[ View Thread ] [ Post Response ] [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ]

General Forum

bad beats versus getting beaten badly

Posted By: Math Boy
Date: 25 Sep 01, 11:23 am

I was having a discussion with a fellow sports bettor yesterday. We were talking about a well-known handicapper who has been not only losing, but losing by wide margins against the spread. My friend was stating that this was evidence that the handicapper did not really know what he was doing. If you get beaten by a large margin on many games, you are not taking bad beats. Your opinion on the game was not very good. We all have taken bets like OSU/UCLA under fifty, seen the game end with about twenty total points, and felt like we really knew what we were doing. So what my friend says makes intuitive sense. Can people give me their opinions on this hypothesis?

If this hypothesis is true, then getting beaten badly on picks gives more information concerning the handicapper's picking ability. We can see the financial effects of winning or losing by large margins if we consider every bet to be an action points bet.

If you have no clue about statistics, stop reading now. :) I'm going to make up notation on the fly and this may not be easy to follow or understand. We can test this method of rating handicappers as follows. For football, say we have a history of outcomes at every given line. For example if a game was lined at +10, then we find the probability of the favorite team winning by any margin of points. Call this distribution F_+10. If the favorite wins by 15, we can look through F_+10 and see that the favorite won by 15 or more 37% of the time they were favored by ten. (I'm making up these numbers.) From our history of outcomes file we can also find the variance of the distribution F_+10. We do this over a set of games being handicapped.

We add up the total number of points by which the handicapper won and lost, and add up the associated variances. If we say game i was lined at x(i), then the aggregate distribution is G={sum i=1 to n} F_x(i) We now have a distribution for all the games that were picked. Say we are testing versus the hypothesis that the handicapper is able to pick at a 55% rate. We can find the 55th percentile of G as the sum of the 55th percentiles of the F_x(i) distributions. Then we can run standard tests to see how well or hypotheses hold. This method is using more information on games rather than just a win loss record. So in theory, we should be able to access handicapping talent more quickly than with standard methods. But this method also has its downfalls. If people would point out these downfalls to me I would be grateful.

Math Boy

Password:

Messages In This Thread

bad beats versus getting beaten badly -- Math Boy -- 25 Sep 01, 11:23 am
Obvious downfall -- Don Schlesinger -- 25 Sep 01, 1:44 pm
not so obvious -- Dunbar -- 26 Sep 01, 6:28 am
To me, a waste of time -- Don Schlesinger -- 26 Sep 01, 1:23 pm
an observation -- Dunbar -- 1 Oct 01, 11:55 am
My great claim to fame :-) -- Don Schlesinger -- 1 Oct 01, 5:26 pm
I'm definitely impressed! -- Dunbar -- 2 Oct 01, 7:18 am
Jr. Mets, I believe -- Don Schlesinger -- 2 Oct 01, 11:51 am
who was the handicapper nt (nt) -- steve -- 25 Sep 01, 2:14 pm
Contrariwise... -- James -- 25 Sep 01, 3:03 pm
One problem -- StevieY -- 25 Sep 01, 3:16 pm
selection bias? -- Lefty -- 25 Sep 01, 3:46 pm
some responses -- Math Boy -- 25 Sep 01, 3:59 pm
close games -- Vetsen -- 25 Sep 01, 4:39 pm
How to be sure?? -- Don Schlesinger -- 25 Sep 01, 5:04 pm
I miswrote -- Math Boy -- 25 Sep 01, 6:58 pm
Math Boy, I AM the man! -- Goats -- 26 Sep 01, 7:29 am
I somewhat agree (and my results)... -- MDMAniac -- 25 Sep 01, 6:11 pm
I strongly agree with your post. -- fezzik -- 25 Sep 01, 9:05 pm
More results (and commentary) -- Colin Caster -- 25 Sep 01, 10:55 pm
IMO, your post was the best in a great thread -- fezzik -- 26 Sep 01, 7:29 pm
I have a different take on this thought provoking question: -- samo666 -- 26 Sep 01, 6:11 am
I like your example -- Bad Cutter -- 26 Sep 01, 8:13 am
To me, . . . -- Don Schlesinger -- 26 Sep 01, 1:29 pm
Excellent post. You may be correct. -- samo666 -- 26 Sep 01, 2:20 pm
The reason I think it's important... -- MDMAniac -- 26 Sep 01, 2:58 pm
Being better than the line -- StevieY -- 26 Sep 01, 4:23 pm
I'd like to meet you one day, Stevie -- Don Schlesinger -- 26 Sep 01, 5:34 pm
It would be my honor (nt) -- StevieY -- 27 Sep 01, 7:50 pm
Typo -- Don Schlesinger -- 27 Sep 01, 8:37 pm
You gotta learn to blame that on the keyboard (nt) -- Razor -- 28 Sep 01, 5:46 am
Right! :-) -- Don Schlesinger -- 28 Sep 01, 8:45 am

 

Post Response
Your Name:
Your E-Mail Address:
Subject:
Message:

If you'd like to include a link to another page with your message,
please provide both the URL address and the title of the page:

Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:

If you'd like to have the option of deleting your post later,
please provide a password (CASE SENSITIVE!):

Password:

If you'd like e-mail notification of responses, please check this box:

 

 

[ View Thread ] [ Post Response ] [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ]

General Forum is maintained by Pi Yee Press