Sports Betting For Dummies

Foreword xv Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Before You Go Any Further 3 Foolish Assumptions 4 Icons Used in This Book 5 Beyond the Book 5 Where to Go from Here 5 Part 1: Sports Betting Basics 7 Chapter 1: Betting Sports for Fun and Profit 9 Eight Days in October 10 A surprise win 10 Victory’s revenge 10 Finding profit in the roller coaster 11 Do Sports Bettors Win? 12 The Wagers of Sin 14 Fans and Bettors: Better Fans 15 Sharps and squares 16 Advantage bettors 17 Why 50 Percent Doesn’t Cut It 17 52.38 is the new 50 18 How sports bettors win 19 Comparative betting success 20 What Kind of Sports Bettor Are You? 20 Financially interested fan 21 Ace Rothstein-esque 21 Data guru 22 Spread shredder 22 A little of everything 23 The Legal Landscape of Sports Betting 23 I’m not a lawyer but 23 Federal laws 24 The Supreme Court to the rescue 25 State laws 25 Sports betting and organized crime 28 What Can’t I Bet On? 29 Setting Some Goals (and Limits) 29 This Is Your Brain on Gambling 30 Chapter 2: The Basic Bets 33 The Betting Contract 34 The premises of the promise 34 Monetary policy 36 All’s fair 36 Overloading the odds 37 Illuminating examples 37 An introduction to betting with odds 40 Betting against a Bookmaker 42 The moneyline 43 A quick look at vigorish (the vig) 50 Point Spreads: Thumb on the Scale 50 Losing team, winning bet 52 Half is enough 53 Point spread = 0 54 Betting on a point spread 54 Over/Under Betting 56 Multi-Bet Wagers 58 Parlays: Let it ride 58 Parlay odds 60 Teasers: A little help 61 Variations on a Theme 62 Exotic bets 63 Prop bets 63 Chapter 3: The House 65 The Sports Betting Business 66 Inventing the modern sports book 67 Today’s business 67 In-Person Betting 67 The big board: Reading the betting menu 68 Step by step: How to place an in-person bet 74 And in the end, the odds you get are equal to the odds you give 75 The morning after 76 Online Betting 76 Domestic online sports books 78 Offshore sports books 78 Betting kiosks/casino apps 79 I Got a Guy: Private Bookmakers 79 State Lotteries 81 Part 2: Betting Smart 83 Chapter 4: Beating the - Odds 85 A Tale of Two Numbers 85 Great expectation 86 Breakin’ even 2: Electric boogaloo 87 Positive EV, No Instructions Included 88 The missing piece: Win probability 89 Pennies on the dollar 89 Staying positive 90 Bookmakers and Odds 91 Holding onto the handle 92 Book balancing 93 Balancing the Books 97 Odds as a price 97 An odds life 99 Sharp objects 102 Bookmaking Business Models 107 Market makers: The odds stork 107 Market followers 107 The SuperMegaCup odds life cycle example 108 Early money/late money 109 World premier odds 109 The early bird gets the risk (and the reward) 110 Odds at odds 111 Chapter 5: The Best Bettor Habits 113 Winning Habits: A Quick Review 114 Betting Approaches 114 An idealized bet selection process 115 The goal of bet allocation 116 Financial diversity 117 The value of outs 120 Bet sizing 121 The Importance of Record-Keeping 125 Measures of success 126 Bet records 126 Bankrolling 127 The time dimension 127 Time as a flat circle 128 Where do you stand? 128 Establishing a fiscal period 129 How to think about a wealthroll 131 Rolling your own 132 Metric Superiority: Winning Percentage versus ROI versus Profit 134 ROI 134 Profit (and loss) 136 Win/loss records 139 Chapter 6: Full Frontal Nudity (and Some Statistics and Probability) 141 Thanks for Nothing, Ancestors 142 Narratives instead of numbers 143 Probabilities and Single-Outcome Events 144 Alternate universes would be nice 145 Statistical analysis as a process to find truth(iness) 146 Overdue: The Gambler’s Fallacy 147 How Randomness Masquerades as Non-Randomness 148 The fundamental assumption of randomness 149 Inserting randomness into sports assertions 149 Descriptive versus predictive 151 Predictably random: The bell curve 152 The Matter of Sample Size 153 The Law of Large Numbers 154 Standard deviation: You can do this 156 The Wonderful, Life-Changing Beauty of the Amazing Gambler’s Z-Score 160 Zee origin story 160 The Z-score and sports betting 161 Chapter 7: Handicapping the Fundamentals 165 The Challenges of Fundamental Analysis 166 Outside the Lines, between the Ears 167 The home-field advantage example 168 The benefits of fundamental analysis 168 The downside of fundamental analysis 169 Universal Fundamentals Concepts 171 Matchup 171 Rest and fatigue 175 Travel 176 Recent performance 177 Strength of competition 178 Motivation 178 Team Sports Factors 180 Overall talent and speed 180 Game plan 181 Coaching 181 Schedule/spot analysis 182 External Factors 182 Weather 183 Rules changes 183 Officiating 183 Venue and crowd 184 Measuring Performance Variance 184 Chapter 8: Technical Analysis and Modeling 187 Like Math, but Fancier 188 Analytics 188 Modeling 189 De-randomizing historical data 191 Systems and Angles 192 Betting systems 193 Betting angles 194 The Benefits of Data-Driven Analysis 195 What Gets Lost in the Numbers 197 Systems, like all handicapping, require patience 197 Games change over time 197 Teams change over time 197 There is no such thing as a single spread or total 198 The betting market assimilates winning systems into the odds 198 Complexity and the Scourge of P-Hacking 199 Characteristics of a Good System or Angle 201 Statistically significant 201 Predictive 201 Bettable 201 Timely 202 Frequent (enough) 202 A First Look at Trend-Spotting Tools 202 How it works 203 Querying previous games 204 Today’s games 205 Chapter 9: Power Ratings 207 Ranking, Rating? What’s the Difference? 208 Totally rated 208 Power rating strengths 210 Power rating weaknesses 210 Developing a Power Rating of Your Own 211 Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery 212 Your first power rating 212 P.E class 214 Game-by-game data 215 What to do in early season 217 Putting it all together in Excel 220 Part 3: Winning One Sport at a Time 225 Chapter 10: Betting to Win on the NFL 27 Today’s NFL Game 228                       The Evolution of NFL Spreads and Totals 230 Common NFL Bets 231 Notation 231 Derivative betting and props 231 Futures betting 232 Betting sides 233 Total bets 237 Betting the NFL Preseason 239 Preseason lines and limits 240 Preseason as predictor 241 Betting on head coaches 241 BET on week 2 losers 243 Other preseason betting factors 243 NFL Fundamentals 244 Schedule spot (travel, bye week) 244 Injuries 247 Weather 248 NFL Systems and Angles 250 BET Belichick’s slow starts 250 BET a case of the Mondays 251 BET restless on the road 251 BET growing totals 251 Chapter 11: Betting to Win on College Football 253 The College Football Schedule 254 Scoring Overview 255 College Football Bets 257 College football sides 257 Margin of victory 257 College football totals 259 Using push frequency to select the best odds 260 Multiples: Parlays and teasers in college football 264 Thinking about teaser and parlay odds 265 Offseason Evaluation and Betting 267 That returning starters thing 267 Alternatives to returning starters 268 BET on hope as a strategy? 269 Summer betting 270 Why don’t you just meet me in the middle? 270 Regular Season Betting 271 Essential statistics for betting 272 Rest 272 Running up the score 274 Quarter scoring trends 275 Runnin’ and gunnin’ 276 Turnovers 277 Betting the Post Season 279 Revenge is overrated 279 Postseason motivation 280 Saving yourself 280 More College Football Systems 281 BET under the home back to back 281 BET far to go 282 BET over the hype 282 BET kick ’em when they’re down 283 BET with the hype just this once 283 BET over the early season mismatch 284 Chapter 12: Betting to Win on NBA Basketball 287 Betting the Offensive Explosion 288 One and a Half Curses 289 The NBA Betting Market 290 Preseason betting 291 Postseason betting 292 BET on #2 Live Crew 294 Common NBA Bets 294 Sides 294 The top of the key 296 NBA moneyline 296 Totals 298 Early season herding 298 Quarters and halves 299 Handicapping factors in NBA 299 NBA Systems and Angles 304 Regular season 305 Postseason 306 Chapter 13: Betting to Win on College Basketball 309 The Basics of College Basketball 310 Size of market 311 The efficiency of the NCAA basketball betting market 311 The College Basketball Betting Cycle 312 Preseason 312 The regular season 312 Postseason 312 Betting on Games 312 Full game spread 313 Full game total 316 The great under 316 Wagering on the 1st and 2nd half 318 Extreme total games 320 Overtime games 320 Buying points (or not) 321 NCAA Basketball Teasers 324 College Basketball Angles 325 DON’T BET the slider 325 BET spread streakers 326 BET over conference surprises 326 Betting the NCAA Tournament 327 Seed-by-seed results 328 Spread records 330 BET tourney twofer against and under big tourney faves 330 Chapter 14: Betting to Win on Major League Baseball 331 The Basics of Major League Baseball 332 Baseball Bets and Odds 333 The baseball moneyline 334 Total runs bet 336 Run line bet 336 Baseball’s “ACTION” condition 338 9 divided by 2 = 5 inning lines 339 Other common baseball bets 341 Baseball Scoring Patterns 344 Runs per game 344 Runs per inning 344 Assessing hot and cold streaks 345 Starting Pitching and MLB Odds 346 BET on rest 346 Home/away splits 347 The Park Factor 348 Park factor statistics 348 Park factor research opportunities 349 Weather 349 Let me tell you about wind 349 You are my density 350 Other weather effects 351 Betting against the Public 352 Team streaks 352 BET the win streak ends here 353 More streak betting 354 MLB Systems and Angles 354 BET under extreme totals! 355 BET big favorites! 356 BET pitcher’s duel losers! 357 Part 4: Mastering the Craft 359 Chapter 15: You versus You 361 Who Actually Wins at Sports Betting? 362 Decision-Making and Judgment 363 Heuristics 363 Insensitivity to predictability 364 Information cannot inoculate you from randomness 365 The illusion of validity 365 Thin-slicing 366 Misunderstanding regression to the mean 366 More Cognitive Biases 367 The Gambler’s Fallacy 367 Confirmation bias 368 Recency bias 369 Availability bias 370 Familiarity bias 370 Peas and carrots 370 The Gambler’s Fallacy’s evil twin: The Hot Hand 371 The Momentum Fallacy 371 The Fundamental Sports Betting Attribution Error (FSBAE) 372 Chapter 16: The Sports Bettors’ Essential Excel Toolkit 373 Excel Stuff Even Non-Bettors Should Know 374 Reference types 374 Naming cells and ranges 376 Find values in a table with VLookup 378 Conditional love: Using IF statements 380 Eliminating errors with IfError 383 Essential Gambler’s Formulas 384 Translating moneyline odds into break-even win percentage 384 Win probability into an equivalent moneyline 385 Greater than 50% chance to equivalent moneyline 385 Tracking win% 386 Normalized winning percentage 386 Discounting wins 387 Kelly Criterion formula 389 The Gambler’s Z 389 Part 5: The Part of Tens 391 Chapter 17: Ten Betting Mistakes You Should Avoid 393 Chasing the Late-Night Slumpbuster 393 Spinning Your Records 394 Limiting Your Options 394 Realism: It’s Not Just for Pre-Raphaelite Artists 395 Thinking Yesterday’s Game = Today’s Game 396 Passing on Passing 396 Paying for Picks 397 Falling for the Five Star Fallacy 397 Listening to “Experts” 397 Being Too Focused on Averages 398 Chapter 18: 10 (or so) Books You Should Devour to Make Yourself a Better Sports Bettor 401 The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver 401 SuperForecasting by Philip E Tetlock and Dan Gardner 402 Confidence by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic 402 Superbookie by Art Manteris 402 Failure by Stuart Firestein 403 Scorecasting by Tobias Moskowitz 403 How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff 403 Sharper by Poker Joe 404 The Big Short by Michael Lewis 404 The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb 405 Moby Dick by Herman Melville 405 Part 6: Appendixes 407 Appendix A: The Best Online Resources for Sports Bettors 409 Appendix B: Online Sports Book Comparison 415 Index 419