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You Can Recover From Being Half Bad
Joe Duffy (www.godspicks.com)
We get a lot of questions about halftime lines. As our expertise is with game side and totals, we posed the question to Leo Shafto of Scorephone.com as to how such lines are figured. Leo the premier first and second half handicapper on the planet and is one of the few who have been on both sides of the window having been the head oddsmaker for several sportsbooks including MVP Sportsbook. What follows is his answer.
The first thing is you have to have an initial second half projection and work from there. For instance, let’s say a game line has San Antonio -8 with a total of 186 against the Nuggets. We see a posted first half number on the game of SA -4.5 and the total is 92.5. Thus we can mathematically conclude that the second half number projection is automatically San Antonio -3.5 with a total of 93.5.
Then of course, the first half is played. If it holds very close to form, then the second half number will likewise be very close to form as well. For instance if the halftime score is 47-44 in favor of San Antonio, you can be assured that the second half total will be 93.5 as it is very close to the first half projection. Likewise, San Antonio (originally projected -3.5 in the second half) will most likely be -4 to -4.5 in the second half to compensate for just falling short of the initial projection.
If the two teams combine for 100 points in the first half, then the second half total will not be compensated down, it will likely be compensated up because the pace of the game is higher than expected. You may see a second half total of 95 in this case.
One more thing that can influence a second half total is whether the game is a blowout (especially in football). If one team is drilling another at halftime, the second half total may be reduced dramatically to account for the winning team being more interested in burning clock than scoring points. The score of the game makes a huge different in totals. If San Antonio were winning 65-35 at the half, one may knee-jerk into believing the second half will be high scoring because they 100 points already. When in fact, by the 4th quarter, both teams will be looking to get out of the game uninjured and the worst offensive players will probably be on the court.
There is a method to the madness and you have to take many factors in to account. This is just one example of many.
Now with the knowledge of how they are made, a few of my long-term clients use my picks to bet second half lines and in fact scold me for not doing the same. The key is having a well handicapped game. Without that, nothing else matters.
Our picks are based on projecting the final score, not the halftime score. Hence it’s no surprise our selections generally look much better at the final buzzer than at the half. If there is some type of seemingly cataclysmic score at the half, say for example a three-point chalk losing by 11, our sharp customers use that to their advantage.
If the halftime line is -5, that means there is a ton of leeway that enables the team to cover the second half line even if they don’t come close to the game line.
In other words, the square player in that situation is more likely to panic and hedge a bet. The sharp player essentially buys insurance. In the perfect example of buying a game at bargain basement price, the prodigy gambler looks at it as buying the game line at a much cheaper price than he could have at the beginning of the contest.
For example in said illustration, the three-point chalk could lose the game and still cover the second half line. The rule for betting halftime lines is using well handicapped selections, if the aberrational halftime score enables you to essentially buy the game spread at a significantly reduced price, jump on it.
If the “right” team comes back and covers the game, you win twice. If they cover the half-time cut-rate spread but still fail in the game, it costs you juice. In well handicapped games, our sharpies assure us the number of times they go 0-2 is outnumbered drastically by the other two scenarios.
Duffy’s plays are part of the Dream Team at Godspicks.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, Gamblers Zoo national radio show, the Meat and Potatoes gambling show, Pro Fantasy Sports Internet radio and Grogan’s Fantasy Football show. Godspicks.com is the top source for NFL picks, college football winners and more. There is no better source for sports handicapper free information to crush sportsbooks than Godspicks.com.

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Be Weary of Tired Old NBA Adages
Joe Duffy (www.godspicks.com)
Oh true we have had more than our share of success with computer generated time-tested and statistically significantly systems, which have proven to be their absolute best in the NBA. Also the NBA is second to college hoops when it comes to our “sharps versus squares” games. That means most of the sharp money is going one way and most of the sucker money the other way according to our offshore, Vegas and “outlaw” contacts. We go with the sharp money.
But there is no substitute for great analytical handicapping in any sport including the NBA. There are some very common dynamics that apply often and mastering the conceptions and misconceptions is imperative.
Very high on that list is the NBA scheduling dynamics.
I know of some guys who almost religiously bet with a more rested team. This is especially so if one team is playing their third game in four nights, fourth in five or fifth in seven and the other team (generally the home team) is rested.
Or at the very least if they don’t religiously bet it, the only alternative is to pass. They would never bet on the presumed more weary team. Let us leave no doubt that scheduling intricacies is imperative in handicapping, but sometimes the above philosophy is true, but often it is not.
First of all, it overlooks one of our Golden Rules of Handicapping: always realize the oddsmakers are one step ahead of you. The line absolutely takes into account such factors, so you are not getting the same price as if both teams were equally rested.
When a team is in the middle of a cluster of games, we weigh how they had done in their previous three games much more heavily than other circumstances. Momentum and adrenalin are the best cures for exhausted bodies. If a team is playing their fifth game in seven nights but won their previous two, three or more games a short vacation is the last thing they need.
Being “in the zone” more than nullifies any supposed rest disadvantage. Make no mistake about it, we still must take into account minutes played in recent games by the star players, depth, whether games went down to the wire on in overtime, but overrating scheduling ins and outs is one of the many mistakes a square player makes time and time again.
Conversely common notion is that rest can only be good. We find very often hot teams can loose their edge with three days off. We can’t dispute the common belief that being road weary and playing poorly is a bad combo, but being well rested while playing well can be.
In short, we have found the accurate dogma is that rest is best for teams that clearly need it. So a team playing inadequately can make adjustments. A respite in the schedule can be counterproductive for teams that are in a groove.
We put some stock in the “look ahead” theories but for the most part limit it to big favorites playing a very tough opponent the following night or about to enter a difficult stretch.
Remember when mommy told you, things are not as always what they seem. One must scratch the surface and evaluate all factors in their entirety. Those who do can, dare we say, rest easy this NBA season.
Duffy’s plays are part of the Dream Team at Godspicks.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. His Wise Guy Plays available exclusively at www.godspicks.com are widely respected as the biggest play in the handicapping abyss.
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Frankly the formula to winning in sports is educated handicapping and money management. Even if somebody can win consistently, if one’s betting amount is haphazard one can lose a lot of money.

Bookmakers drive around in new Porsche’s not just because most of their clients grapple to hit 45% of their plays, but also because a preponderance of gamblers use the “panic” or “greed” methods when deciding how much to wager.

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But even worse is the player for stakes who presses his luck during a hot streak and increases his bets. I have seen so many suckers go 15-5 for example and still squander capital.

The quandary is a $50 bettor for example when he is hot has the attitude, “Could you imagine how much I would have made if I bet $200 a game?” Even worse is the guy who goes 5-0 and realizes how much he could have made if he put money on a parlay. Yes 20/20 handicapping is great but I do not know a sportsbook that takes those types of antes.

Any bookmaker will tell you with 90% of gamblers, the more they win one week, the more the bookie looks forward to the gamester’s phone call the next week. Too many gamblers always find a way to give the money back and then some.

Well to steal an old cliché, gambling is not a sprint it is a marathon. Even I have had nightmare days, but because of money management the Wise Guys and I have no idea what a losing month or season is.
The recipe is to stake the same amount based purely on how much one likes a game, not how much one is up or down in the short run. However there are actually two adaptations of acceptable money management.

One is the straight betting, which is the most straightforward and the other is the Kelly System, which the units are equal but always relative to the bankroll.

Straight betting  is a fundamental as it gets. The way to divvy the units can be different as long as it is constant, but the key is not change the rating system or units per play.

Personally I only bet plays in two different units. Wise Guy plays are my top play and majors are .75 units of a Wise Guy play.

So as it applies to a $100 player, he would bet $100 on my Wise Guy plays and of course, $75 on my majors. Much like putting the same amount every month into the stock market, this method must be bet religiously.

However the Kelly System is similar but is based on a set percentage of one’s bankroll, not a set amount. Generally the maximum bet is 1/20 of the total bankroll.

Using the same one unit and .75 unit rating procedure, if one’s bankroll starts out with a $2,000 bankroll, Wise Guy plays would be $100 (5% of 2,000) and a major would be $75 (3.75% of (2,000).
Let’s say the gambler goes on a huge losing streak and his bankroll drops to $1,325. Then a Wise Guy play is still 5% of his bankroll, but is it $66.25, while a major is still 3.75% at $49.69.

When his bankroll is increased to $3,330 for example a Wise Guy play increases to $166.50, while a major would be $124.88.

Accurate handicapping and great information is the heart and soul of sports gambling. But without a responsible and thus concordant money management modus operandi it will all go for naught.

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Should I go with, against or ignore the public consensus? What do I do with line moves? Are they one and the same? You ask some good questions.

Probably at one time or another you have joked, or maybe were quite serious when you said something to the effect, “Bet against my buddy, JoeBagOfDonuts. Every game he picks, he loses.”

I knew a old hand sportsbook clerk who maintained fervently that every time some loudmouth came into his sportsbook and bragged that the oddsmakers were giving away money on a particular game or that a line was so far off, then plopped down $25 on such a “sure thing”, the clerk would immediately go to another casino and bet the other side.

He vowed that about 70 percent of the time, the big bragging, small-playing egomaniac would lose.

In actuality, the basic philosophy behind that is very compelling. Fading public consensus plays—contrarian plays—can be actually be a very genuine and priceless starting point of handicapping. A little known fact is that the oddsmakers very much study public betting trends when making the line.

That is, in many circumstances, the linesmaker before he even posts a line, knows that recent data shows that the public is going to lean towards betting Team A against Team B, regardless of what the line is. Hence a team that should be a 14 point favorite is posted as a 16-point chalk. Just an extra half-point here and an extra point there can prove huge over the long run.

The great equalizer would of course to have the exact information of which teams are overpriced because of public perception. As we like to say, you can use the oddsmakers’ knowledge against them.

I have heard both first hand and second hand stories about guys who ran parlay card operations (for amusement only of course) who every week would compile a consensus from among their hundreds of participants.

They would then bet against all of biggest consensus plays and do very, very well. We have found that the public consensus plays as found at contest sites such as Bigguy and Sports Insights have been very accurate in measuring public perception. Generally the top consensus plays at those sites and from outlaw information that we get fairly parallel.

OffshoreInsiders.com only considers something above 70-percent to be significant enough for “fading” purposes. Consensus plays that overwhelming are often few and far between, but just like in everything else that we do, we set the bar very high.

However, so often the public confuses line moves and “public plays”. Line moves are much more affected by the sharp player than the majority, thus merely tracking line moves does have some value, but is not a foolproof indicator of fade plays.

That’s why I compare the information that I get from my outlaw book acquaintances, offshore contacts and compare them to the Internet contest sites. When all such information coincides, we have the chance to fade sucker plays.

Schleps can be of great value to smart players. The more you fade them, the brighter they begin to look.

 

Some of the biggest mismatches in college football will occur over the next few weeks as elite BCS schools tune-up against mid-major patsies. Professional gamblers have the courage of thieves knowing in many cases betting with the inferior team getting the points is like stealing.

Let me divulge upfront that I am not a connoisseur on picking stocks.  But I know those who have been triumphant on the stock market have done it by selecting stocks that nobody else sought.  They purchased stocks when their worth was at their lowest and going with them.  The other end of that equation is selling stocks when they reach their zenith.

That is exactly the modus operandi that I have used to become the foremost all-sports handicapper in the world.  Of course I don’t win 365 days a year and even on winning days, I will get some hate mail about a particular pick.

I can candidly say in all my years of handicapping, 98% of people who interrogate a specific selection, second-guess my picking of a big underdog.  The handicapper who hits 48% of his plays but elects to choose almost all favorites will get less hate mail then the guy who hits 56% and picks mostly big dogs.

Especially in baseball, if I have a losing night and I picked several big dogs, I already know of the four guys who will question how I could make those picks.  Of course, I must add this caveat: they keep re-signing with me.  As you may guess, when I go 4-0 with all dogs I do not hear from them.  But my most unforgiving critics are more times than not, my most loyal clients.

I have flat out had gamblers tell me, “If I am going to lose, I’d rather lose betting (the vastly superior team) than betting on (the grossly inferior team).”  Never in my life have I heard a more self-fulfilling prophecy.  Attitudes like that keep the bookmakers in business for those of us who do win long-term.

It is no secret that the public loves betting favorites.  I am not sure why.

I suppose from a cardiac perspective, it is easier to root for a favorite.  For example, if a gambler has Florida State laying 28 to Duke, even if FSU is winning by only 10 entering the fourth quarter, in the back of his mind, he knows the Seminoles are more than capable of scoring three quick touchdowns.  On the other hand, if he has Duke, he can never breathe that sigh of relief until the final buzzer.

So if a fallacious feeling of security from a rooting standpoint is all you want, true going with grossly rated too low teams necessitates sweating wins until the end.

By hook or by crook, going with a 10-point dog that loses by 14 is so much more painful to the typical gambler than having a double-digit favorite lose outright.

This is so much truer in baseball betting. I am flabbergasted at how few gamblers truly have a notion of how baseball betting works.  Winning percentage is so irrelevant in MLB betting.  One has to hit 60-percent of 150 favorites just to break even, but only 40-percent of 150 dogs (after the juice) to reach the break even point.

I have been very triumphant in the back pocket going against Cole Hamels, Johan Santana, Zack Greinke, and the Yankees etc in choice situations.  But it never fails, every time I pick a huge dog that loses, my email box has a small number who say, “How could you EVER pick against Roy Halladay…?”

Wise Guys don’t elect to choose huge baseball underdogs expecting to strike 70-percent.  But the best baseball handicappers put themselves in a position where they can go .500 and take home a ton of money.

It takes parallel thick skin in other sports.  Of course if you are going with undervalued teams against overvalued, meaning big dogs, inescapably you will be on the wrong end of a 56-7 score.  But I have news for the chalk lovers. It is the same in the wallet as picking a 10-point favorite and winning only by a touchdown.  But again, the “at least I lost picking the better team” attitude gives the average Joe a façade of solace.

It’s the bad teams that are thought too little of, not the great teams.  We made big money going with the Detroit Lions late last year for example. We had to be on pins and needles for a lot of them, believe me, but taking the undervalued dogs is the way to win long-term.

Do not get that false sense of sanctuary by going with Florida in college football (or basketball for that matter), the Boston Celtics or Duke in basketball all of the time.  No gambler hits 100% of the time, but eradicate this bizarre human nature of second guessing yourself when a horrible team fails to cover and being so content when the superior team loses in the back pocket.

This is not to say that there are not games of value in betting the big favorite.  But while all the psychological advantages of betting favorites cause the public to love laying the lumber, those of us who win more than we lose know that the best value comes with select big dogs in the right situation.

But those of us who sell picks for a living have to develop mental sturdiness when getting feedback from clients.  Even the most realistic clients understand that no handicapper is slump-proof, but they still seem to only second guess me when I pick an underdog.

 

“It’s just a fantasy. It’s not the real thing. But sometimes a fantasy is all you need.” That is what Billy Joel tells us.  I thought it was Kenny Rogers who was the gambler.

Yes, it can remunerate to be a fantasy/rotisserie geek because it is a good dry run for excelling in the more important pursuit of gambling.  I know our good friend Rick Ballou of 1010XL radio in Jacksonville does not play fantasy sports because he does not want to have that rooting brain-teaser of betting on one side and having a player on the other side to applaud.

The cheering conflict of interest aside, the make-believe General Manager can get a lot of insight from the roto world.  In the ancient times before the World Wide Web, I found that fantasy football had me analyzing from an extraordinarily different and favorable viewpoint than before I met gambling’s cousin.

I had situations like having Emmitt Smith in his prime when he was the inimitable running back in the league.  I can for example remember one week when two offensive linemen were out and the Pokes were on the road.  Plus I had Chris Warren when he was in Seattle and he was playing a team without their two best run stoppers. Should I consider benching the world’s best running back because his match-up in not favorable? For the record, I stuck with Emmitt, but scrutiny like that actually refined me into dissecting games like few handicappers had ever before.

Fantasy sports managing helped me breakdown big match-up mismatches that occur in sports betting. It especially facilitated my acumen when it came to betting over/unders.  Quite often imprudent handicappers deduce that an injury to a key offensive player may mean fewer points or a key defensive player more points.

But in my fantasy breakdowns it became quite apparent that if a run blocker on the offensive line was hurt, it might mean the team has to pass more.  Kindred to that if a team’s leading rusher were out and his backup were an ample drop-off.   Often teams to compensate will have to fiddle with their gameplan and in such examples open up their offense.

A depreciated offense does not mean lower scoring.  So many sports speculators and general football fans fall prey to the myth that the better an offense is, the more points they will number.

One of my favorite all-time examples was in 2001 once Edgerrin James went down for the Colts.  It glaringly repressed their offense, but with a great weapon in WR Marvin Harrison and QB Peyton Manning, there clearly was one way to offset his loss: throw more often. Suckers determined losing such a weapon would mean lower scoring games.  I knew while it depleted their offense, it meant they would have to be much more high-octane.  They exceeded the total in 14-of-16 regular season games.

Let us say that a defense is lacking their two best run stoppers because of injuries and the total is high, I further investigate to see if it correlates to their opponent having motivation to run more.  If so, the end result would be longer possessions, which also means fewer possessions. Fewer possessions mean fewer scoring opportunities.

Luckily though in the hypothetical state of affairs, the total is likely posted higher because of the injuries.

A better offense is not necessarily a high scoring offense and to a lesser extent a superior defense is not inexorably going to give up more points. A great defense, whose strength is stopping the run, may force the opponent to take more risks. A bad defense that has a decent secondary may be run against more often.  Ergo the posted totals would be over-adjusted.

Hence the top fantasy sports advice sites can be priceless tools for sports cognation. Rotowire.com is the oldest and still the best all-around.  Consummate in all sports, their judicious view for the roto player can also be incalculable for us.

Footballinjuries.com is also fantastic for the NFL.  Many sites do stupendous jobs of player against team or often better yet, player against coach career statistical examinations.  For example Bill Belichick coached teams have such done extremely well shutting down certain quarterbacks.  We have found player history statistics can be of great handicapping value as so long as one also analyzes how much the parameters have or have not changed. Everything in handicapping must be taken in its proper framework.

In fact, now every major sports site, from ESPN to Yahoo has fantasy information of some kind. For the most part, if it is of value to the fantasy player, a handicapper should take note.

But there are compelling contrasts too.  The word’s best fantasy player could be a dreadful handicapper and visa versa if one probes them as one and the same.

We handicappers must explore games one at a time, while the fantasy players must query long-term performances.  Really this seems to happen more in baseball with hotshot pitchers up from the minor leagues, but can also apply in football. Joey Harrington may be great for your keeper league, but there will be peaks and valleys along the way.  Actually a head-to-head league in which a participant changes his line-up is more conducive to handicapping than the rotisserie style leagues, but both are sources of knowledge.

Using fantasy sports and the foremost sites dedicated to such can make a winning football betting season more than just a fantasy.  That’s the real thing.

 

How Much of An Element is Weather in Handicapping?
Even those few football fans who don’t gamble surely are aware of Brett Favre’s remarkable winning streak in sub 34 degree weather or Tampa’s ineptitude when the kickoff temperature is below 40 on the archaic fahrenheit scale. It though is not just fair but imperative for handicappers to note most of those Favre games were at home where he was rarely beaten and Tampa’s incompetence was compiled when they were a doormat playing on the road.
As far as weather benefitting one team or the other, more times than not the old adage of both teams having to play in the same conditions bodes true. This is not to say though weather won’t decide the spread or SU outcome. Many teams are built for their home field and extreme weather in a battle of dichotomous styles will without question be a factor.
Come playoff time and even late in the regular season we will hear pundits and handicappers question the ability of dome teams to win or even make it to the Super Bowl. Atlanta making it in 1999 and the Rams winning it all in 2000 did take some steam out of those convinced of a dome field disadvantage but both teams were able to avoid having to play in nasty outdoor conditions.
There is one major factor missing from the aforesaid critics. We would actually agree that dome teams clearly built for dome play are at a huge disadvantage in nasty outdoor conditions. We certainly don’t disagree that the Colts horrible defense needs to be improved and nobody can question the genius of Bill Belichick. But the Colts offense is much more high powered than they are great and we question the Colts ability to beat any team in northern winter weather. The same was true for Minnesota in the Randy Moss era.
The exception to the “both teams play in the same conditions” rule would be high powered offenses. Eagles linebacker Ike Reese said. “Sloppy-weather games are tailor-made for running teams. When you have to put the ball up, you’re going to have to worry about sloppy passes, balls getting fumbled.”
The famed Dolphins of the early 70s which went to the Super Bowl three straight years, winning two including the perfect season are a perfect example of a team that could win in any conditions. In fact un-Miami like conditions fit perfectly into their smash mouth ball control style.
Teams custom built for their climate or stadium of course will be most effected by conditions that deviate from their comfort zone. But a road team’s style is more quantifying than their city of origin or whether or not there is a roof on their stadium insofar as handicapping weather conditions.
The single biggest mistake handicappers make is thinking potential weather advantages benefit mostly warm climate teams playing in northern cities. No less of an authority on the subject would be Dan Marino. He played his high school and college ball in Pittsburgh and spent a Hall-of-Fame career in Miami, but with many a road game in New York, Foxborough, Buffalo and many other cold-weather cities.
Marino states emphatically that is tougher for a cold weather team to play in a hot weather city than visa versa. Ask any chad hanging seasoned citizen New York transplant in south Florida and they will tell you there is an acclimation period adjusting to the much warmer weather. But eventually one gets quite used to it.
Fans of international soccer will note how for example the USA soccer team admits the brutal conditions of Guatemala and the Central American countries is a huge disadvantage for the Yankees and adaptation is difficult.
As a point of fact, it’s easier for the heavily padded American football players to compensate for cold conditions than it is for the blistering heat of Florida, Texas or Arizona. Yet the handicapper seems to concern himself more so with the December frozen tundra. This is not the case at the Center of the Handicapping Universe.

High Profile and the Obscure: We Love them Both
Joe Duffy (www.godspicks.com)
I have a colleague who insists on picking the “little guys”, that is small conferences in college because he feels the big league games involving celebrated teams “everyone knows about”.
That is true. And it is false.
Having schooling of the pros and cons of each is one of the many munitions that we use in keeping our wiseguy clients in lucrative betting. First of all, let us examine how smart money affects higher profile games and the more obscure differently.
World-class vested interest makers bet on every sport and know that they can make as much money betting on Louisiana-Monroe as on Miami-Florida. Recreational players like to bet on games that they will watch and be discussed at the water cooler on Monday. Furthermore, the hunch player and parlay card level investor makes selections on games in which they have some level of insight. In 98 percent of cases, it will be on a marquee game.
Asks any bookmaker, be they in Vegas, Costa Rica or Big Ernie driving around in his van with a cell phone on whether they will book more bets on Nebraska-Oklahoma or Eastern Michigan-Toledo. Even in the heart of MAC country, the big match-up will generate more interest. Of course the burning question is what does it mean to the gambler?
Smart money will move a line a lot more in a mid-major conference than it will on a MNF game because the potential to balance it out is much higher in marquee contests. When a sportsbook will take $190,000 in action on a MNF game, a $4,000 bet is easier to offset than in game between Idaho and North Texas, where they may only get $500 worth of action on the other side without moving the line.
But the biggest books don’t merely have an exact mathematical formula for changing a line. “I really don’t move off of the amount of money but will move off what I consider to be sharp money,” says Leo Shafto of MVP Sportsbook. Shafto is certainly one of the most aggressive in moving the line when it comes to combating topflight sports betting swashbucklers.
In the games in which sportsbooks are getting low volume, books can be much more dynamic in moving the line because in the supposed situation, there was not enough money already bet on the Idaho-North Texas game that the books risk of getting destroyed by the handicapping aristocrats is more than the risky venture of getting “middled”.
For those of you not familiar, “middling” is the line shoppers Holy Grail—betting opposite sides of both ends of line moves and hoping the final score falls in the middle. In other words betting a favorite at –4.5 and the dog in the same game at +5.5. All they risk is the juice, but if the favorite wins by five, they win with both sides.
On a MNF game though, over-adjusting to smart money runs the risk of getting “middled”. Here is an illustration using the above hypothetical. A sharp player lays down that $4,000 on Idaho at -11 points. MVP Sportsbook now has $4,725 of money bet on Idaho and $600 on North Texas. If they move the line to –13 to prevent clients from jumping on the smart money, they can only get “middled” to the tune of $4,725. If they don’t adjust the line, the amount of money a sportsbook can lose by letting others gravy train the inside dope is unlimited.
Conversely if $4,000 in sharp money came in on the Pittsburgh Steelers against Cleveland, and MVP Sportsbook has $29,700 on the Steelers –6, but just $20,000 on Cleveland +6, moving the line two points like in the North Texas example leaves them vulnerable to getting middled by up to $29,700. That is why only a huge injury would ever move an NFL line as aggressively as “sharpie” activity can move a small conference college line.
Bookmakers combat that by adding juice instead of points, which too many nonprofessional players disregard, but smart players know they can get the same line for standard vig.
Also the Internet in making the spread of information so much more widely available has also caused the patsy player to outsmart himself. In the above theoretical illustration, word spreads that North Texas will be without their second best pass rusher and premier cornerback against the high-octane offense of Idaho.
Joeybagofdonuts reads about this on some gambling posting board and oblivious to the fact that the opening line was –11 and is now –14, bets the Vandals anyway. If he wins, he fancies himself to be a wiseguy and will just outmaneuver himself soon enough by pressing his luck.
A shrewd handicapper puts the line move under a microscope. First of all, were the injuries taken into consideration with the opening line? In other words, were the key players considered “questionable” only to have their status downgraded or were these injuries that happened in practice long after the lines were posted?
Not that I will mention any names (me), but you bet it abets a bet to have great fellowship in the offshore and Vegas sportsbooks. My ingenious alliteration aside, it takes out the speculation in discerning the smart money/sucker money ratio that moves a line. Or is it the linesmakers being proactive and anticipating smart money coming in on one side?
The answer varies from game to game. Opportunists find out the accurate dope sheet. We can be such mercenaries sometimes.
The more noteworthy a game is, often the more valuable handicapping revelation is easily procured. But the more indistinct a game is, the more treasured little-known bulletins can be. Conversely the public often takes the bait thinking they have the privy skinny and still bets the wrong end of an over-adjusted and off kilter line.
Time after time, the easier to get hot poop is on the games, the tougher it is for the books to adjust. Likewise the tougher-to-acquire information is on games in which the books have more leeway to react.
Bookmakers stay in business because a lot more people misapply what comes down the pipeline than those of us who synthesize and incorporate the lowdown into its proper perspective.
Shafto in fact expressed his linesmaking philosophy that is immensely similar to what I have used to beat him and his colleagues. “Bookmaking is not a perfect science. It’s having the math work for you. As soon as you become foolish and take giant pointspread leaps, you will turn the math against you. “
Luckily different linesmakers have different philosophies. That helps us line shoppers.
Too often, the bourgeois bettor outfoxes himself. We send our gratitude for helping us inverse their knee-jerk betting. It’s a “cool jerk” as far as I am concerned.
“TV or not TV?” that is the question. We say the answer is both.
Joe Duffy is General Manager of Freescoreboard.com, the premier handicapping hub on the Internet and also of 866-FREE-866, the top source for real-time toll-free recorded scores, odds, injuries, weather, news and notes, free picks and more. Duffy’s plays are part of the Dream Team at Godspicks.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.

Handicappers Must Have a Threshold for Systematic Winning
Joe Duffy (www.godspicks.com)
Amongst our permanent clients the single most common question we get revolves around the position of “That system you been using is great, but doesn’t it seem like the parameters should point to the opposite pick?” So often our systems would be the converse to “conventional logic”. In gambling, acknowledging that “conventional logic” is almost always an oxymoron will put one on the right path to winning. Thus going against the grain is more times than not a stupendous line of attack.
As a for instance, many of our systems involve bad offenses going over, good and hot teams being go against and bad and cold teams being ATS goldmines. There are two huge rationales why this is the case.
The first answer is in the “should it not be the opposite?” line of non-thinking. Lines are made very much to adjust to public perception. Handicapping can be loosely defined as the art of finding the undervalued and overvalued teams. The teams at the top of the standings, even if they are a Cinderella team won’t fly under the radar too long. The public fears betting bottom feeders. As we discussed in our article “It is Good to Pick Bad” we synthesize the science of handicapping public perception.
Somewhat related though is the importance of what we call analyzing whether a team will reach their “threshold” or not. Nothing affects the pre-adjusted line (meaning before injuries, public perception and other considerations) than the two teams’ performances to date.
If someone could look into the proverbial crystal ball and tell you that both teams in an NBA game will shoot 10 percent above their season average, would you bet the over or the under? Chances are that you would happily invest in the over. Of course I know we preach a preponderance of evidence in handicapping, but I am trying to simplify the illustration.
Comparably in another game you had the two worst shooting teams in the NBA playing each other. Such hypothetical would put each of their field goal percentages at approximately 41 percent. Each team would need to hit just more than half their shots to exceed the aforestated threshold by 10 percentage points. However if it involved the two top shooting teams, that would put each team around the 48 percent mark meaning each team would have to shoot 58 percent to reach the exact same threshold. So in that comparison 58 percent shooting by both teams in one game is the equivalent of 51 percent in the other game.
How appropriate it’s called handicapping, because a team’s performance to date much like a “handicap” in your neighborhood beer bowling league is what the pointspread is based on.
I know a big time square player whom I will call Sal. Sal likes picking college hoop totals and one of his built in chestnuts is regurgitating, “I love the over in this game because both teams love to shoot the three point shot.”
“What’s the total Sal?” cohort Leo Shafto and I time and time again ask the dunderhead. Sal stammers, “It doesn’t matter, both teams will shoot a lot of threes.” Sal the Simpleton is oblivious to the high total, unfazed once he sees it and totally unwitting to the fact that to go over both teams will not only likely have to shoot a bunch of three-point shots, but exceed the high zenith and make an inordinate number to win his bet. This is especially the case to win based on the reasons Sal gave.
Systems that “make sense” to the uneducated eye are the ones that raise a red flag to the learned. Knowing “conventional logic” is an even bigger oxymoron in handicapping because oddsmakers are aware of public perception and knowing it’s easier to exceed a low threshold than a high threshold is indispensable wisdom.
As always system plays are only part of handicapping. We don’t consider a system to be statistically significant unless it has a Z-score of 4.0 or higher (statisticians consider 2.0 to be statistically significant. Or systems must have an ROI of 80 or above. But it is almost as important to be aware why systems work.
Duffy’s plays are part of the Dream Team at Godspicks.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 www.godspicks.com are widely respected as the biggest play in the handicapping abyss.

Good Handicappers Are In Midseason Form in the Preseason
Joe Duffy (www.godspicks.com)
The great Emmitt Smith did a commercial in which he said that championships are won in the preseason. Of course I found it ironic that in said year he missed the entire preseason and the first two games of the regular schedule before leading Dallas to the Super Bowl. But I digress. The thrust is that handicappers have a whole heap to win in the preseason as well.
I am exceedingly sure that you have heard it and percentages say that you have uttered it as well. When I first began handicapping I espoused the costly naivety too.
The fallacy is that nobody in their right mind would try to foretell preseason battles. The belief is that there are too many unknown factors to consider, too many nameless and faceless Division II players on each side of the ball who will be getting their only taste of the show for a few plays or series of downs.
True the argument behind this deduction is certainly based on fact, but the conclusion in not only untrue, but very much the contrary.
The reality is that smart players realize that such mentioned disadvantages actually apply to the oddsmaker and not the gambler. With the proliferation of offshore sportsbooks and the competitiveness leading to sportsbooks posting advanced lines earlier and earlier, the advantage continues to swing more and more towards the player, well at least to the wise player.
Preseason lines are made now a week in advance. After the first week, so often once both opponents have completed their preceding contest, a line is posted as rapidly as possible for the upcoming week.
The truthfulness is that the linesmakers have to deal with a lot more uncertainty that the bettor does. Of course lines do adjust—sometimes over adjust based on this information and the public responding to it, but the sportsbooks are still limited in exactly how much they can move the lines or they would get destroyed by line shoppers and “middle” players. “Bette Middlers” is what my cohort OC Dooley likes to call them.
Hometown newspapers are a Godsend for handicapping preseason football. Rarely is there a game in which coaches will not give out accurate information on quarterback and key player rotations as well as injuries. It is not remotely uncommon to find out because of injuries and other reasons that a team for example may be without four of their top six offensive linemen or many analogous situations.
As a general rule of thumb both offensive and defensive schemes are pretty vanilla in the exhibition games (apologies to the late Mr. Rozelle, that’s what they are). But yet when teams have a new head coach or new coordinator or a lot of new players projected to play key positions often coaches will throw in more stunts, blitzes, etc.
But because the purpose is for the players to learn a system and not to catch their opponent off-guard, such game plan is almost never kept secret. However rarely in preseason do coaches actually prepare for their opponent. Thus when research uncovers that one team is working on some more sophisticated packages, while the opponent is going to keep it straightforward, the big plus goes to team planning on mixing it up.
There are eternal issues that affects how critically each team approaches a particular preseason game, such as new systems on both or either side of the ball, the number of established veterans on each team who will only play some token downs merely for timing and getting in shape, the number of positions and roster spots up for grabs, individual coaches philosophies on how to approach a preseason game. The inventory really never ends.
But so often the coaches and key players own comments will give strong insight into whether or not there is an enormous dichotomy in how each team is approaching a forthcoming game. Inevitably a coach especially one of a young or perennially losing team will flat out state something to the effect, “We need to instill a winning attitude and habit early. We want to enter the regular season with some wins under our belt.” Not-so-uncommon annotations like that set off sirens at Godspicks.
The Dallas Cowboys for years were one of the great preseason go-against plays, especially during the “Triplets” era of Irvin, Smith and Aikman because most of the key starting positions were already etched in stone. Whether or not Jimmy Johnson or Barry Switzer was the coach, the Cowboys played future Arena Football players using the most basic schemes.
Read those newspapers and you will find that on any given preseason weekend, there will be several matchups in which one team will be play key members longer than their opponent or that one team because of injuries and precautions will be much more shorthanded at kickoff than their foe.
It is always important to keep a close eye on teams whose first and second string players were on one side of a dominating performance. So often such will effect how much work the key players will get the following week. If a veteran first unit outscored their foe 14-0 one week, there is a good chance that they be given little work the next week. But do not assume this to be the case. Hometown newspapers leave little to speculation by printing coaches’ answers to the obvious questions.
It is a pretty good general rule of thumb that teams off of humiliating losses will come out with vengeance the following week. But there is a reason that I qualified such statement with “pretty good” and “general”. Final scores can be deceptive in any and all sports but such is the case even more so in preseason football.
If a team loses 28-7 but the first and second teams were outscored 21-0, while the mop-up guys played evenly, it is a huge difference than if it were visa versa. The third and fourth stringers if totally outplayed are digging ditches and contacting the Barcelona Dragons. But if it were the primary players who were humiliated, they are the ones who have a fire lit under them.
It is much more important to look at how the respective top two units played than the actual final score. However one must very much take into account all the extenuating factors involved entering the game, as illustrated above. Perhaps a teams top two units were shorthanded against an opponent who used complicated schemes breaking in new systems. But I do love betting on teams whose first and second units got a good ole fashioned no-excuses butt whipping to rebound accordingly.
One has to though find that fine line between going with all of the above factors and being mindful of line moves. This is particularly so with the public jumping on the same side that you are.
I honestly can not give a definitive scientific explanation of exactly how my handicapping has been complimented so well by line moves, other than to know that it defies any laws of probability. But somewhere there is a congruency amongst my handicapping techniques, the opening line and public perception that affects the line moves.
I can with full honesty say that in preseason just as I do during the regular season, I win a lot more than I lose. However so many times if early in the week I pencil side A as a play only to have the public bet side A so much that the line moves enough to scare me off of the game, only to have side B cover both ends of the line move. Somehow there is a complimentary congruency in my handicapping that increases my winning percentage even further.
But all factors equal, I very much like going against preseason line moves of 2’ or more points. When those moves are not justified by the factors outlined about, I often make selections based about 85% on unjustified line, moves. But line moves that I deem justified more times than not results in a no-play.
The modus operandi that applies in the regular season and postseason handicapping are completely different than that of the preseason. Once a talented handicapper realizes that, he has taken first step towards a nice regular season bankroll. But after that, it still takes research, research, research…
Duffy’s plays are part of the Dream Team at Godspicks.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. His Wise Guy Plays are widely respected as the biggest play in the handicapping abyss.