unit. Two Reasons Why We Shouldn’t
Use the Line for our Research The first simple reason for this is – what line do we use? Lines differ from Sportsbook across the nation and ocean. Don’t believe me, just check Don Best’s line archives out for any NFL, NBA, CFB, etc. game and you will see a number of games whose closing line could be a point or even 2 points difference from various sportsbooks. The second reason is also very simple – the line is the
opinion of the public and does not serve to predict the final score of the
game. A line is setup to divide interest
in a game so the Sportsbooks can make money; IT IS
NOT a prediction of the game. In the Superbowl last year, Some Misinformation A lot of the articles I have read are based upon lines and past results. They cite the big 4 numbers: 3, 7, 14, and 17. The problem with these is that I really don’t buy the 17. First of all, there are far too few 17 point spreads to do a competent comaparison with. In the following charts, 17 is a “main” number but is hit far less frequently than others such as 10 and 6. The three isn’t as quite powerful as some listings, and the 7, 14, are less so as well. In furtherance of this, don’t believe everything you read – even this if you disagree. What should we use? This is a little more of a complex question, but the answer is the final winning margins of favorites (meaning any team favored by 1 point or more). The reason we use win margins is because they are more reflective of the true nature of the game. In other words, the line is an arbitrary amount that has very little to do with the predicted score of the game and has NOTHING to do with the final score or how the game is played. The win margin is important because it tells us that WHEN the Favorite wins, the amounts by which they most often win. This oversimplifies the idea, but I have a lot of work to cover, so if you need to re-read this (or even drop me an e-mail) please feel free to do so now. I have created 2 tables from 17 years of regular season NFL games. In this table, we find that Home Favorites win straight-up 68.63% of the time while Away Favorites do so at a lower 62.34% clip. Our first lesson is that, as a rule, Home Favorites give you a better edge when looking for a middle.
How to use the above
charts The easiest way to think of the above charts is in terms of scoring the percentage. Any time your score is above 10, you are in line for a good middle. The first thing you must know is if a number is a bookend (10x pay off) or not (20x pay off)– that is to say the final scoring margin can fall directly on said number. With numbers that ARE bookends use the percentage score listed above; for numbers that ARE NOT bookends, use the percentage score listed above and MULTIPLY it by 2. Here are some examples so you can follow the math. Example 1: Example 2: Let’s use the same example above but now Intertops has Example 3: Monday night’s preseason game between 4 was the only bookend at 3.7% 5 was a contained number at 3.8% (1.9% multiplied by 2) 6 was also a contained number at 6.8% (3.4% multiplied by 2) Our total score percentage score was 14.3% which more than met our 10% benchmark and made it a money making proposition in the long run. We could have very easily lost the game with the chance quite actually better than 80%, but in the long run we will win enough of these games to pull out a tidy profit. To be honest with you I know there is a margin of error (variance) with the above numbers, but what I don’t know what it is. Therefore, I would not trust anything less than 10.5% percentage score until I can PROPERLY calculate the correct margin of error. Since it’s been awhile since I’ve dusted off the old Stats and Probs book in my room, any help with this would be much appreciated! Happy hunting! |
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