Foreword xv
Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Before You Go Any Further 3
Foolish Assumptions 4
Icons Used in This Book 5
Beyond the Book 5
Where to Go from Here 5
Part 1: Sports Betting Basics 7
Chapter 1: Betting Sports for Fun and Profit 9
Eight Days in October 10
A surprise win 10
Victory’s revenge 10
Finding profit in the roller coaster 11
Do Sports Bettors Win? 12
The Wagers of Sin 14
Fans and Bettors: Better Fans 15
Sharps and squares 16
Advantage bettors 17
Why 50 Percent Doesn’t Cut It 17
52.38 is the new 50 18
How sports bettors win 19
Comparative betting success 20
What Kind of Sports Bettor Are You? 20
Financially interested fan 21
Ace Rothstein-esque 21
Data guru 22
Spread shredder 22
A little of everything 23
The Legal Landscape of Sports Betting 23
I’m not a lawyer but 23
Federal laws 24
The Supreme Court to the rescue 25
State laws 25
Sports betting and organized crime 28
What Can’t I Bet On? 29
Setting Some Goals (and Limits) 29
This Is Your Brain on Gambling 30
Chapter 2: The Basic Bets 33
The Betting Contract 34
The premises of the promise 34
Monetary policy 36
All’s fair 36
Overloading the odds 37
Illuminating examples 37
An introduction to betting with odds 40
Betting against a Bookmaker 42
The moneyline 43
A quick look at vigorish (the vig) 50
Point Spreads: Thumb on the Scale 50
Losing team, winning bet 52
Half is enough 53
Point spread = 0 54
Betting on a point spread 54
Over/Under Betting 56
Multi-Bet Wagers 58
Parlays: Let it ride 58
Parlay odds 60
Teasers: A little help 61
Variations on a Theme 62
Exotic bets 63
Prop bets 63
Chapter 3: The House 65
The Sports Betting Business 66
Inventing the modern sports book 67
Today’s business 67
In-Person Betting 67
The big board: Reading the betting menu 68
Step by step: How to place an in-person bet 74
And in the end, the odds you get are equal to the odds you give 75
The morning after 76
Online Betting 76
Domestic online sports books 78
Offshore sports books 78
Betting kiosks/casino apps 79
I Got a Guy: Private Bookmakers 79
State Lotteries 81
Part 2: Betting Smart 83
Chapter 4: Beating the - Odds 85
A Tale of Two Numbers 85
Great expectation 86
Breakin’ even 2: Electric boogaloo 87
Positive EV, No Instructions Included 88
The missing piece: Win probability 89
Pennies on the dollar 89
Staying positive 90
Bookmakers and Odds 91
Holding onto the handle 92
Book balancing 93
Balancing the Books 97
Odds as a price 97
An odds life 99
Sharp objects 102
Bookmaking Business Models 107
Market makers: The odds stork 107
Market followers 107
The SuperMegaCup odds life cycle example 108
Early money/late money 109
World premier odds 109
The early bird gets the risk (and the reward) 110
Odds at odds 111
Chapter 5: The Best Bettor Habits 113
Winning Habits: A Quick Review 114
Betting Approaches 114
An idealized bet selection process 115
The goal of bet allocation 116
Financial diversity 117
The value of outs 120
Bet sizing 121
The Importance of Record-Keeping 125
Measures of success 126
Bet records 126
Bankrolling 127
The time dimension 127
Time as a flat circle 128
Where do you stand? 128
Establishing a fiscal period 129
How to think about a wealthroll 131
Rolling your own 132
Metric Superiority: Winning Percentage versus ROI versus Profit 134
ROI 134
Profit (and loss) 136
Win/loss records 139
Chapter 6: Full Frontal Nudity (and Some Statistics and Probability) 141
Thanks for Nothing, Ancestors 142
Narratives instead of numbers 143
Probabilities and Single-Outcome Events 144
Alternate universes would be nice 145
Statistical analysis as a process to find truth(iness) 146
Overdue: The Gambler’s Fallacy 147
How Randomness Masquerades as Non-Randomness 148
The fundamental assumption of randomness 149
Inserting randomness into sports assertions 149
Descriptive versus predictive 151
Predictably random: The bell curve 152
The Matter of Sample Size 153
The Law of Large Numbers 154
Standard deviation: You can do this 156
The Wonderful, Life-Changing Beauty of the Amazing Gambler’s Z-Score 160
Zee origin story 160
The Z-score and sports betting 161
Chapter 7: Handicapping the Fundamentals 165
The Challenges of Fundamental Analysis 166
Outside the Lines, between the Ears 167
The home-field advantage example 168
The benefits of fundamental analysis 168
The downside of fundamental analysis 169
Universal Fundamentals Concepts 171
Matchup 171
Rest and fatigue 175
Travel 176
Recent performance 177
Strength of competition 178
Motivation 178
Team Sports Factors 180
Overall talent and speed 180
Game plan 181
Coaching 181
Schedule/spot analysis 182
External Factors 182
Weather 183
Rules changes 183
Officiating 183
Venue and crowd 184
Measuring Performance Variance 184
Chapter 8: Technical Analysis and Modeling 187
Like Math, but Fancier 188
Analytics 188
Modeling 189
De-randomizing historical data 191
Systems and Angles 192
Betting systems 193
Betting angles 194
The Benefits of Data-Driven Analysis 195
What Gets Lost in the Numbers 197
Systems, like all handicapping, require patience 197
Games change over time 197
Teams change over time 197
There is no such thing as a single spread or total 198
The betting market assimilates winning systems into the odds 198
Complexity and the Scourge of P-Hacking 199
Characteristics of a Good System or Angle 201
Statistically significant 201
Predictive 201
Bettable 201
Timely 202
Frequent (enough) 202
A First Look at Trend-Spotting Tools 202
How it works 203
Querying previous games 204
Today’s games 205
Chapter 9: Power Ratings 207
Ranking, Rating? What’s the Difference? 208
Totally rated 208
Power rating strengths 210
Power rating weaknesses 210
Developing a Power Rating of Your Own 211
Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery 212
Your first power rating 212
P.E class 214
Game-by-game data 215
What to do in early season 217
Putting it all together in Excel 220
Part 3: Winning One Sport at a Time 225
Chapter 10: Betting to Win on the NFL 27
Today’s NFL Game 228
The Evolution of NFL Spreads and Totals 230
Common NFL Bets 231
Notation 231
Derivative betting and props 231
Futures betting 232
Betting sides 233
Total bets 237
Betting the NFL Preseason 239
Preseason lines and limits 240
Preseason as predictor 241
Betting on head coaches 241
BET on week 2 losers 243
Other preseason betting factors 243
NFL Fundamentals 244
Schedule spot (travel, bye week) 244
Injuries 247
Weather 248
NFL Systems and Angles 250
BET Belichick’s slow starts 250
BET a case of the Mondays 251
BET restless on the road 251
BET growing totals 251
Chapter 11: Betting to Win on College Football 253
The College Football Schedule 254
Scoring Overview 255
College Football Bets 257
College football sides 257
Margin of victory 257
College football totals 259
Using push frequency to select the best odds 260
Multiples: Parlays and teasers in college football 264
Thinking about teaser and parlay odds 265
Offseason Evaluation and Betting 267
That returning starters thing 267
Alternatives to returning starters 268
BET on hope as a strategy? 269
Summer betting 270
Why don’t you just meet me in the middle? 270
Regular Season Betting 271
Essential statistics for betting 272
Rest 272
Running up the score 274
Quarter scoring trends 275
Runnin’ and gunnin’ 276
Turnovers 277
Betting the Post Season 279
Revenge is overrated 279
Postseason motivation 280
Saving yourself 280
More College Football Systems 281
BET under the home back to back 281
BET far to go 282
BET over the hype 282
BET kick ’em when they’re down 283
BET with the hype just this once 283
BET over the early season mismatch 284
Chapter 12: Betting to Win on NBA Basketball 287
Betting the Offensive Explosion 288
One and a Half Curses 289
The NBA Betting Market 290
Preseason betting 291
Postseason betting 292
BET on #2 Live Crew 294
Common NBA Bets 294
Sides 294
The top of the key 296
NBA moneyline 296
Totals 298
Early season herding 298
Quarters and halves 299
Handicapping factors in NBA 299
NBA Systems and Angles 304
Regular season 305
Postseason 306
Chapter 13: Betting to Win on College Basketball 309
The Basics of College Basketball 310
Size of market 311
The efficiency of the NCAA basketball betting market 311
The College Basketball Betting Cycle 312
Preseason 312
The regular season 312
Postseason 312
Betting on Games 312
Full game spread 313
Full game total 316
The great under 316
Wagering on the 1st and 2nd half 318
Extreme total games 320
Overtime games 320
Buying points (or not) 321
NCAA Basketball Teasers 324
College Basketball Angles 325
DON’T BET the slider 325
BET spread streakers 326
BET over conference surprises 326
Betting the NCAA Tournament 327
Seed-by-seed results 328
Spread records 330
BET tourney twofer against and under big tourney faves 330
Chapter 14: Betting to Win on Major League Baseball 331
The Basics of Major League Baseball 332
Baseball Bets and Odds 333
The baseball moneyline 334
Total runs bet 336
Run line bet 336
Baseball’s “ACTION” condition 338
9 divided by 2 = 5 inning lines 339
Other common baseball bets 341
Baseball Scoring Patterns 344
Runs per game 344
Runs per inning 344
Assessing hot and cold streaks 345
Starting Pitching and MLB Odds 346
BET on rest 346
Home/away splits 347
The Park Factor 348
Park factor statistics 348
Park factor research opportunities 349
Weather 349
Let me tell you about wind 349
You are my density 350
Other weather effects 351
Betting against the Public 352
Team streaks 352
BET the win streak ends here 353
More streak betting 354
MLB Systems and Angles 354
BET under extreme totals! 355
BET big favorites! 356
BET pitcher’s duel losers! 357
Part 4: Mastering the Craft 359
Chapter 15: You versus You 361
Who Actually Wins at Sports Betting? 362
Decision-Making and Judgment 363
Heuristics 363
Insensitivity to predictability 364
Information cannot inoculate you from randomness 365
The illusion of validity 365
Thin-slicing 366
Misunderstanding regression to the mean 366
More Cognitive Biases 367
The Gambler’s Fallacy 367
Confirmation bias 368
Recency bias 369
Availability bias 370
Familiarity bias 370
Peas and carrots 370
The Gambler’s Fallacy’s evil twin: The Hot Hand 371
The Momentum Fallacy 371
The Fundamental Sports Betting Attribution Error (FSBAE) 372
Chapter 16: The Sports Bettors’ Essential Excel Toolkit 373
Excel Stuff Even Non-Bettors Should Know 374
Reference types 374
Naming cells and ranges 376
Find values in a table with VLookup 378
Conditional love: Using IF statements 380
Eliminating errors with IfError 383
Essential Gambler’s Formulas 384
Translating moneyline odds into break-even win percentage 384
Win probability into an equivalent moneyline 385
Greater than 50% chance to equivalent moneyline 385
Tracking win% 386
Normalized winning percentage 386
Discounting wins 387
Kelly Criterion formula 389
The Gambler’s Z 389
Part 5: The Part of Tens 391
Chapter 17: Ten Betting Mistakes You Should Avoid 393
Chasing the Late-Night Slumpbuster 393
Spinning Your Records 394
Limiting Your Options 394
Realism: It’s Not Just for Pre-Raphaelite Artists 395
Thinking Yesterday’s Game = Today’s Game 396
Passing on Passing 396
Paying for Picks 397
Falling for the Five Star Fallacy 397
Listening to “Experts” 397
Being Too Focused on Averages 398
Chapter 18: 10 (or so) Books You Should Devour to Make Yourself a Better Sports Bettor 401
The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver 401
SuperForecasting by Philip E Tetlock and Dan Gardner 402
Confidence by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic 402
Superbookie by Art Manteris 402
Failure by Stuart Firestein 403
Scorecasting by Tobias Moskowitz 403
How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff 403
Sharper by Poker Joe 404
The Big Short by Michael Lewis 404
The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb 405
Moby Dick by Herman Melville 405
Part 6: Appendixes 407
Appendix A: The Best Online Resources for Sports Bettors 409
Appendix B: Online Sports Book Comparison 415
Index 419
