jmkiser
Saturday, October 11th, 2008, 12:34 PM
QUOTE (DinkDonk @ Saturday, October 11th, 2008, 12:31 PM)

jmkiser- I wrote this out in another thread. It was more a frustrated rant in response to pseudo-cappers misunderstanding the theory, but it might help you understand where the value comes from.
Ah, thank you very much for that quote. You did a great job explaining it

I only have a question or two left
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This whole approach is made easier if you assume that the bookmakers have perfect knowledge about the true odds of the outcome of any game, so say a game is going to take place 100,000 times under the exact same conditions, they know the exact average outcome of that game. I know this isn't true (or even possible), but it's close enough to the truth that it makes contrarianism a very valid strategy for sports betting.
So if the bookmakers have perfect knowledge, absolutely none of the information you gain with your research is going to be knowledge outside of what they already know. All of the things that you know are already considered when the line for the game is made. They also have a very accurate prediction on what the public majority will bet on each side, making their knowledge all the more useful.
This is the part that I understand the most about the bookmakers. It is THEIR LIVES to do this. I don't have the time or connections to possibly come up with enough research to match it. And there is also a danger to me doing research because if it isn't 100% complete or as complete as theirs (which is likely all the time), then I will have come up with a biased line that has absolutely no value and is about as relevant as me just guessing.
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So the books have a few options on what to do with their "perfect knowledge." They can set a perfect unexploitable line and just win the juice every week with high variance due to unbalanced betting on each side. (I doubt very much that this is often, if ever, their approach.) They can set a line which equally and perfectly balances the public betting on each side of that line, which would net them the juice every single week with little to no variance. (These two approaches yield the same profits fwiw.) Orrrrr they can find exploitable public tendencies and set a line that will put the majority of the betting on the short side of any given line. This would bring on a bit of variance, but could also substantially raise their profit margin
It almost seems as if a perfect unexploitable line is impossible because there are a million different ways to graph the spread. This is what shocks me that I can't find people or programs (or something out there) with results to statistics (like you could enter different variables and find out the results for the last such and such time). There has to be some sort of history for or against people who... say... bet on all dogs given 21 points or more. You should be able to find out that if I had done that, I would either be a 43% loser or maybe a 57% winner if I had put 1 unit on each of those bets for the past 5 years in NCAA football.
The line that perfectly balances public betting is more logical so the business who runs the book isn't "gambling". The interesting thing with that is that you obviously don't have the same amount of people betting one side or the other at EVERY book. Spreads are often different at different places as well which could mean a lot of things. But, for example, if Casino A book is getting 60-40 action on the dog with 500 bets and Casino B is getting 70-30 action on the favorite with 5000 bets, do we assume that A talks to B and doesn't change? If we have Wagerline consensus, you wonder why they aren't moving their points to middle? I mean, they're publishing that one side is taking the Eagles -4.5 over the 49ers this week @ 70-30.
Then that brings up more questions. Are they actually gambling (i.e. dealing with a little variance) to increase their profits? Or do they talk to other books that have major action on the 49ers? It just seems that there are a million variants involved with the line that I admit I couldn't possibly understand them all unless I was involved in the business. But knowing that every book doesn't always try to middle by moving the spread, then we know there is some reason why.
Referring to exploiting public tendencies, would the books really not middle a spread based only on a reason that they have more details then the public seems to know? Would they really gamble? Are the books possibly mixing consensuses as to get the best info? Do they have a reason to? Also, do we have a solid enough portrayal of public tendencies to put the word value to it?
The big money question, do we really know that we're betting with the books by betting against public perception as to ascertain REAL value? Contrarianism is a very interesting theory that makes more sense the most "sports betting methods". But can we ask this question against some software that has the results of these histories? Can we find out whether this theory actual has the value we think it does by historical evidence?
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Do you really think that bookmakers who make their living in this mulitbillion dollar industry have less information at their disposal than you do?
If there is one thing that I 100% agree with you on (that I learned from all of this contrarian talk), then that quote would be it. There is no way my research trumps their's and my research could create bias to rid of any "value" I might have felt I created.