SportsLine.com
Cools
Senior Member
Anyone checked out CBS' offshoot sports betting site? Here's a pretty good piece by a former colleague of mine: http://www.sportsline.com/insiders/25266991/hartstein-insights-for-the-2015-nfl-season
Comments
Some of his points are valid but the breakdown of the contributors other than Fuhrman was worthless. He doesn't know any of those guys from Adam. He blasts them but there was "no malicious intent." Oh the bloggers.
Quality gambling site or not, I agree with Tortuga in that more mainstream media outlets covering the sports gaming industry will only lead to its legalization.
Do you work for sportsline?
I do not.
Do any of your friends work for sportsline?
And these chuckleheads writing for Sportsline are what, if not "bloggers?" The burden of proof of expertise should be on these bloggers, not the critics, and I think one of the points of the article was that there's no evidence of expertise there.
He specifically points out the absurdity of the one guy advertising an 88 game sample (who picks 18 games a year on average, quite selective), what, they couldn't afford CH Ballers? I picked something like 69% normalized for -110 across all sports last year on RTP, about 125 picks, and when asked what my record on picks was last year when asked by broadcasters/authors, I make sure to include a vigorous wanking motion as I quote that small sample record.
The author also mentions Accuscore which is crap, see: http://www.vegaswatch.org/2012/08/holy-cow-thats-bad-way-of-doing-it.html
(Before we get an "Oh, the bloggers," the author of that piece is also full time sports bettor.) If you publish content in which you seriously think assigning a probability of win or loss of 100% or 0%, and think all of those extreme records and so few around 7-9 through 9-7 is a legitimate forecast, you have no business writing about gambling.
Finally, your former colleague's resume boasts of "a vast network of Vegas and offshore sources." In the article you linked and described as a "pretty good piece," which is mostly the sort of small sample trends RJ Bell loves to ejaculate over every week, item 12 is:
"Vegas doubts Arizona, again"
And we're greeted with a graphic showing "Bets by ticket count" "* Odds provided by Bovada"
What's wrong with this picture?
1) Bovada is not in "Vegas," the LV stands for "Latvia," yet gambling authors sure love citing Bovada's "Vegas odds"
2) Bovada is one of the last books I would cite for market reflective odds, considering they deal dual lines, take one-sided action, and boot anyone with a clue.
3) Considering how dishonest Bovada is about certain things, particularly lying about dealing dual lines (when customers point out that they saw +3.5 on the line feed/web page and then it switched to +3 when they logged in, Bovada says "lines move all the time," even when the customers point out that happened 7 times in a row), and also about voiding legitimately placed live bets, I wouldn't trust any data they provided about "bet percentages," never mind that data is worthless because of point 2). (Regarding one-sided action, I don't know if they still do this, but in my Bovada account years ago, they put me on a 60 second delay and would move the line and give me a "sorry, the line has moved" message on the majority of my bets. To test them, I started submitting small bets on the "wrong" side and those would go through every time, so it was obvious they were selectively rejecting bets and only taking action on one side)
4) Why in the name of God would someone with "a vast network of Vegas and offshore sources" need odds "provided" to them, let alone think Bovada odds are remotely legitimate or worthwhile ? I and several other people I know actually have been blocked on Twitter by several CBS authors for objecting to their use of Bovada odds, and the fact that they all consistently cite Bovada and block people for objecting leads me to conclude there's a high probability that Bovada is paying CBS to quote their odds. Fine, that's capitalism, but it also means CBS's content will be worthless.
Finally, that example I gave of CBS giving out a pick their own model said was -EV wasn't an isolated incident, as yesterday they gave out SF +1.5 -189 and said their sim predicted it will win 64% of the time. I could quite literally teach an intelligent 8 year old to identify that's a bad bet by the CBS model.
DISCLOSURE, the author of that blog piece follows me on Twitter and has asked me a couple times for my input about touts/the gambling industry and I likely influenced his opinion about T00d Fuhrman, but I've only know of him for a few months and there's no bias there other than respecting that someone actually seeks out the opinion of someone who demonstrably wins at gambling, rather than someone paid to cite Bovada's "Vegas odds."
That's kind of funny because I thought the exact opposite and thought it displayed like crap on my monitor. As if I needed something else to put me on life tilt, over the last year or so, it seems like every web page that's newly designed or redesigned looks like crap on my monitors because they're optimizing the design for mobile phones/tablets.
I only skimmed that article so I'm sure I missed some other stuff. Pretty sure Larry doesn't know what defines a "meaningful trend" considering all the small sample stuff he quotes, but if he had a "deep understanding of betting markets," he'd know that William Hill odds are useless as a market indicator, considering that in the last year they banned literally 150+ winning bettors, many of whom weren't even particularly big winners, but were just smart enough to know when a line was off by a half point. If you deal shaded lines and ban anyone smart enough to play the side you don't want, your action won't be reflective of the market, nor will your odds. These authors might as well cite SIA odds.
Who cares that Pinny has Seattle +465 and GB +546, that the exchanges, when seeded, have roughly Seattle +480 and Green Bay +600 before commissions, that every book with a clue will have Seattle as the favorite, because William Fucking Hill have GB favored, who are probably banning anyone competent enough to bet SEA +550, knowing they can arb it with SEA not to win -500 plus commission on the exchanges. (Matchbook currently has about 1300 Euros of -500 or better before commissions.)
You won't hear much about William Hill's bannings in the media because William Hill has used their market influence to get at least two media personalities kicked off radio shows for mentioning the bannings. It's a great example of why mainstream media content is worthless -- William Hill sponsors a bunch of gambling shows so they can control the content. If you say something negative about them, they pull their sponsorship, and even if they don't sponsor the show, they can threaten to withhold possible future sponsorship, and the radio stations cowtow to the sponsors.
This is incredibly misleading, lazy, and sloppy. He's citing the value of both the favorite and dog winning by 3 or 7 as the game "landing on" the number, when in gambling parlance, the game "landing on the number" means on that particular side of the point spread. If the line is -7, who cares if the favorite loses by 7? As an example, more CFB games have a margin of victory of 1 than 17, 24, or 28, but those three numbers are more key than the 1. DUCY?
I'm sure I could rip that article even more, but I've made my point. I'm sure people will read that article and think the 3 pushes 16% of the time, which is fine by me. I get the best of both worlds. I get to laugh at these so-called "experts" in venues where most people already have a clue, the squares who read that stuff become even dumber, and the nuthuggers of these "experts" call me a hater, block me on Twitter, or whatever.
First of all, a few wise cracks isn't very malicious, but I guess if you have thin skin you can say I "blasted" them. I was simply pointing out that the closest these guys have to a winning sports bettor is some journalist who quoted an 88 game sample from a Reno newspapers.
Secondly, is Adam a winning sports bettor? I don't have to know "these guys from Adam" to know that they're not qualified to be charging for betting advice.
And lastly, I don't think CBS scamming people, selling inaccurate information and losing sports picks with no accountability will help legitimize sports betting.
I have no bias against these people, but since you've claimed that your friend works for them, you do.
Thanks for coming out though.
Secondly, thin skin can file suit in a second. As a brash, young blogger, you will likely discover that quickly.
Lastly, I never once claimed that SportsLine was a great place to buy picks. I wouldn't ever recommend purchasing picks to anyone.
Whether you agree or not, putting sports gambling, whether it be DFS or traditional, in the public eye is undoubtedly a quicker route to legalization, not legitimization.
Again, I never "claimed" that my "friend" worked for SportsLine. Again, I said he was a "colleague." You won't get far in the blogosphere by putting words in people's mouths.
Clearly, everyone can be a sportswriter these days. Good luck with the month-old blog, though. You'll need to become a better writer to succeed in a very competitive blog market so it might not be worth your time. Then again, you likely have nothing but time so keep it up kid. Perhaps Bleacher Report is a good spot for you?
Groovin, I said it was a "pretty good piece." Not great, not enthralling, not award-winning. Just pretty good, which equates to pretty average in my book.
As far as the trends, I loathe them. They are absolutely worthless as anyone that has any clue in this business knows.
Bovada does pay websites to use their odds, that's why they have the most presence in the media. Bovada is littered throughout SB Nation because they're in bed with Odds Shark. The also spend copious amounts of money with a very influential PR firm to push their odds to the media.
I can assure you that these guys know Bovada isn't in Vegas. But when writing these articles and being aware of SEO keywords and what the Google bots are looking for, putting "Vegas odds" in an article shows up in searches a lot more than "offshore sportsbook Bovada."
Again, I never claimed SportsLine was worthy of buying picks. I simply inquired as to what the board thought about the new site. I appreciate your feedback on the matter. But if you think I'm endorsing SportsLine, I can assure you I'm not. If you really dissected the two links I posted from there, you will see why I did. There is always an ulterior motive (see puckline's joining the forum in August 2015 to coincide with the launch of his popular blog).
I've got a real job, family and hobbies, gentlemen, so I don't have time to waste bantering with you. This will be my last response to this thread. Good luck.
I've never claimed to be a great writer, because I'm NOT. And I'm sure as hell not trying to "compete" in the blogosphere, I could care less. I have no intentions of obtaining fame or notoriety. Most of my pages are password protected, so keep your assumptions to yourself.
As far as SportsLine goes, it's a joke and I felt like giving my take on it, I'm not capitalizing on anything.
I'm not sure where you saw "PuckLine joins the forum because of the launch of his successful blog." LOL, I sure as hell didn't write that. I joined the forum to reply to your comment, I don't have time for this crap, it's 2015.Thanks for costing me $1.35 CND by the way, broke the bank.
I'm sorry that I have a career that allows me extra time to occasionally spout off about things on my "month old blog".
And by the way, I have a job, responsibilitis and a family as well. So, if you don't have time to have a conversation, don't start one.
Have a nice day.
This may be the most unintentionally hilarious post I've read in a while, and this concluding sentence really takes the cake. "I've got a real job" shouldn't be bragworthy on a gambling forum that claims to have sharp posters. Although flaming a blog author for joining the forum to respond to your unsubstantiated criticism is a close second.
Thanks for the kind words -- gambling forums have really gone to shit from the days of SSB and the old Fezzik's Place board. I just re-read a 3 year old thread on EOG where Arne Lang was invited to an EOG contest, yet said he didn't post to the forum because he "only gives out his expert advice if he's paid to do so." Then this "expert" proceeded to play an NFL team +3 in the contest when the market line/closing line were +3.5. When I pointed out that pick was garbage, all but one poster who replied said "but the pick won!" "your jealous he won 10k" etc. I stopped posting to another forum when their mods mocked me for saying that teaser side legs are less strong with higher totals because the scoring distributions make half points worth less, because "their expert mod" knows that the total is irrelevant. When those are the consensus opinions, there's no value in tapping on the aquarium.