Sunday, July 20, 2014

NFL preseason pics are in

here's what I went with. one unit on each

Miami OVER 8 wins +110
Miami to make the playoffs +350
Buffalo to make the playoffs +450
Green Bay UNDER 10.5 wins -115
Pittsburgh UNDER 8.5 wins +120
Dallas UNDER 7.5 wins -115
Washington UNDER 7.5 wins EVEN
New England UNDER 11 wins -115
San Francisco UNDER 10.5 wins +105

see how it goes. will be a while probably before it's know how these will turn out. the only one I don't care for at this point is San Francisco. Their situation at quarterback is solid and coming off 12-4 it is a reach to get to 10-6. but it was a blanket play on the unders as a group so see how it goes.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

NFL 2014 win totals as a whole

On the bodog NFL team props I thought some of the numbers seemed high. I pulled all of the team win lines together and looked at it as kind of a whole.

My hunch was right. The 32 teams together win total lines come to 262.5. The correct number would be 8 wins per team or 256 wins total. So the win totals as a whole are mispriced by 6.5 wins.

The moneylines also tell a story. For the overs only two teams, Miami (8, +110o) and Carolina (8.5, +120o) on the over are offering a premium to take the over. The combined over moneylines are -3335, for every $100 wagered the book is only paying $81.20 to winners due to discounting.

The moneyline on the unders looks much better. The combined under moneylines are -325 for every $100 wagered the book is paying $98.15 to winners.

the mystery of the 6.5 wins

as we see there must be more public action on the overs. so the book compensates by adding wins to the lines and by discounting the moneyline. it seems it would be tough to find much value on the overs.

to there is probably more value then in the unders on the win totals. sow how to approach these 6.5 wins that were added to the lines. a first guess is that there are marquee teams with a large fan base who always get a lot of action on the overs. so potential plays for the under could be

Team 2014 Win Line Moneyline (under)
Dallas Cowboys 7.5 -115
Washington Redskins 7.5 EVEN
Green Bay Packers 10.5 -115
San Francisco 49ers 10.5 +105
Pittsburgh Steelers 8.5 +120
New England Patriots 11 -115

These teams all have at least some questions at quarterback due to age or significant injuries in 2013. As a group I might not expect to go 6-0 on the unders but I think 3.5-4 wins is doable. they are priced to be favourable to the unders, probably to try to balance the public action on the overs.


a black box approach

now we don't know for sure where the extra 6.5 wins are distributed in the lines. we just know for certain the aggregate winlines are off by 6.5 wins. it should total 256 but the total is 262.5

it makes me wonder if there might be value in just taking the under on all 32 teams to attempt to profit from the pricing error. in general due to the error you would expect to do better than 16-16. at even money this should be a profitable play. in this case there is a moneyline hindrance that winners have a discount where in aggregate only $98.15 is paid to $100.

I realized that with some assumptions it's possible to create a model and run some simulations and calculate the effect of the 6.5 win pricing error and estimate the value of just taking the under on all 32 teams while accounting for the moneyline discount. there's a bit to it so I'll leave it for a future post if I get to it.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

NFL teams home and away records

It's interesting in the 2013 standings the differences and imbalances within some teams overall records. some quick observations

  • New Orleans Saints and Cincinnati Bengals look strong at 11-5 but this is 8-0 at home and vulnerable 3-5 on the road
  • Tampa Bay Bucs, Atlanta Falcons, Cleveland Browns and Oakland Raiders were a seeming woeful 4-12, yet all were a competitive 3-5 at home
  • Minnesota Vikings were 5-10-1 with 5-3 at home and 0-7-1 away
  • Kansas City Chiefs were 11-5 but 2-4 within their division and 9-1 outside the division

So there are some week 1 matches where this might come into play

  • New Orleans at Atlanta. looks like 11-5 vs 4-12, yet there's 3-5 road team vs 3-5 home team
  • Cincinnati at Baltimore. looks like 11-5 vs 8-8, but it's 3-5 road team vs 6-2 home team 

so when the lines come out there may be some value in the underdogs here

NFL 2014 team totals

I reviewed the NFL standings from last season.

After forming some impressions I checked pro-line to see what the team totals were. There wasn't anything useful so I checked out the bodog NFL team props odds.


These are some of my impressions.

The Bills look promising at 6.5 wins. The Bills finished 2013 strong and the differential was a respectable -49. similar teams include


Team2013 RecordPoints Diff
Tennessee Titans7-9 -19
Baltimore Ravens8-8 -32
Chicago Bears 8-8 -33
Buffalo Bills 6-10-49
NY Giants 7-9 -89
Minnesota Vikings5-10-1-89

so the 2013 Bills look a bit like a 7-9 team in a 6-10 coat. They may have been unlucky and ran below expectation. This years team looks at least as good as the 2013 team so taking the over on the 6.5 win total looks like a good number.

The problem is the -150 moneyline. That means to break even they need to win 7 or more games 60%. if the target profit on a play is say 10% then we would need to be 64% confident the Bills will go 7-9 or better. the Bills last won 7 games in 2008, though they've won 6 games 4 of the last 5 years. still 64% confidence for 7+ wins this year is too much. now if the price came down to say -120 then we have a 10% expected profit if we're 59% confident the Bills will win at least 7 times then this may be playable.

Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins were 8-8 last year and Ryan Tannehill is coming into his third season after improving in his second year. At an attractive price +110 I think there's value in taking the over on Miami. There's a pretty good chance Tannehill's development will be worth at least one extra win. Also there's an out that if Miami doesn't improve and falls back to 8-8 again then the bet is a wash.

Denver Broncos. At 11.5 wins the under looks good. Mainly due to loss of skill players on offence, aging quarterback and fatigue after last year's deep, disappointing run. However at -130 we would need to be 61% sure they will not go 11-5 or worse to have a 10% expectation on a wager on the under. That's a bit of a reach. But if the price improves to about -110 then this may be a play.

There may be a potential play in the playoff props. Separate plays on Buffalo +450 and Miami +350 to make the playoffs. Use Miami +350 as the base payoff. Then if one of them can make the playoffs 36% of the time then the wager would break even. It usually only takes 9 wins to make the playoffs in the AFC and I believe there's at least 36% one of them will get the 9+ wins and that will be enough to make the playoffs. The profit on this play comes from the times Buffalo gets in at +450. and it is an underdog but not farfetched that both Miami and Buffalo will make the playoffs which would be a very healthy payout of 4:1.