Why favorites are on a roll in NFL '05

[legend42]

(Sorry for the length here, I just started rambling)

There seems to be a more clearcut division between the haves and havenots among NFL teams this year. Of course, there have always been good and bad teams, but what's notably missing this season, one of the most reliable products of parity, is the huge number of 'in-between' teams: the teams that can legitimately match up with the good teams, but are vulnerable enough to lose to the bad teams in any given week.

It was games involving these teams that usually offered tremendous dog value. And these games would then promote even more parity, as teams would often beat supposedly "better" teams, naturally balancing out the league, making teams harder to classify, and causing uncertainty for future games. In recent years, you could count on as many as 10-12 teams to hover around this in-between level.

This year, many of the teams that had "tweener" potential have, due to injury and/or other factors, slipped into the "bad" tier: Ravens, Bills, Titans, Packers, Saints, Cardinals, Jets, Eagles, etc. While a few others have established themselves as good: Seahawks, Cowboys, Bengals, Giants, Bucs...

While there are certain teams that would seem to fit the tweener mold this year, there are many fewer than usual, and even those can be easily divided. So as an experiment, I decided to eliminate the middle level altogether.

I came up with 16 good and 16 bad teams, based not just on records, but purposely basic evaluation. It's probably not hard to figure the dividing line (I have Redskins good/Vikings bad fwiw), and I'm fairly comfortable saying the worst teams in the good tier are clearly better (weighted over the season) than the best teams in the bad tier, a distinction that the muddiness of the in-between element made almost impossible to discern in the past.

I probably don't have to tell you the ATS record this year in games of good vs. bad teams is extremely lopsided. I think it's 67-29-2. And, despite what Fezzik and other experienced cappers are saying, I see no reason why the trend won't continue. To anybody who has watched the games this year, does this seem like a fluke? It's good teams beating up on bad teams, plain and simple, and tweaking the line a couple points (which is all the books can really do) isn't going to change that.

[ QUOTE ]
(Sorry for the length here, I just started rambling)

There seems to be a more clearcut division between the haves and havenots among NFL teams this year. Of course, there have always been good and bad teams, but what's notably missing this season, one of the most reliable products of parity, is the huge number of 'in-between' teams: the teams that can legitimately match up with the good teams, but are vulnerable enough to lose to the bad teams in any given week.

It was games involving these teams that usually offered tremendous dog value. And these games would then promote even more parity, as teams would often beat supposedly "better" teams, naturally balancing out the league, making teams harder to classify, and causing uncertainty for future games. In recent years, you could count on as many as 10-12 teams to hover around this in-between level.

This year, many of the teams that had "tweener" potential have, due to injury and/or other factors, slipped into the "bad" tier: Ravens, Bills, Titans, Packers, Saints, Cardinals, Jets, Eagles, etc. While a few others have established themselves as good: Seahawks, Cowboys, Bengals, Giants, Bucs...

While there are certain teams that would seem to fit the tweener mold this year, there are many fewer than usual, and even those can be easily divided. So as an experiment, I decided to eliminate the middle level altogether.

I came up with 16 good and 16 bad teams, based not just on records, but purposely basic evaluation. It's probably not hard to figure the dividing line, and I'm fairly comfortable saying the worst teams in the good tier are clearly better (weighted over the season) than the best teams in the bad tier, a distinction that the muddiness of the in-between element made almost impossible to discern in the past.

I probably don't have to tell you the ATS record this year in games of good vs. bad teams is extremely lopsided. I think it's 67-29-2. And, despite what Fezzik and other experienced cappers are saying, I see no reason why the trend won't continue. To anybody who has watched the games this year, does this seem like a fluke? It's good teams beating up on bad teams, plain and simple, and tweaking the line a couple points (which is all the books can really do) isn't going to change that.

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I determined that among the home dog subset which is 19-39 ATS, adding 3 points to the dog would still only generate a record of 26-31 ATS. I believe there are two explanations for this:

1) The linesmakers, more or less, have done a very bad job evaluating teams this year.

2) While the talent differences always exist even between high-mid tier and low-mid tier teams, the biggest anecdotal difference I've noticed is how rarely favorites are turning the ball over relative to years past. I watch an awful lot of games and I've seen this pattern hold all season. This is the single largest reason to bet underdogs and the well seems totally dry in this regard in '05.

[VarlosZ]

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I agree with Mr.Baseball. Why would a casino want a side?

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Because they're more interested in maximizing their expected value than in minimizing their variance, of course. Bankroll is no issue for a casino (or other large sportsbook), so they can afford to take the variance hit if they're convinced that they can improve their EV that way.

[legend42]

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1) The linesmakers, more or less, have done a very bad job evaluating teams this year.

2) While the talent differences always exist even between high-mid tier and low-mid tier teams, the biggest anecdotal difference I've noticed is how rarely favorites are turning the ball over relative to years past. I watch an awful lot of games and I've seen this pattern hold all season. This is the single largest reason to bet underdogs and the well seems totally dry in this regard in '05.

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I think both those points are very good, and the lack of turnovers might point towards this being an aberration, as that's a fluctuating factor that usually returns to the mean. But it could also be just one more effect of the overall disparity.

For instance, those tipped-pass-INTs for touchdowns in last Monday night's SEA-PHI game are the kind of fluky game-altering plays that would seem to occur equally for both sides early in a close game, if anything, more likely to happen for the home team. But these also occur often when you have a total mismatch on the field- these are the types of plays that the dominant teams can pull off with weird regularity. You see this a lot more often in college usually, where superior teams can rush 3 and let their DBs face up and sit on routes. But this year, there has been such an extraordinary number of blatantly lopsided contests, I think the turnover ratio might not be as fluky as it seems.

Also, there are several teams with such anemic offenses that they're unable to capitalize even when they do get a turnover. But I have no real stats to back that up.

[mrbaseball]

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Because they're more interested in maximizing their expected value than in minimizing their variance, of course. Bankroll is no issue for a casino (or other large sportsbook), so they can afford to take the variance hit if they're convinced that they can improve their EV that way.

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These are big corporations with stock on the NYSE and boards of directors. They want guaranteed (ie juice) profit and will do everything in their power to minimize the risk aspect. The risk aspect being exposure to one side or the other.

This doesn't mean that they always get 50/50 action which would be ideal but that 50/50 action is what they strive for. When the difference between a 3 point and a 3.5 point line will shift the balance one way or the other I have little doubt that they use that power to shift it the way they want to be on the side they think has the best chance. But if they could shift it to 50/50 dead ass equal on every game that is exactly what they would do and take absolutely as little risk as possible. Sometimes they are forced into a side but that doesn't mean they want a side and when that happens they will try to manipulate it to their best advantage.

That's definitely the $64 million question, legend -- are the talent disparities so great that the turnover results are close to expectations or are we looking at an aberration?

[VarlosZ]

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Because they're more interested in maximizing their expected value than in minimizing their variance, of course. Bankroll is no issue for a casino (or other large sportsbook), so they can afford to take the variance hit if they're convinced that they can improve their EV that way.

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These are big corporations with stock on the NYSE and boards of directors.

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Exactly. The profit/loss from the sportsbook at the Taj on any given Sunday, no matter how big the swing, is a fraction of a drop in the bucket. You say they want to minimize their risk, but, since they're not in danger of going bust because of a run of bad luck, the only risk they have to worry about is the risk of not making as much money as they're able to. If they can take a +EV side on a particular game, there's no real disincentive to do so, since variance is usually not a concern.

[mrbaseball]

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The profit/loss from the sportsbook at the Taj on any given Sunday, no matter how big the swing, is a fraction of a drop in the bucket.

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Interesting you choose a casino that is (was?) in bankruptcy. Besides I thought NJ didn't have sports betting? In any event nothing is a drop in the bucket and those huge sportsbooks have a ton of overhead and the whole idea of them (for the casino) is to offer that service and collect the juice.

But how long do you think the sportsbook execs keep their cushy jobs if they start losing money in a business with practically guarenteed profits? They have a guarenteed 10% edge. If they try to squeeze an extra couple percent out by taking a side which is ultra risky they are fools.

Casinos aren't in the business of gambling, they are in the business of getting mathematical edges. Sportsbooks offer one of the best mathematical edges available if they can get equal action so that becomes their goal.

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Because they're more interested in maximizing their expected value than in minimizing their variance, of course. Bankroll is no issue for a casino (or other large sportsbook), so they can afford to take the variance hit if they're convinced that they can improve their EV that way.

[/ QUOTE ]

These are big corporations with stock on the NYSE and boards of directors. They want guaranteed (ie juice) profit and will do everything in their power to minimize the risk aspect. The risk aspect being exposure to one side or the other.

This doesn't mean that they always get 50/50 action which would be ideal but that 50/50 action is what they strive for. When the difference between a 3 point and a 3.5 point line will shift the balance one way or the other I have little doubt that they use that power to shift it the way they want to be on the side they think has the best chance. But if they could shift it to 50/50 dead ass equal on every game that is exactly what they would do and take absolutely as little risk as possible. Sometimes they are forced into a side but that doesn't mean they want a side and when that happens they will try to manipulate it to their best advantage.

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The other 3 major sports have many more games each year with a more unpredictable bettor base than the NFL. A large swath of predictable amateurs populate the ranks of NFL bettors and for years books have shaded themselves toward the "less obvious" side when in doubt.

I'm not trying to give the impression that books are totalling bettor-losing money at a weighted (and unheard of) 57-58%, which including 10% vig results in an almost +20% disparity in profit. But 52-53% over time has benefitted them very nicely and provided added shareholder value over simply taking 10% on 50-50. Naturally this year books are getting killed by the same amateurs (graduated to novice now at least) who they've steadily leaned on for so long.

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The profit/loss from the sportsbook at the Taj on any given Sunday, no matter how big the swing, is a fraction of a drop in the bucket.

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Interesting you choose a casino that is (was?) in bankruptcy. Besides I thought NJ didn't have sports betting? In any event nothing is a drop in the bucket and those huge sportsbooks have a ton of overhead and the whole idea of them (for the casino) is to offer that service and collect the juice.

But how long do you think the sportsbook execs keep their cushy jobs if they start losing money in a business with practically guarenteed profits? They have a guarenteed 10% edge. If they try to squeeze an extra couple percent out by taking a side which is ultra risky they are fools.

Casinos aren't in the business of gambling, they are in the business of getting mathematical edges. Sportsbooks offer one of the best mathematical edges available if they can get equal action so that becomes their goal.

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I'm not exactly disagreeing with you here Mr. B, at least in an ideal sense. But as I've said previously there is a large and reliably consistent swath of NFL bettors who make side-shading profitable when in doubt, thus making the collective sportsbooks another very large participant in the market.