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God’s Tid-Bets Vol. 2

Joe Duffy (OffshoreInsiders.com)

Here is our latest in a series: a Godgepodge of thoughts on sports gambling strategy.

North Carolina Demonstrates What We’ve Said

We so often talk about how gamblers use inductive thinking rather than deductive.  We are tired of hearing about handicapping guard play first and foremost.  North Carolina won the National Championship because of a dominating inside game.  Many teams have great guard play but few teams have a dominant paint presence. Vermont was this year’s small college darling because of Taylor Coppenrath the 6-foot-9 forward.

Sure you can win without dominant big men because there is not a plethora of such out there.  But the biggest disappointments every year also happen to be guard oriented teams.

From Bill Walton and Lou Alcindor to Danny Manning to Scott May and Larry Bird, dominant big men are the X-factor in college hoops.

Outlaw Lines

We often get questions about our outlaw line, which is a valuable handicapping tool.  We have a system that combines the Pinnacle, Olympic and Stardust opening lines, but is weighed based on which comes in first.
It is very important to draw the distinction between steam moves and the opening line when evaluating which casinos are sharpest.

Steam moves are now worthless out of Vegas because of low limits and limited sharp action.  However we still find the actual opening line from the Stardust very sharp.  So “live” lines from the Strip have no value, but the actual opening line does.  This is especially true in college basketball as the initial Vegas line is sharp.

Time Supersedes Number of Games

In both college basketball and the NBA, handicappers disproportionately reflect on recent games giving too little weight to overall performance to date.  It’s true to a lesser extent in football, but true nonetheless. College football and baseball is where we most amalgamate recent occurrence into winning.  Baseball it’s because over the endless season the peaks are valleys have a much longer shelf life, while our research and experience proves the most dramatic momentum swings and adjustments occur on the college gridiron. Depth is more of a factor and the surprises and disappointments are more pronounced.

That being said, when reasoning recent performance most of the public gambling sites go X-number of games back rather than what we’ve found to be the superior parameter, that being days back. For example going back five games in the NBA could be seven days for one team and perhaps 11 for the other.  Looking at a pitcher’s last three starts is not always comparing apples to apples if one guy is the No. 1 starter in a four man rotation and the other guy is the fifth guy in a rotation that often skips the fifth starter.  If for example because of injury one guy skipped a start or two, simply looking at the last three or five starts can be very deceptive.

In the NBA, we find recent performance is better defined by 10 days rather than five games. Baseball we go back seven days for teams and 30 days for pitchers.

Baseball stats

One of the articles that you the readers thanked us for the most as being extremely helpful was when we wrote about WHIP versus ERA in handicapping. WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) is too often ignored and balanced with ERA they each test the statistical reliability of the other.

Analogous is handicapping offense.  We have always said that baseball’s real Triple Crown would be on base percentage, slugging percentage and runs produced. When it comes to handicapping offense, there is no question that is handicapping’s Triple Crown.  Steve Mann a long-time baseball statistical guru always asserted that (on base percentage)* (slugging percentage) was the ultimate way to gauge offensive production.  We consider that Gospel from a handicapping standpoint.

Duffy’s plays are part of the Dream Team at OffshoreInsiders.com. He is perhaps the most published and respected author on sports gambling theory and has been featured as a regular guest as the handicapping expert on the Rick Ballou Show on Sporting News Radio, the Meat and Potatoes gambling show, Pro Fantasy Sports Internet radio and Grogan’s Fantasy Football show. His Wise Guy Plays available exclusively at OffshoreInsiders.com are widely respected as the biggest play in the handicapping abyss. We don’t have the marketing budget of Jim Feist or Wayne Root and his Winning Edge. We make up for it with hard work and winning.