The Black Marble Theory (was: Don't buy that 1/2 point)

[london]

Answer for Savage

Savage, my man....

Sorry for the delay...here's the answer:

In reality, there is NO correlation between it not being a good value to buy a 1/2 point....and it making sense to lay -375 on certain occasions. Buying a 1/2 point is a simple mathmatical calculation...i.e., how many times out of 1,000 games will the 1/2 point save your loss and turn it into a tie? Since you're having to pay an extra 9% in juice, if it doesn't happen at least one game out of 11 you are getting bad value.

The idea of buying the 1/2 isn't a bad one...it's what you have to PAY that makes it a bad idea. If you were only having to lay -115, I'd be all over it!!!

If you've got a team that's +5.5, the team will WIN the game outright a third of the time (roughly, I don't have access to my data base at this moment). Of the remaining, 2/3, the winning scores will be all over the place...plenty of 3s, lots of 7s, some 10s, 14s, and a whole lot more. But the team favored by 5.5 does NOT win by exactly 6 points anywhere NEAR 1 time in 11, so it's a simple matter of the COST of the 1/2 point being too high, relative to the actual odds...making it bad value.

Now....as to the matter of my laying -375 on New England. There is NOTHING inherently wrong with laying -300, or even -800....just as with the 1/2 point...it's a matter of whether you're getting VALUE. Going back to the example of the jar full of marbles, if there were 90 white marbles and only 10 black in a jar, and you win if you can pull out a white marble, it goes without saying that you've only got one chance in 10 of losing on any given "bet"...or in this case pull. So if someone offered you one dip into the jar, but you had to be $4,000 to win $1,000, you'd be getting TERRIFIC value for your money. If you did this a million times you'd have a fortune. Yes, you could lose any particular pull of a marble...but you're getting better than a 2/1 advantage over the house, even though you're having to lay the big -400.

You just have to look at it as a matter of the odds you're PAYING.....compared to the TRUE odds. If the odds you're paying are less than the true odds, the percentages are on your side...even if you're having to bet 50 to win 1 (as long as the true odds of winning that particular bet are GREATER than 1 in 50.

So I calculated that New England had only 1 chance in 5 of losing the game outright...so laying -375 is great mathmatical value, and over a 1,000 such plays you'd come out WAY ahead, even though you'd lose some along the way.

The wild card is, of course, that you may be WRONG in estimating the true odds.....it's not like a jar of marbles, where you KNOW what the odds are. But that's......handicapping. A good handicapper can more correctly assess the true odds than a bad handicapper can...so his bets tend to have *positive* mathmatical expectations...because he can correctly identify a situation in which a particular game represents...in effect...a jar with more white marbles than black.

Now as it happens....my assessment of the NE game was poor, and I was lucky not to lose...but them's the breaks

It's funny how the games that scare you the most are the ones you seem to win...I bet Baltimore, GB and SF and HATED all three plays...but they came up as plays using my formula, so I played them. But Washington, which I LOVED...well, you know the story there (although I swear, if that owner had picked another week to die the story would have been different).

Anyway...I hope that answers the question. In short, no price is too big to pay....as long as the TRUE odds are less than what you're paying YOU have the advantage. When the State sells you a lottery ticket for $1.00....they are laying you 10,000,000 to 1...they are risking 10,000,000 to win your sinle dollar.....but you only have 1 chance in, say, 50,000,000 of winning, so even though they are having to lay a line of -10,000,000....they still have a GREAT bet, and you are getting screwed, even though you are getting +10,000,000. Value. It's all about value.

By the way....your observation that it cuts both ways, that you can determine WHEN it's worth laying the extra 10 cents in juice for the 1/2 point...I'm afraid is NOT a sound argument, because the number of times that a game will land on, say 6, is a known quantity...just troll through the database. And it's WAY less than the required 1 in 11. So if you think you can somehow "guess" that THIS game is going to land on exactly 6, so it's worth buying up from 5.5..than you have skills that go WAY beyond handicapping Intuition and Math are enemies. Math is absolute. Intuition is anything you want it to be. A casino owner uses MATH 100% of the time....every minute of every hour of every day of the year. The guy sitting in the chair playing roulette uses intuition. Which one do you want to be?

It's amazing how many fine points there are to the business of trying to overcome the house edge, isn't it?

London-as much as I respect your views, you didn't give an answer to what I posed in your original thread as to why it is ok to lay -350 or more on favorites sometimes but why it is NOT ok sometimes to buy 1/2 points, and to which is worse if you do it on a regular basis.
If your answer is that you know when and under what circumstances you can lay -350 or more on a favorite, then I can tell you the same that some of us have the intuition to know when it it and when it is a not good idea to buy 1/2 points;it cuts both ways.

[frankb03]

Correction

Since you're having to pay an extra 9% in juice, if it doesn't happen at least one game out of 11 you are getting bad value.

You don't pay the juice if you win the bet. Assuming the player wins 50% of his bets. If less than 5% of the games are within 1/2 point of the number it is a bad bet.

[frankb03]

In short, no price is too big to pay....as long as the TRUE odds are less than what you're paying YOU have the advantage.

In theory I agree with this statement. In practice it's hard to do. Mentally if you lose a game at -800 early it's hard to bounce back and play another game at -800 or any high price.

UNLESS ...........

One has a healthy bankroll starting out.

[savage1]

London-thanks for your thoughtful and I am sure time consuming explanation.
However, as you just implied with your marble example, the true odds of winning -350 and sometimes up tp -800 bet are not known.
Would it not be a fairer comparison to look for say all the -350or more favorites in a basketball or football over a number of years and see how a person did who played everyone of them did betting equal amounts of money on each and then compare that with the extra juice bet on games where one bought the extra 1/2 point?
The more I think about it though, somehow the criterion for buying the 1/2 point would have to be changed to "even" things out a little, because 1/2 points can be bought in virtually any game whereas there are only a certain number oif -350 and above games.
As I stated in your original thread, someone who bet Tampa Bay on the moneyline Sunday got creamed(I don't know what ML was but it had ot be at least -800 if not higher);yes I realize that it is only one game, but I think it does drive home a point;just ask any person who gives -350 or higher on every baseball game over a course of time how he does.
I may be off a little here also, but just as there are some cappers who are better than others, I would also maintain that even though your stats on buying points are absolute, the stats would not apply equally to all handicappers.
I am not saying that any individual capper could show a profit by buying 1/2 points over time, but I would maintain that the percentages lost would vary greatly from capper to capper, and thus in a given instance a capper who has better luck with buying 1/2 points than someone else might be more justified in buying the 1/2 points.
I am sorry if aboe appears confusing;I guess what I am saying in essence is to some extent buyign 1/2 points might be on some sort of bell shaped curve in the same way as are those who win in general at gambling and those who do not.

[savage1]

ps I would argue that the odds of playing blackjack or roulette are not a perfect analogy to human beings playing a particular sport.
The numbers/odds at a casino can be figured mathematically and are absolute and stable.
On the other hands, the numbers with respect to buying 1/2 points are merely based on past performance and do not necessarily reflect the odds in a present game since there are human beings involved both playing the sport and for that matter betting on the outcome;I guess it is just a matter of perception.

[savage1]

See above;this is being deleted as it is a repeat of the other post.

[frankb03]

ps I would argue that the odds of playing blackjack or roulette are not a perfect analogy to human beings playing a particular sport.
The numbers/odds at a casino can be figured mathematically and are absolute and stable.
On the other hands, the numbers with respect to buying 1/2 points are merely based on past performance and do not necessarily reflect the odds in a present game since there are human beings involved both playing the sport and for that matter betting on the outcome;I guess it is just a matter of perception.

I disagree with you and so does Vegas. Why does Vegas require you to lay -130 on or off 3? If you had to only lay -120 it would be a HUGE advantage for the player.

[frankb03]

ps I would argue that the odds of playing blackjack or roulette are not a perfect analogy to human beings playing a particular sport.
The numbers/odds at a casino can be figured mathematically and are absolute and stable.

I also disagree to a point. Why does the casino use 4 or 5 decks in blackjack?

[savage1]

Frank-fine. You do have a valid point about the 3 in buying points and in blackjack.
My main point is that absolutes are mathematical invariables like 1+1 =2 and odds based on mathematical probabilites.
Odds based on past performances in sporting events while important in determining man made odds and costs(such as buyingf 1/2 points) are based on past performance ONLY by human beings and well horses and are NOT absolutes.
I would say for example that the odds of flipping a coin are ALWAYS 50% of coming up heads or tails.
I would argue that in a sporting event, no matter what past history says about the chances of something happening, it cannot and can never be regarded in the same manner as the odds of a coin flip-helpful yes but not an absolute;in short, I was simply trying to clarify the use of the word "absolute" as cited by London in his previous post.
In short, I maintain one cannot consider the odds of what will happen in a particular game solely on what has occurred before;in a coin flip, it is 50-50 always or whatever odds London cited in his marbles examples.
Just remember I am talking about one particular game and one handicapper with an assessment as to how it will play out and whether buying 1/2 point for that game is warranted.
Not to repeat myself, but I maintain it is different and that different cappers will have varying amount of luck in buying and not buying points in the same way that some cappers will know when to lay -350 or more in a game and some will not.

[savage1]

One final example to make my point:
Lets get back to ther coin flip again, which we all know is 50-50, and for the sake of argument say that coin flips CAN mathematically be compared to the outcome of sporting events.
Lets say that you flip a coin 5 times heads goes on a roll and comes up 5 times in a row;now if you could bet on it, would you bet heads for the 6the roll or bet tails? I would bet heads again as heads appears to be "hot" if you want to attribute some kind of human characteristics to it even though it is a 50-50 prop.
Now lets get back to say basketball.
For the sake of example lets say that over the course of a day or two a capper notices that an inordinate number of games have been falling real close to the number.
Now if the capper wants to use the overall odds of the 1/2 point meaning something over a long period of time, he would probably would not buy the 1/2 points.
On the other hand and using the "trend is your friend" philospophy, the capper might thing it a good idea at least for the time being to buy the 1/2 point is game or games when the extra 1/2 point might help.
I myself like to go with trends, and I certainly would be more receptive to buying the 1/2 point in the instance cited above in the same manner I would be in betting heads in the coin flip example.
Above example would be one example of an individual capper's insight and intuition that perhaps another capper would not have and would again support my contention that sweeping NEVER DO THIS should NEVER be made;there are always exceptions.