Suggestions for Sports Betting Forum FAQ

[tech]

It has been my goal to have a FAQ stickied for this forum within the next few weeks, just in time for kickoff of football season. I know a few questions for sure will be things like how to read lines, what books to read, etc.

Please use this thread to post any other questions that you think belong in there. Feel free to post answers as well, to your questions or to the questions of others. I will collect all the questions and answers, clean it up, and then repost.

[Sluss]

Tech's Pooh-Bah post is a must.

Answers to the common questions:

What are the best sportsbooks?

Can I make money betting on sports?

What is the 3+1 Challenge?

What are the best Sports Betting books?

Encourage people to post some type of rationale with their picks.

[CCx]

A few off the top of my head....

What is a good bankroll to start with?

What part of my bankroll should I bet for each game?

What is a good website to use for checking odds at multiple online books?

What is a 'square' line, what is a 'sharp' line?

What is scalping?

I won a 3-team parlay yesterday and made a bunch of money, is it +EV to just stick to betting parlays?

What is a/are some good books to read for sports betting?

[MasterShakes]

How about a standard answer to general questions about professional handicappers?

They're very likely scam artists if they're not documented, and even if they are, it's still unlikely that it's worthwhile to pay for their picks. Spend your time and money studying and making your own picks.

Theory, philosophy, methodology and "way of thinking" kind of stuff.

[eternalnewbie]

I'll use this as an opportunity to ask a newbie question that I've wanted to ask for a while. I've looked through the posts in this forum and even the faq on major wager and not seen anything exactly on point, so here goes -

On pinnacle sports, the moneyline today for the braves v. reds today is -124 Braves and + 116 Reds.

I know that this means the Braves are favored and that you have to bet $1.16 on the Braves to win $1.00.

My question though is the basic question of what exactly do these odds mean? Suppose I do my handicapping and decide that I think the Braves will win X% of times. How do I do the math to decide if this means that this is a good bet?

Also, are there any other transaction fees involved in this type of bet, or do the books make all of their money off of the spread?

I hope I'm not being to presumptuous, but Mr. Baseball has talked a lot about how its not picking winners, it's about finding good buys. I was hoping for an example of exactly how you work out the math to evaluate whether this is a good bet.

The advanced part of my question, after that, is how do I then decide whether to play the money line or the run line - i.e. how do I compare the two to figure which is the better bet.

[eternalnewbie]

-124 means that:

x(100)-[(1-x)(124)]= 0
100x-(124-124x)=0
224x=124
x=.55357

So, this means that this is a good buy if you think the Braves will win this game about 55% of the time?

Also - this is my big question - do I have to add any other transaction costs into my calculations (e.g. if I am using pinnacle) or can I stop there.

Using, the same math, the probability of the Reds winning is about 46%. Should this always be adding up to about 100% (I tried this once before on another game and thought that for that game it added up to about 90% - I assumed that extra 10% was how the book was making its money).

Thanks in advance for your comments.

[mrbaseball]

[ QUOTE ]
On pinnacle sports, the moneyline today for the braves v. reds today is -124 Braves and + 116 Reds.

I know that this means the Braves are favored and that you have to bet $1.16 on the Braves to win $1.00.

My question though is the basic question of what exactly do these odds mean? Suppose I do my handicapping and decide that I think the Braves will win X% of times. How do I do the math to decide if this means that this is a good bet?


[/ QUOTE ]

Actually you have to bet 1.24 on Atl to win 1.00. If you bet the Reds 1.00 would return 1.16

Here's what the -124 on Atlanta means: you take the 1.24 (what you bet) divide it by 2.24 (what you get back if you win). So 1.24/2.24=55.35% meaning Atlanta needs to win 55% of the time to break even. If you think they win significantly more often than 55% you have a bet. On the Reds side they will need to win at least 46.29% to break even. Or 1/2.16=46.29%

So if can can determine how often a certain team should win in a certain situation you can then determine if the line is offering you any advantage assuming that your handicap is accurate.

[mrbaseball]

You got it!