AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs
This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
-
Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!
Arizona State -13.5
- Thread starter Jens1893
- Start date
I guess the guys who set the original betting line kind-of knew what they were doing, considering the 14 point final margin.
Yup, pretty amazing actually
They did during the Embree era.
Yep, that line seemed like easy money. If I had bet against the Buffs, I couldn't be as hopeful about tomorrow because I would be pissed about having lost money. I don't care if people gamble, but it is smart not to be on your favorite team, IMO.
I have only bet on sports once, against the Dan Hawkins led Montreal Allouettes, when I saw the line in a Vegas sports book I was passing by. I figured I could not loose betting $20 against Hawk, and I didn't. With Vegas setting the line, it is almost random chance for any game. I don't see it any better than always betting red on roulette. And I don't bet on roulette either
How do they do it.... Crazy. Would love to look at the model they applied to the evaluation of this game. Especially the non football x and o factors.
Seriously. The model would have certainly factored in stealing defensive play calls.
Nor Cal Buff
Well-Known Member
Most models that shape the football market are based on a modified version of yards per play and then adjusted for home field advantage and injuries. Motivation plays a small part, but much less than most would think. Also, especially at this point in the year, they use preseason projections combined with the modified yards per play.
Val
Well-Known Member
Water Bottle was so confusingly horrific as an HC, NOBODY could predict the line for his team's games. His second year was a bit easier since blow-outs were so common.
There is probably a lot to be said for that position. When they get it right on the money, we can say "wow, they are amazing," and we then ignore when they got it way wrong (ie CSU). To a certain extent, the "crowd" also sets the line, as it changes according to money wagered, with the ultimate goal always to keep the betting even so the house makes a profit on the 10 percent of the bet they always keep on winning, which combined with keeping all losing bets means they always come out on top. A real statistical analysis of their actual accuracy would be interesting to see.
They very seldom get it wrong. I know first hand :lol: Not guess work. Yes the crowd does move the line, agree with that.
Nor Cal Buff
Well-Known Member
Think of the outcome as a point on a probability distribution with the point spread being the median outcome. A 15.5 point favorite isn't expected to win by exactly 15 or 16. They're actually more likely to win by exactly 14 or 17 than 15 or 16 because of the way scoring works in football*. But when a team is favored by 15.5, half the time the favorite wins by 16 or more and half the time they don't, hence the spread being the median outcome.
When a spread ends "dead on" that's really just a point on the distribution and the same is true when the spread ends up 3 touchdowns away. Even with near-perfect information (think of an alternate world where you could see these teams play tens of thousands of times to get a true read on their ability) there is a ton of variability in the results of any sporting event. Think about everything that can go right or wrong in a sporting event including but not limited to playing your A/B/C/D/F game, refereeing decisions going for/against you, "game of inches" things ranging from tipped balls (do they get intercepted and returned for a touchdown or fall harmlessly as an incompletion?) to stepping on the line on a long run, injuries and on and on.
As far as the accuracy of the sports betting market, it's very efficient these days especially as you get closer to kickoff. Generally, the closing line is going to be the most efficient line. "Sharp" money rules the market. Books move their numbers on a combination of money and whose money it is. Taking a $100k bet on an NFL game from a known losing bettor is unlikely to move the line, unless they are getting very unbalanced action and need to manage their risk. But a $100k bet from a known winner or an unknown (who could possibly be a runner for a sharp bettor) will likely see some movement. The other thing is that money flows to winners pretty quickly in sports betting** so the winning bettors tend to have a lot of money for betting purposes. If the line starts moving away from what it should be due to "public/square" money, they'll snap it right back with big money of their own.
*There is a tool called the Half-Point Calculator. It has a number of uses but it tells you how often a point spread or over/under lands on an exact number (when the spread or total is close to that number, it's not intended to tell you how often a 25 point favorite loses by exactly 3 or anything like that).
**There is a tool called the Kelly Calculator which calculates your proper bet size for optimal bankroll growth based on your win rate, the odds you're getting and the size of your bankroll. Stick the following inputs in: starting bankroll=$50,000, consecutive series=1000, odds=-110, win prob=55% and hit calculate. You'll see that after 1000 bets (which isn't very many for a sports bettor when you consider not only football but basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer leagues around the world) you'll have a mean bankroll of over $750,000 and a median bankroll of almost $200,000. And that's with only a 55% win-rate! So the market ends up being pretty efficient by necessity.
Interesting Nor Cal. Perhaps I should have used the Kelly Calculator before I went all in on the Buffs over 4.5 wins with my rep points? :lol:
Slim and none, and slim's gotta limp, per that succeeding. Well let's see if they can steal a couple of wins, things do appear to be stabilizing a bit.
Thanks for the post. Enlightening.
Slim and none, and slim's gotta limp, per that succeeding. Well let's see if they can steal a couple of wins, things do appear to be stabilizing a bit.
Thanks for the post. Enlightening.
Great post! my inner nerd really came out reading that post. The math and techniques used s r awesome. I really wish there were more academic articles on sports statistics and more data out there to use
I don't think "inner" means what you think it does.
