A week off and I am back at the picking business. Here we go:
Detroit to cover 1 point at home vs. the Ravens Carolina to cover 2 points on the road vs. the Cards New England as a home dawg to cover 2 points against the Falcons.
I think you're trapped in a variation of the gambler's fallacy (I've been losing all day, so I'm bound to win this time!):
The whole point of bookies providing a point spread is to find the point at which all games become 50-50 propositions. This way, they will have about the same $$ on both sides, so most of the payoffs are just bettor-to-bettor transfers. The alternative is to use uneven payoffs, like in horse racing, so that the fewer bettors/bigger payoff for long(er) shots balances out the more bettors/smaller payoff for sure(r) wins.
Assuming the spreads are determined in part by bettor demand on both sides, I think you can safely assume that market forces ensure that every spread represents the market's best understanding of the 50-50 point.
So, like all betting, it comes down to whether you have some special knowledge that the rest of the market doesn't, in which case, you can win, win win! Otherwise, you can just hope to get lucky.
5 comments:
NE wasn't at home. What was I reading? Got it right, nevertheless.
So then did you finally decide to reverse your instinctive picks?
No. My new strategy is to pick games that have point spreads as close to zero as possible. Then all I have to do is pick a winning team, sorta.
I think you're trapped in a variation of the gambler's fallacy (I've been losing all day, so I'm bound to win this time!):
The whole point of bookies providing a point spread is to find the point at which all games become 50-50 propositions. This way, they will have about the same $$ on both sides, so most of the payoffs are just bettor-to-bettor transfers. The alternative is to use uneven payoffs, like in horse racing, so that the fewer bettors/bigger payoff for long(er) shots balances out the more bettors/smaller payoff for sure(r) wins.
Assuming the spreads are determined in part by bettor demand on both sides, I think you can safely assume that market forces ensure that every spread represents the market's best understanding of the 50-50 point.
So, like all betting, it comes down to whether you have some special knowledge that the rest of the market doesn't, in which case, you can win, win win! Otherwise, you can just hope to get lucky.
The house is setting the spread based on their assessment of the two teams, not like in a horse race where the betting actually determines the odds.
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