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BennyProfane
Senior Member
I had a question, but I wasn't even sure how to come up with a good thread title or even how to explain what I'm trying to ask.
In betting sports, my methodology has always been very simple, especially compared to how most pros go about it. Look at a game and ask yourself, "Is the favorite overrated by the betting market?" If I can come up with a good reason why the answer is yes, I ask, "Is the underdog underrated by the betting market?" If the answer is yes, I ask, "Can I bet the game at a spread that's at least half a point better than what Pinnacle is offering?" If the answer to that is yes, I bet the game. If I get a no on any of the three questions, I move on to the next one. That's been pretty much my approach since 2003.
I spend a great deal of time on sports betting forums, much more than I'd care to admit. What never ceases to amaze me is the amount of people who have no desire to originate their own picks, and don't have the self-confidence to bet what they handicap unless they can find an online poster who agrees with them. What many of them want to do is find a poster who consistently wins at all sports, while posting everyday well before 7 p.m. eastern. It's almost like finding a unicorn. You wouldn't even have to think, just check a forum, copy his picks, watch the games at night, and collect. There are posters who can go on runs, despite having minimal handicapping skills, and attract insanely large followings. Perusing therx or pregame demonstrates that anyone who can post four winners in a row will somehow attract a group of people who will login daily, bet his picks even if the line has moved, and if by some miracle he loses, he'll practically get death threats. I first noticed this phenomenon many years ago on the old lvasports board. Not sure if anyone here remembers Helmut's posts on that thread, but he posted almost daily during the college basketball season. He had figured out a number of secrets about how to bet college basketball totals, and he was willing to tell many of those secrets in his write ups. Often, a line would move four points or more in a short time, and posters would come onto the thread and ask, "It's still ok to bet at the current line, right?"
It's easy to understand that most people don't have the resources or skill set to construct a viable math model. This doesn't stop them from wanting to bet sports, because, let's face it, this is the greatest endeavor under the sun. People like that still aren't going to win because followers don't win. They just don't. There isn't a single person in the world making straight bets into the widely available line, using their own handicapping, and turning a consistent substantial profit.
The whole thing is related to a discussion I used to have with my uncle years ago, what we called the "Million Monkeys Paradox". (I really don't want to get too far off course, but I don't know how else to explain this.) Let's say you have a million monkeys and a million typewriters. Each monkey is capable of typing at a million keystrokes per second. The monkeys don't know what the letters and symbols mean, and only type random keys. Each monkey types constantly between now and the heat death of the universe (say, 20 Trillion years from now). At the end of that time, you examine everything the monkeys have typed. What are the odds that one of the monkeys, at some point, typed a cogent English sentence of seven words or more, that doesn't have a typographical error in it? I always thought that due to the sheer volume of keystrokes, it's inevitable that one of them would at least type something coherent, but my uncle was adamant that even if you had (Infinite minus one) monkeys capable of typing (infinite minus one) keystrokes per second, they still would NEVER produce anything. To this day, I'm not sure which of us is right, or if either of us are.
Put the enigma another way. Let's say that instead of typewriters, you showed each monkey a copy of the daily sports schedule. You asked him to point at five different teams each day. You then recorded how each monkey's picks against the spread over a vast sample size. After doing this, for several years, you discovered that a particular monkey seemed to always have a good record in all sports, say, 57% straight bets, accompanied by good CLV. It's easy to attribute this to sheer randomness. The animal has no idea what he's doing, and his actions aren't causing anything to happen, any more than we can state that the other monkey who is a consistent 43% winner is a terrible handicapper. With all the thousands of people who participate in sports betting forums, it seems inevitable that someone on some forum is on a run of godlike proportions that is nothing but the product of pure luck, and due to our tendency to pareidolia, we assume that the result is evidence of genuine skill.
With all of that said. Let's say you discovered an internet forum that no one else had ever visited. You discover a poster you have never heard of before, who for the past ten years has been posting Side and Total picks from each of the major sports. The person isn't chasing steam, betting stale lines, betting low-limit props, or betting nothing but heavy money lines to pad a record. They never post a write-up or give any hint of what their handicapping methodologies are. Just, everyday, around 1 eastern, a post of 5-7 sides and totals from the daily rotation that they bet against the widely available line. You verified that their documented record in that time was 15,546-11,998.
Is that record BY ITSELF proof that they are a winning bettor? In other words, if the person was nothing but a coin flipper who was getting lucky in the short run, is it possible that their results wouldn't have regressed to the mean over a sample size of more than 27,000 straight bets? My instinct is that a poster like that is simply the monkey who got lucky. But, the winning percentage simply can't be ignored.
In betting sports, my methodology has always been very simple, especially compared to how most pros go about it. Look at a game and ask yourself, "Is the favorite overrated by the betting market?" If I can come up with a good reason why the answer is yes, I ask, "Is the underdog underrated by the betting market?" If the answer is yes, I ask, "Can I bet the game at a spread that's at least half a point better than what Pinnacle is offering?" If the answer to that is yes, I bet the game. If I get a no on any of the three questions, I move on to the next one. That's been pretty much my approach since 2003.
I spend a great deal of time on sports betting forums, much more than I'd care to admit. What never ceases to amaze me is the amount of people who have no desire to originate their own picks, and don't have the self-confidence to bet what they handicap unless they can find an online poster who agrees with them. What many of them want to do is find a poster who consistently wins at all sports, while posting everyday well before 7 p.m. eastern. It's almost like finding a unicorn. You wouldn't even have to think, just check a forum, copy his picks, watch the games at night, and collect. There are posters who can go on runs, despite having minimal handicapping skills, and attract insanely large followings. Perusing therx or pregame demonstrates that anyone who can post four winners in a row will somehow attract a group of people who will login daily, bet his picks even if the line has moved, and if by some miracle he loses, he'll practically get death threats. I first noticed this phenomenon many years ago on the old lvasports board. Not sure if anyone here remembers Helmut's posts on that thread, but he posted almost daily during the college basketball season. He had figured out a number of secrets about how to bet college basketball totals, and he was willing to tell many of those secrets in his write ups. Often, a line would move four points or more in a short time, and posters would come onto the thread and ask, "It's still ok to bet at the current line, right?"
It's easy to understand that most people don't have the resources or skill set to construct a viable math model. This doesn't stop them from wanting to bet sports, because, let's face it, this is the greatest endeavor under the sun. People like that still aren't going to win because followers don't win. They just don't. There isn't a single person in the world making straight bets into the widely available line, using their own handicapping, and turning a consistent substantial profit.
The whole thing is related to a discussion I used to have with my uncle years ago, what we called the "Million Monkeys Paradox". (I really don't want to get too far off course, but I don't know how else to explain this.) Let's say you have a million monkeys and a million typewriters. Each monkey is capable of typing at a million keystrokes per second. The monkeys don't know what the letters and symbols mean, and only type random keys. Each monkey types constantly between now and the heat death of the universe (say, 20 Trillion years from now). At the end of that time, you examine everything the monkeys have typed. What are the odds that one of the monkeys, at some point, typed a cogent English sentence of seven words or more, that doesn't have a typographical error in it? I always thought that due to the sheer volume of keystrokes, it's inevitable that one of them would at least type something coherent, but my uncle was adamant that even if you had (Infinite minus one) monkeys capable of typing (infinite minus one) keystrokes per second, they still would NEVER produce anything. To this day, I'm not sure which of us is right, or if either of us are.
Put the enigma another way. Let's say that instead of typewriters, you showed each monkey a copy of the daily sports schedule. You asked him to point at five different teams each day. You then recorded how each monkey's picks against the spread over a vast sample size. After doing this, for several years, you discovered that a particular monkey seemed to always have a good record in all sports, say, 57% straight bets, accompanied by good CLV. It's easy to attribute this to sheer randomness. The animal has no idea what he's doing, and his actions aren't causing anything to happen, any more than we can state that the other monkey who is a consistent 43% winner is a terrible handicapper. With all the thousands of people who participate in sports betting forums, it seems inevitable that someone on some forum is on a run of godlike proportions that is nothing but the product of pure luck, and due to our tendency to pareidolia, we assume that the result is evidence of genuine skill.
With all of that said. Let's say you discovered an internet forum that no one else had ever visited. You discover a poster you have never heard of before, who for the past ten years has been posting Side and Total picks from each of the major sports. The person isn't chasing steam, betting stale lines, betting low-limit props, or betting nothing but heavy money lines to pad a record. They never post a write-up or give any hint of what their handicapping methodologies are. Just, everyday, around 1 eastern, a post of 5-7 sides and totals from the daily rotation that they bet against the widely available line. You verified that their documented record in that time was 15,546-11,998.
Is that record BY ITSELF proof that they are a winning bettor? In other words, if the person was nothing but a coin flipper who was getting lucky in the short run, is it possible that their results wouldn't have regressed to the mean over a sample size of more than 27,000 straight bets? My instinct is that a poster like that is simply the monkey who got lucky. But, the winning percentage simply can't be ignored.
Comments
Another way of looking at this question is, "When does the short term become the long term?" A handicapper who goes 6-4 in a ten game stretch is unremarkable. 60-40, hard to do, but still possibly lucky. 6000-4000, probably would be nuts not to start his own tout service. Where is the magical line where luck turns to skill?
I think you'd also have to take into consideration the sport. In a high volume market like NCAAB or MLB I'd need a larger sample size than someone in NFL or MMA for example.
NBA, NCAAB, NFL, NCAAF, NHL, and MLB account for more than 95% of the selections. There are a few WNBA, CFL, AFL for the remaining five percent. Ironically, those last three have produced the lowest roi.
I am not describing myself in the op.
Why would someone who can beat large markets tout picks? Ras is the most reputable tout there is. Its better for them to tout picks instead of wager I assume because they are touting collage games and collage derivatives of games. This is not exactly a large market. I also assume customers of ras are not betting widely avaible lines. They are betting locals/rec books with stale lines. One may get the line at pinny the rest do not.
I get what your saying with all this, Its true you see someone have a couple good seasons and then they are a tout. In reality all that is happening is they start a record after a winning season which is basically free rolling the first season and that is if they are not cheating their record in some sort of a way (there is alot of ways).
It would be my believe to not follow a tout because of his record. Your not going to get a appropriate sample. Honest closing line value would be better then a win/lose record. Even better a glimpse of how he handicappers. For example Dr Bob mentions things from years ago where he found things that were predictive that the market was not accounting like luck from sports data. Like if a nfl team was on the receiving end of more then normal fumbles/turnovers/converting more then typical 3rd downs etc... This is no secret now and I am not recommend Dr bob I just using him as a example. Obviously this is a blow to a touts model giving out secrets but if a tout posted some useful intelligent mathematical analysis I would be more conformable "following" them then a record of couple hundred picks.
The flip side of the coin to that question is, "Why would someone who can consistently beat every market give away their picks for free?" There are a very few touts who win, and those that do sell their picks because it's a way to earn supplementary income. I would never charge anyone for such a thing because I use boards like this as an exchange of ideas. I don't ever want people to stop sharing their ideas with me. Although, the hard fact is that no true professional would ever discuss anything proprietary on a message board.
It's just so mysterious to me that a person who can consistently win at the above mentioned percentage has been giving it away. If he's actually betting his posted picks and using appropriate Kelly betting, he has to have gotten rich.
On the other hand..let's say you're a person who works in a square field that has nothing to do with gambling, sports, probability theory, or math. You're a lifelong sports fan, so you decide to give sports betting a chance. You decide to design a predictive math model to give you an edge. Qute a few people have tried this, right? So what are the odds that this one particular person will somehow create the one model that is capable of beating straight bets at a 57% percent rate?
I've way over thought this.
Nope not aware or frequent many forums, This one and a another one that is specific to my market I attack.
Thanks. Both of you guys had/have similar savvy style.