We’re aware that we’re a little late on this, but in case you missed it, William Guo offered up a fantastic piece for Nylon Calculus on NBA betting over the weekend. It answers questions like, “How are NBA lines made?”, “How do NBA lines move?” and “How do winning gamblers make money?” while also touching on topics like wisdom of crowds, efficient markets, profitability, and on and on.
It’s centered around the NBA, but the lessons can apply to a number of other markets.
We particularly enjoyed his analysis of the Orlando Magic’s streak of seven straight overs back in mid-January.
The streak of seven overs in a row between 12 January 2015 and 25 January 2015 would be the equivalent of flipping a fair coin and having it land heads seven times in a row, which has less than a 1% probability. However, when flipping a coin 82 times, there is a ~26% chance of observing 7 heads in a row at some point, so this is an unremarkable result. However, the pace also noticeably spiked in January, coinciding with this streak of overs.
After the game on January 10, 2015, some quotes suggested there was a change in the approach the Magic play.
Nikola Vucevic: “We talked about it throughout the whole year: that we want to play at a faster pace. We weren’t doing it for some reason, and I think the guards just one game decided, Vic and Elfrid, to as soon as they get the ball just run. We just followed them, and everything kind of came into place.”
Victor Oladipo: “Pace. Changing the way we play. Realizing how we’re effective and what we have to do in order to win. We’ve just got to continue to keep doing it.”
Even opponents recognized it. Dwight Howard: “I just think it started with their point guard, the guy with the crazy hair, he’s the one that started everything. On the offensive end, he just pushed the pace and he made things happen.”
Zach Lowe noticed too, mentioning in his column posted on January 14, 2015: “The Magic are trying to be a fast-paced spread pick-and-roll team, with three shooters spotting up around (mostly) Payton/Vucevic pick-and-rolls.”
The Orlando Pinstriped Post agreed in a January 15, 2015 on the same date: “As the players put it, they and coach Jacque Vaughn chose to pick up the pace and find more efficient, quicker ways to score. Since laying that egg against the Lakers, the Magic have looked fresh and energized, thanks in large part to their young starting backcourt of Elfrid Payton and Victor Oladipo.”
But that’s just one example. It’s fairly long, but we think it’s well worth a full read if you have any interest at all in NBA betting, or just sports betting in general.
It’s easily the best sports betting article we’ve read in the past few months, if not even longer than that.