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Offical Sports Betting Thread

Early look at some of the bowl games. These look enticing:

App St -17 vs UAB - 14
Temple +4 vs UNC - 1
OK St +7 vs Tex A&M - 5
Notre Dame -3.5 vs Iowa State - 3.5
OK +14 vs LSU - 6
Ohio St +2 vs Clemson - OSU -6
KY +2.5 vs Virginia Tech - Kentucky -1
Oregon +2.5 vs Wisconsin - 3
under 55 UVa/Florida - 53

Above is where SP+ has these matchups. Historically it has been a solid bowl predictor, although it was bad last year. It's hitting at 56% ATS this football season. Trying to figure out how much weight to give it. OSU, OU, Temple, UAB, and UK all seem to have solid value. Especially OSU and OU.
 
^^^ SP+ was really bad this bowl season. Not going that route again.

Tried something last night in NCAA I had never done before. Picked 8 games with the largest gap between margin of victory (or loss) ATS of the two teams. In all cases it was 5 points, and a few were >10 points. E.g. Northern Colorado averages beating the spread by 5.7 points, while Weber State (their opponent) averages losing to the spread by 7.

The results? 2-6. The idea was to pick teams that Vegas had undervalued throughout the year or against teams they had overvalued. Where's the flaw in this logic? I might track it for 100 games or so to see if there's any correlation (without betting all games), but it was not a great start.
 
^^^ SP+ was really bad this bowl season. Not going that route again.

Tried something last night in NCAA I had never done before. Picked 8 games with the largest gap between margin of victory (or loss) ATS of the two teams. In all cases it was 5 points, and a few were >10 points. E.g. Northern Colorado averages beating the spread by 5.7 points, while Weber State (their opponent) averages losing to the spread by 7.

The results? 2-6. The idea was to pick teams that Vegas had undervalued throughout the year or against teams they had overvalued. Where's the flaw in this logic? I might track it for 100 games or so to see if there's any correlation (without betting all games), but it was not a great start.

I might not be understanding it right, but I'd probably go the other way on those wagers by taking the teams that had been worse vs. the expected spread so far during the season.

But who knows. I think your system might have more success early on in the season before bettors wake up to which teams truly suck.

I used to bet a ton of college hoops, but I haven't done much this season. Other than around WFU games when I think we're going to get blown out.
 
I might not be understanding it right, but I'd probably go the other way on those wagers by taking the teams that had been worse vs. the expected spread so far during the season.

But who knows. I think your system might have more success early on in the season before bettors wake up to which teams truly suck.

I used to bet a ton of college hoops, but I haven't done much this season. Other than around WFU games when I think we're going to get blown out.

Shouldn't have included SP+ in that post - was referring to the bowl season with that.

For last night's basketball exercise, I used the teams' average margin of victory over the Vegas spreads over the course of this season, thinking if Vegas over/undervalued teams for 14+ games, it would be more likely than not to happen again, especially if it was an overperforming team ATS vs an underperforming team ATS (most were). Basically betting the trend.
 
Shouldn't have included SP+ in that post - was referring to the bowl season with that.

For last night's basketball exercise, I used the teams' average margin of victory over the Vegas spreads over the course of this season, thinking if Vegas over/undervalued teams for 14+ games, it would be more likely than not to happen again, especially if it was an overperforming team ATS vs an underperforming team ATS (most were). Basically betting the trend.

Gotcha. Yeah, I'd fade that instead of betting the trend. Just my nature, I guess. My thinking would be that the numbers might overcompensate over the course of the season.

I'm not right or wrong... Just my two cents.
 
Generally, when a team is on covering or non-covering roll, I will take that side until the covering or non-covering stops. There's a gambling adage: never bet against a streak, you can lose multiple times and only win once.

I've been hammering the SoCon and the Colonial with success this season, under the theory that the lesser conferences give the best edge over the linemaker as they aren't going to spend a lot of time analyzing the VMI/W Carolina matchup; and I am generally aware of these teams because they play against ACC teams in early season OOC games. For example, aware that UNCG has been banged up (starters Kyrin Galloway and Kaleb Hunter have been out -- Hunter just returned), have gone against the Spartans recently with success. When they are healthy, will take their side again as the UNCG power rating has dropped. Another team beset by personnel losses is UNCW (the Seahawks sucked anyway, but their PG got sick of losing and returned to Japan on Decemeber 21; it made a bad team totally pathetic; they have not covered since; info like that is just gold). KP's team profiles identify when a player is out by putting the number of games played for that player in red. This has been helpful in taking sides and totals.
 
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Numbers has been around much lately particularly on this thread; hope the SP+ crash during bowl season didn't make him a casualty.
 
Generally, when a team is on covering or non-covering roll, I will take that side until the covering or non-covering stops. There's a gambling adage: never bet against a streak, you can lose multiple times and only win once.

I've been hammering the SoCon and the Colonial with success this season, under the theory that the lesser conferences give the best edge over the linemaker as they aren't going to spend a lot of time analyzing the VMI/W Carolina matchup; and I am generally aware of these teams because they play against ACC teams in early season OOC games. For example, aware that UNCG has been banged up (starters Kyrin Galloway and Kaleb Hunter have been out -- Hunter just returned), have gone against the Spartans recently with success. When they are healthy, will take their side again as the UNCG power rating has dropped. Another team beset by personnel losses is UNCW (the Seahawks sucked anyway, but their PG got sick of losing and returned to Japan on Decemeber 21; it made a bad team totally pathetic; they have not covered since; info like that is just gold). KP's team profiles identify when a player is out by putting the number of games played for that player in red. This has been helpful in taking sides and totals.

Mind linking the power rankings you use? Just KP?
 
Mind linking the power rankings you use? Just KP?

Every morning (or the night before), before looking at the actual lines/totals, I find the matchups (Fanmatch on KP) in the SoCon, CAA, ACC and Big 10 conferences (and sometimes a few others; I never even look at any games involving West Coast teams as I have no feel for them, and the linemaker is too far ahead for me to catch up) using the KP database. For each game, I look at the following factors:

- What teams are currently improving/declining via the KP ratings and why (injury or suspension issues; are they playing in an unsustainable way -- shooting 50% from 3 or holding opponents to ridiculously low percentages from the field and from the line; are they playing teams that are declining or improving)
- Scheduling dynamics (consecutive road games; number of days off; coming off a big game; playing a big game after; good teams in a revenge spot; good teams coming off an inexplicable loss - like Iowa State to Florida A&M -- they covered in their next game at TCU)
- Weaknesses v. Strengths (is one team turnover prone on offense, playing a team that forces turnovers; rebounding differences; height; early in the season - too many freshman playing big minutes)
- Anything else that can impact the game from the expected result if everything else was equal (e.g., love taking teams early in the NCAA tournament that had an inexplicably awful loss in that NCAA tourney round the year before).
- Deceptive past results, did a team play definitively better or worse than the final score would indicate

Adjust the KP projected score for each matchup to determine whether the spread should be larger/smaller and whether the total points should be less or more.

After getting an idea of what the score and total should be independent of the spread, I then look at the lines variances, the bigger the variance the more I like the game. If the variance is too big, I have usually missed something.
 
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Don't forget to look at undefeated San Diego State for late night action out West. They are 18-0 and ranked around #7 in the country and don't carry near what a Duke or Kansas usually carry from Vegas on their odds. Just last night they were at 5-11 Fresno State & only giving 8.5 and covered. I believe they are now 10-4 ATS.
Others riding good spread waves are 11-3 Bama, 9-2 Baylor, 11-3 Butler, 11-4 Ga St, 11-5 GT, 11-4 Hofstra, 4-11 UNC-Ch, 10-5 Oregon, 4-10 UNC-W [who just fired their coach], 12-3 Stanford, 2-10 Syracuse, 2-10 VCU & 3-11 X.
 
Wanted to take Cuse tonight against BC, but the line 12. How does a team on such a horrendous ATS run lay 12?

Like GT again tonight -1 at home against ND. ND has been over-valued all year. Not sure why. They sucked last year (WF even beat the Irish), and brought in zero recruits. Even though Pastner is a slime, I like GT's team. They have some size inside with Banks and Moses Wright. Alvarado and Devoe are a decent backcourt, and they have a little depth.

BTW, Vandy is about to go on a long death spiral ATS run. They had already started to fall apart, and now, their leading scorer Aaron Nesmith, is likely done for the year. They have lost 21 straight conference games and counting.
 
Wanted to take Cuse tonight against BC, but the line 12. How does a team on such a horrendous ATS run lay 12?

Like GT again tonight -1 at home against ND. ND has been over-valued all year. Not sure why. They sucked last year (WF even beat the Irish), and brought in zero recruits. Even though Pastner is a slime, I like GT's team. They have some size inside with Banks and Moses Wright. Alvarado and Devoe are a decent backcourt, and they have a little depth.

BTW, Vandy is about to go on a long death spiral ATS run. They had already started to fall apart, and now, their leading scorer Aaron Nesmith, is likely done for the year. They have lost 21 straight conference games and counting.

Hope you stuck with your gut, just saw Syracuse was up 74-30 in the 2nd half!
 
La Monroe + 5.5 at home tonight vs Texas St. Coming off a 3 game road trip & much better at home---win
Lean towards Ark St + 5.5 @ App St App is playing bad basketball right now and is 9-9 giving points to a 12-6 team--win
FAU -8 at home vs MTSU who is 4-13 & 3-10 ATS---loss
 
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Also threw in some low cash sucker futures value bets on NCAAB - each of the five is to win the title:

Purdue +7000
Baylor +5000
Seton Hall +6600
Marquette +6600
Louisville +1400

Feel like all of these are low. Louisville should be closer to +850 or +900 IMO

Remembered mocking numbers for picking Marquette so wanted to see what his other picks were. OUCH on missing out on that potential Baylor $$
 
BUMP

Due to the boredom of quarantine and an enabling little brother I have dived head first back into sports betting. The last week or so I've gotten big into betting daily soccer and done fairly well. Anybody else betting games?

Today in the PL and Serie A I like:

Newcastle +0.25 (-117)
Arsenal and Chelsea ML Parlay (+125)
Arsenal/Norwich 1st Half Under 1.25 Goals
SAMP/LEC Over 2.75 Goals
SAS/FIO Over 2.75 Goals
Cagliari +0.5 (-121)
Parma +0.25 (+106)
 
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Last week, FanDuel had lines on drone racing and Russian professional ping-pong in case you need a fix.
 
On kind of related point, Virginia legalized on-line betting, and the law goes into effect today -- July 1.

Even so, you can't actually bet this month, but the prospective sports book vendors have submitted their applications to the VA lottery (they are running the sports betting licensing for VA). The hope is to have sports betting, with at least 4 options to ensure competitiveness, before the end of the year.

In NC, where you can bet on sports in tribal casinos (there are only two in the state and they are in the far western portion), there is a bill that has been introduced, but not enacted which will allow on-line sports betting. The hope is that on-line sports betting will be available in NC in the next year or so.
 
So if we take the under on every NFL team's win total, and there is no or only a partial season, do we win?
 
I think you'd have to do a lot of paperwork for each bet to be refunded. :)
 
So if we take the under on every NFL team's win total, and there is no or only a partial season, do we win?

For the NFL and college, teams have to play all scheduled games for the win/total bet to take effect. In MLB, team have to play at least 160 of their 162 games. Yes, RJ is correct that among the tons of ways that casinos make money includes people failing to take the time to collect refunds on cancelled bets (and even failing to cash winning tickets).

FWIW, here are the revised MLB win totals based on the planned 60 game season:

2020 MLB expected win totals
Team Over Under
Arizona Diamondbacks 31.5 +100 31.5 -124
Atlanta Braves 33.5 -117 33.5 -107
Baltimore Orioles 20.5 -114 20.5 -109
Boston Red Sox 31.5 -109 31.5 -114
Chicago Cubs 32.5 -112 32.5 -112
Chicago White Sox 31.5 -112 31.5 -112
Cincinnati Reds 31.5 -112 31.5 -112
Cleveland Indians 32.5 -112 32.5 -112
Colorado Rockies 26.5 -118 26.5 -106
Detroit Tigers 21.5 -112 21.5 -112
Houston Astros 35.5 -112 35.5 -112
Kansas City Royals 23.5 -114 23.5 -109
Los Angeles Angels 31.5 -112 31.5 -112
Los Angeles Dodgers 37.5 -112 37.5 -112
Miami Marlins 24.5 +100 24.5 -124
Milwaukee Brewers 30.5 -112 30.5 -112
Minnesota Twins 34.5 -120 34.5 -105
New York Mets 32.5 -109 32.5 -114
New York Yankees 37.5 -106 37.5 -118
Oakland Athletics 33.5 -112 33.5 -112
Philadelphia Phillies 31.5 -112 31.5 -112
Pittsburgh Pirates 25.5 -112 25.5 -112
San Diego Padres 30.5 -112 30.5 -112
San Francisco Giants 25.5 -112 25.5 -112
Seattle Mariners 24.5 -112 24.5 -112
St. Louis Cardinals 32.5 -112 32.5 -112
Tampa Bay Rays 33.5 -122 33.5 -103
Texas Rangers 28.5 -106 28.5 -118
Toronto Blue Jays 27.5 -120 27.5 -105
Washington Nationals 33.5 -117 33.5 -107

Based upon the team total projections the MLB playoffs would be:

AL East Champ: #1 seed Yankees
AL Central Champ: #3 seed Twins
AL West Champ: #2 seed Astros

WC: Rays v. Indians

NL East Champ: #2 seed Braves and Nats (tie)
NL Central Champ: #3 seed Cubs and Cards (tie)
NL West Champ: #1 seed Dodgers

WC: loser of the Braves/Nats v. loser of Cubs/Cards
 
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