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View Full Version : Question for you sports betting experts

Bigwig
05-29-2005, 04:11 AM
I used to bet sports quite frequently. Now, not so much. I do love picking winners for the hell of it, however, and have been keeping track of my numbers for a couple of years while occasionally placing an actual bet.

Anyway, had I bet all my solid picks, I'dve turned a decent profit over the last two years. I've got excellent numbers for picking basketball (college and pro) on the money line, and football on the point spread. Over/under on football--not so good. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

In the 1-table SNG forum we constantly talk sample size for results. My question: What do you think is a large enough sample size to be strongly confident for sports results? Say, 90%?

Thanks in advance.
tech
05-29-2005, 01:27 PM
It really depends on your winrate. If you are at 55% or higher, 500 is reasonable. As your winrate drops, your sample size needed increases exponentially.
Bigwig
05-29-2005, 02:25 PM
[ QUOTE ]
It really depends on your winrate. If you are at 55% or higher, 500 is reasonable. As your winrate drops, your sample size needed increases exponentially.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's the break even number again? Like 52.3% with a 10% vig? I can't remember.

So, you're saying that unlike SNG's, your actual winrate matters much more, because it's a static % you need to beat.
tech
05-29-2005, 05:59 PM
[ QUOTE ]
So, you're saying that unlike SNG's, your actual winrate matters much more, because it's a static % you need to beat.

[/ QUOTE ]

In a way I guess, but you have to beat a number in SNGs too: ROI > 0%. Basically betting sports is all about probability distributions. Most people don't believe it, but outcomes in sports like the NFL and NBA follow very nice and neat distributions around posted lines. If you have reasonable handicapping ability and then always bet into lines that are at least 1/2 point better than consensus lines, it is hard to lose at sports betting. There are also profitable techniques other than just straight bets, such as scalping and middling.

With standard -110 vig, breakeven is 110 / (110+100) = 52.38%.