Should I take some money now or hold out for the 2:1?
Through Sunday 10/31 I am +19 and he is talking about a deal. What would be a good offer to take here? $800? $700? I'm in real good shape now but it's so volatile that 2 bad weeks I could be back close to even...or should I just hold out for the whole amount to teach him a lesson?
Quote: clarkacalI made a bet with a friend who used to book that I could beat the spread on 50% or more of every regular season game this upcoming nfl year. If I win I get $1000, if he wins I pay $500. There is no vig, just pick winners, ties don't count. It seems to me this is a very good bet and he is on tilt...what do you think? With no vig it seems there is no mathematical disadvantage. The only argument i'm hearing seems to be psycholigical biases when picking being a common downfall. Is this legitimate? I plan on making completely random picks to offset this possibility. Isn't this like getting 2:1 on a coin flip?
Through Sunday 10/31 I am +19 and he is talking about a deal. What would be a good offer to take here? $800? $700? I'm in real good shape now but it's so volatile that 2 bad weeks I could be back close to even...or should I just hold out for the whole amount to teach him a lesson?
For him to catch up, he'd have to be more than two games better than you per week for the rest of the season, or there would have to be two weeks where he was a genius and your picks were a disaster, or some combination of the two. I would peg your chances at something like a 4:1 favorite, and for that reason, I would think you should settle for $700. Here's why. If he refused the offer, he would be risking an additonal $300 (by having to ultimately pay you $1000, not $700) to try to win $1200 (not paying you $700, and winning $500 from you, to boot). Mathematically, this would be fair, given your 80% chance of winning.
The above is why I don't think an offer of $800 is fair. If he refused, he would be getting 6 1/2 to 1 on his bet (risking having to pay you $200 more). I don't think his chances are that bad (i.e., he isn't a 13:2 underdog).
Quote: clarkacalI made a bet with a friend who used to book that I could beat the spread on 50% or more of every regular season game this upcoming nfl year. If I win I get $1000, if he wins I pay $500. There is no vig, just pick winners, ties don't count. It seems to me this is a very good bet and he is on tilt...what do you think? With no vig it seems there is no mathematical disadvantage. The only argument i'm hearing seems to be psycholigical biases when picking being a common downfall. Is this legitimate? I plan on making completely random picks to offset this possibility. Isn't this like getting 2:1 on a coin flip?
Through Sunday 10/31 I am +19 and he is talking about a deal. What would be a good offer to take here? $800? $700? I'm in real good shape now but it's so volatile that 2 bad weeks I could be back close to even...or should I just hold out for the whole amount to teach him a lesson?
That mostly depends on how good of a friend he is, and how badly you want to teach him a lesson vs. just letting him admit he screwed up and forfeit. Surrender in blackjack is 1/2, and letting him pay you $500 now would be very generous.
I'm not sure exactly how many more regular season games there are this year, but someone posted about 150, so I'll use that and compute that the probabilities of you coming out on top. You need to get less than 131/2 games right in order for your friend to win, otherwise you do. In other words, if you go 65-85 or worse, you lose. The chance of going 65-85 or worse in 150 games, assuming each pick is 50/50 (which it would be if you were flipping coins), is:
C(150,N)/(2^150)
summed over N = 0 .. 65
That's about 6%, or more than a 15-1 dog, so you're way ahead at this point. With a 94% chance of winning, your bet has a present value of about $910 (not accounting for investment returns or inflation, etc), so to me it's unlikely that $90 would get him to do a deal now. Again, the question is how much of a lesson you want to teach him.
Quote: mkl654321For him to catch up, he'd have to be more than two games better than you per week for the rest of the season, or there would have to be two weeks where he was a genius and your picks were a disaster, or some combination of the two. I would peg your chances at something like a 4:1 favorite, and for that reason, I would think you should settle for $700. Here's why. If he refused the offer, he would be risking an additonal $300 (by having to ultimately pay you $1000, not $700) to try to win $1200 (not paying you $700, and winning $500 from you, to boot). Mathematically, this would be fair, given your 80% chance of winning.
The above is why I don't think an offer of $800 is fair. If he refused, he would be getting 6 1/2 to 1 on his bet (risking having to pay you $200 more). I don't think his chances are that bad (i.e., he isn't a 13:2 underdog).
His friend is not making bets as well. It's clarkacal versus the bank.
To lose he'd have to go 2 under par each week (on average). I assume pushes are no action?
Quote: thecesspitHis friend is not making bets as well. It's clarkacal versus the bank.
To lose he'd have to go 2 under par each week (on average). I assume pushes are no action?
The bet is hypothetical. If the offer is made to let him settle the bet for less than $1000, then by refusing, and continuing, he is betting the difference between the settlement and the $1000 that he will be able to come from behind and win. His payoff is the settlement that he will not pay, plus the $500 that he will win.
By my count, 190 games have been played at the time of your question, about of 512 in the regular season. Using the binomial distribution I show your probability of winning is 99.87%. A fair settlement price would be $998.02.
Note: Answer corrected 11/12/10.
Quote: clarkacalThanks wizard for your input. He offered me $600 and I told him when he wanted to make a serious offer let me know. He works for my dad btw so collecting shouldn't be a problem ;-)
You're welcome. Yup, $600 is way too low.
Quote: WizardOutstanding bet, like taking candy from a baby. Agreed, like getting 2 to 1 on a coin flip. Even better, since you would win on a tie.
By my count, 190 games have been played at the time of your question, about of 512 in the regular season. Using the binomial distribution I show your probability of winning is 98.52%. A fair settlement price would be $977.80.
Wiz- there are 32 x 16 / 2 games, which is 256. Right? So I think about 100 of those 250 have been played. I think you double counted all the games....
Quote: WizardOutstanding bet, like taking candy from a baby. Agreed, like getting 2 to 1 on a coin flip. Even better, since you would win on a tie.
By my count, 190 games have been played at the time of your question, about of 512 in the regular season. Using the binomial distribution I show your probability of winning is 99.87%. A fair settlement price would be $998.02.
Note: Answer corrected 11/12/10.
That number doesn't sound right at all. If (with your corrected game count) 95 games have been played and he is up 19, than of the remaining 161 games, he has to win 70 or less (and lose 91 or more) to lose the bet. Isn't binomialcdf(161, .5, 70) = .057? That would make his chance of wining 94.3%. Still good, but not a lock. Am I misinterpreting the information?
Quote: clarkacalI made a bet with a friend who used to book that I could beat the spread on 50% or more of every regular season game this upcoming nfl year. If I win I get $1000, if he wins I pay $500. There is no vig, just pick winners, ties don't count. It seems to me this is a very good bet and he is on tilt...what do you think? With no vig it seems there is no mathematical disadvantage. The only argument i'm hearing seems to be psycholigical biases when picking being a common downfall. Is this legitimate? I plan on making completely random picks to offset this possibility. Isn't this like getting 2:1 on a coin flip?
Through Sunday 10/31 I am +19 and he is talking about a deal. What would be a good offer to take here? $800? $700? I'm in real good shape now but it's so volatile that 2 bad weeks I could be back close to even...or should I just hold out for the whole amount to teach him a lesson?
Good question here is, how likely are you to be in the reverse of this situation in the future. Letting the guy out cheap may be the way forward to reduce impact on your betting in the future
Quote: FinsRuleDepends on how reliable your friend is on paying. I'd take $800 from him right now.
Just to update I ended the season way ahead and he conceded paying the full amount after week 15. When I first read the quoted message by finsrule I disregarded the reliability issue. I won't again because this happened:
At the beginning of the season we agreed on the line source to be the 5dimes closing lines. I then printed up what my picks would be according to the closing lines, specified in writing that it would be based on 5dimes closing lines, and gave him and the other person I made the bet with for a smaller amount a copy. The reason I chose this book is that SBRForum posted the 5dimes closing lines along with the game results on it's first page, and all these games would be easily accessible at any time. I showed him how to access this online.
At about week 6 or 7 sbr decided to change which book's closing lines they put on the front page, something I never foresaw happening. This changed the historical closing lines for the whole season so far and caused about a 6 game swing in his favor if you went by sbr front page. The day it happened I told him about it and explained where he would now have to go on sbr to find the 5dimes closing lines. Well he started screaming foul, saying that wasn't right and that I told him we would go by whatever sbr showed. Well we got into a huge fight and then I remembered that i had printed a copy for each of us, and showed it to him where it clearly stated 5dimes closing lines. He wouldn't look at it and said he didn't care what it said.
The issue was never settled but it ended up being irrelevant because by week 16 my lead was insurmountable by 5 dimes or the book sbr changed to. Needless to say I will never gamble with him on anything again, because not only do you have to win the bet, you have to hope he doesn't insist the bet get's thrown out for a technicality, and a written contract is no good unless it agrees with what he remembers was said.
After all this I think my odds were closer to 6:5 even though I was getting paid 2:1 for a win, and FinsRule was right on.
