Lloyd Christmas said:
You're still not getting it, but thanks for proving my point that there is a 1% spread between favs and dogs at post making them essentially a coin flip.
Please find where I said TAKING THE BEST NUMBER EVER AVAILABLE ON EVERY NBA GAME WOULD BLINDLY MAKE YOU MONEY. I never did, although that seems to be what you keep going after.
My entire point is the value gained in beating the closing number, not picking out a particular sport, going through a database and saying "This is dumb, even if I found the best number available in every game I would have barely broke even, so that wouldn't work".
So for all these people saying "Just pick the right side, the number is not a big deal", if you got two points either way you could blindly bet and be a winner.
Again, I'm not saying it's even possible to get a number two points better than the closer every time, my point is that the margin is that small, and every half point you get is meaningful.
If your rebuttal is that you don't have a database to determine if I'm right, you don't need a database to figure out you can gain 2.38% when each number has a push percentage of between 3.5 and 4%
If someone says they keep beating the close by a half point every night, that alone is not going to make enough of a difference because it isn't enough to overcome -110.
The best possible number is going to beat the closing number probably 65% of the time so this idea of 'beating the closer' and you not understanding the difference of what is better shows you dont really know what youre talking about.
If a game opens -4 and goes to -6 and closes 4.5 then 6 obviously beat the closer. Then on the other side the 4 did. My numbers take BOTH those results, thats why the discrepancy between the closers and best available. You CANNOT improve results versus best available because the numbers do not exist. Thats why arguing with clueless people is a waste of time(as is arguing with people who want to make up fantasy numbers to try and prove something), but I try to educate people from time to time. But they dont want to learn they want to continue to live in their bubble and think what everyone claims is true and thus have a built in excuse on why they lost. Which is ironic considering the topic of this thread, but it should go to show that beating closers is basically meaningless, and any results good or bad are a personal anecdotal result not indicative of the results as a whole.
I COULD look at what getting 2 points better than a closer would be but since the best available is going to beat a closer (on both sides) 65% of the time by at least a half point and by a point nearly 50% of the time the results arent going to be too far off. But getting make believe spreads isnt realistic so why bother? Obviously when you start using make believe numbers as a reference youre going to improve that is just common sense. Especially when you pick both sides because then it is a self fulfilling result.
As for you 2.38% number. Youre wrong there too, you cant just arbitrarily make up numbers based off a spread ratio, especially when you can look at the results anyway.
I had this argument years ago about how often the -3 pushed. First off we couldnt even agree on what games were -3 to begin with, so I just looked at every game (up until then think it was 2005 or 06) that had been posted at -3 at any time, regardless of vig. Then looked at every time those games pushed. So that made the pool of possible pushes a lot larger than it should have realistically been, and it was still less than 10%. Since then (and this was my prediction) that it was going to get less and less as time went on. And it has. And the -3 is the go to card for everyone talking about 'getting the best spread' because it is the most obvious spread with the most probable scoring differential.
But what people fail to realize is that when the line is posted -3 the probability of the game ending in a 3 pt favorite win is less than the probability of a 3 point game over all. By more than half actually. Since 2006(inclusive) there have been 2403 games (including playoffs) of those 346 have ended with a team winning by a FG. (napkin math 14.4%) Of those games 24 had a team that was favored by 3 winning by the 3. Thats basic a generic results.
Looking at spreads since 2006 there have been 386 games where one side at some point was favored by -3. The same 24 (because that is all there were) games ended with a favorite that was lined 3 winning by 3.
Now we all know books dont post lines to predict scores but they are fairly close in their 'guessing' on the possible number of FG games we might see. 346 actual games versus 386 posted games. I was surprised it wasnt more actually. But the 'parity' in the league is non existent these days and there are a lot of mismatches, thus why the over all number of 3 point games has free fallen the past decade. Used to be about 17% (16.6%)of all games ended with a team winning by a FG.
Again meaningless numbers if taken out of context and meaningless because theyre past results which dont necessarily mean future similar outcomes. But theyre what books use to determine how they do things. Irony is everyone has access to them problem is not many now what to do with them. But once you start to identify changes in rules or scoring and see that antiquated thinking is just that....antiquated, it then lets you reevaluate the 'value' of something. Which is a lot more important than trying to pretend that beating some number that could have moved on air, action, or stupidity has relevance either.
It isnt nearly this complicated, (or easy as some people want to make it out to be).
If you cant pick winners then it doesnt matter what odds you get. If youre following moves or trying to beat moves youre going to lose anyway. I have yet to see a market chaser make money (despite the claims of Fezzik and his ilk.) You have to have some sort of opinion that is semi decent to make money long term. because in this day no matter what sort of set up you have youre never ever going to beat moves consistently enough to profit. Which is pretty ironic considering the arguments most people here are making. Theyre the ones living and dying by the closers (and claiming its the secret to success) while I say it isnt important but you still cant win chasing them or beating them. Mostly because the difference isnt big enough to live on in the first place.
In most simplistic terms originators (with a clue) can win, followers dont have a chance.