Sports Betting

I’m travelling home todayI have not being able to shake off jag lag during the last two weeks (it’s currently 2am in the morning) so decided to add an update to the post below.

As I wrote previously, in my spare time I coach basketball. Back in the day I was a very good player; during my career I played at national league level both in Germany and England and over the years I have always had an affinity with other American sports such as Football (the American version) and Major League Baseball.

Like all punters, my early attempts at betting in events other that horse racing started with mug bets on football (the non American version) and it was not until I read “The Definitive Guide to Betting on Sports” along with Mark Iversons blog, that I realised that there were other outlets for mug’s wishing bet on sports.

So what is Sports Betting? No different from normal betting, really, bet one team to win, number of points scored, margin of victory, whatever. To evaluate the ability between teams an obvious measure is League position. So based on relative league position logic dictates that Chelsea of the Premiership are better than my home team Bristol Rovers who play in Championship League 1.

My heart tells me that “The Gas” would stuff Chelsea on any given day however; my analytical and methodical head suggests that Chelsea would win the match around 75% of the time, draw around 55% and lose 16%. (a massive 44% over round)

Translate this probability into bookies odds (win 1/3, draw 8/13, and loss 6/1) and I would need to bet a lot on the most likely results (win/ draw) for minimal returns.

In summary from a punting perspective a bet based on the measure of league position holds no wagering value. The reason being (apart from the basic fact that Chelsea is much better than Rovers) is the bet is using a common metric (league position) that is overvalued by the great unwashed and factored by bookmakers in the odds. Therefore by definition this measure is useless from a value perspective.

If league position is useless for a basis of finding value bets in football, to complicate matters further, how do you measure the relative ability of Blackburn (placed 9th) and West Ham (10th) in the premiership? How do you differentiate between Bath and Bristol Rugby Teams or the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins in American Football? In fact what measure can one use to benchmark the relative ability of teams in sports other that horse racing?

As described in the book above enter Arpad Elo the father of the ELO ratings system

I dabbled with this form of ratings a few years ago, but resurrected my investigation after my recent post in respect to looking at the potential of betting on other sports.

Last weekend I decided to spend time using ELO ratings and my knowledge of American Football and Basketball to select the winner of 10 NFL games and 20 NBA games.

As you can see from the picture above, obviously I needed liquid refreshments during my period of study. I must add that we have a lot to learn in respect to sports bars in the United Kingdom. 

According to the maths, at even odds per bet, you need to achieve a 53% win percentage to achieve long term profits sports betting. Of course add to the mix a technical understanding of the sport, efficient ratings, statistics and knowledge of betting trends when the great unwashed collectively bet with their hearts and not their heads, a higher win percentage is achievable. 

I am not looking for sports betting to take over from my focus on All Weather racing. Its just I am making sure I consider other options as I work toward my quest to be consistent and profitable punter.

Related Posts

• The Greatest Traders
• Change of Emphasis
• When to Place a Bet