Martingale vs. a bad sports team

A friend told me about his plans to do this vs. The Buffalo Sabres this season. I'm not going to try it myself, but I thought it was kind of interesting. There are a couple of big differences from doing this on Roulette or whatever. Also, I don't know much about hockey or betting on it, so I might be getting something wrong.
1) Cards, dice, balls have no memory. But athletes do. They know they are on a bad team. They know winning two or three in a row is a big deal for them and
that winning much more than that is not supposed to happen. They might become emotionally and physically fatigued, or complacent, when they exceed expectations for a while. It looks like the longest NHL win streak ever was 17 games, though this is complicated because there used to be ties. I looked at the final standings from last year and the longest win streaks to close out the season were 5 games and 4 games, both by good teams. I scanned Buffalo's record last year and did not see a winning streak of more than 2. Buffalo's season win total is 28.5 out of 82. Not much to go on, but gives some idea of what win streaks in the NHL look like. I wonder what the longest win streaks ever by a team that finished in the bottom quarter of the league look like (There might be a couple to toss out, where good teams became bad due to injures).

2) There's a very high "table limit." You can go from $100 to tens of thousands if need be. I don't think this guy has tens of thousands, and I think he'd give up before that point anyway, but it's still the case that you've got plenty of books to turn to.

3) He's going to have to lay a big price on almost every bet. Something in the -200 area, I think.

Again, I do not think this is worthwhile and this guy would, of course, never listen to me. However, if I had to do this I think I'd go this route. Wait for them to win. Bet against them the next game (2 to win 1). Then, if that loses, just try to break even on the third game (4to win 2). At this point, we're already 6 units down. We need to bet 12 to win 6 on the fourth. I'd quit here, down 18 units on a four game win streak. But you could continue to chase, or maybe do something like try to get half your money back at this point.

If they hit the season win total of 28 you might win something like 18-20 units, breaking even whenever they win back to back or better. Unless they hit a 4 (or 5) game streak, in which case you'd lose 18 units, minus however many you won prior to the streak.

I have toyed with this at a very low level ($1) on Bovada and MLB. I found a few things:

1. You need to analyze to see where to start. For MLB I found you need to wait for a 4-5 game winning streak.

2. You need an "abandon plan" if you take 4 losses in a row because after that a team on a tear will wipe you out.

3. The moneyline complicates it. If they take their win streak against a division leader the -250 means you have to alter your bet or else just accept the variance and flat-bet.

4. It works best in the middle 80% of the season. Too early and teams have not established themselves as good or bad, too late and they play different in the playoff race. Need the time of year when they are not really up or down but grinding out a living.

5. You need to analyze the entire league and see how streaks work. League-wide, what % of streaks end after 3, 4, and 5 games. And for what teams and what place in the standings?

6. Done right and all-season you can grind out a 25-30% ROI, enough to get you a huge bonus at any hedge fund, but risk is as high as drilling for oil. As always, bet with your head, not over it.

Let us know results.

I'm a HUGE Buffalo Sabres fan and this post is disheartening. ;o( Why did your buddy have to pick us? We won't be as bad as last year! I hope not anyway! LoL

On a serious note though, the Martingale would be tough with the moneyline as you'd often be laying a lot of units trying to get your money back.

EDIT: I'M BORED AT WORK SO i JUST THREW TOGETHER A LITTLE EXAMPLE.

I'm sure no one expects the Kansas City Royals to sweep the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the ALDS, right? The Angels are heavy favorites and a sweep would be highly unlikely. Tonight's moneyline is -180 at William Hill for the Angels to win straight up. Lets assume you set a win goal of $1000. So you could bet $1800 to win your $1000.

You lose.

Let's assume the Game 2 line stays at -180 (just to make the math easy), now you bet $5040 to get your $1000 plus your $1800 loss back.

You lose.

Game 3. Line still -180. You now have to bet $14,112 to win your $1000 plus your $6840 back.

Anyone have $20,952 laying around you'd be willing to put up to win a $1000 that the Royals won't sweep the Angels?

LoL

Yeah, I agree. I'm sure you could have gotten "Royals Don't Sweep" for better than that online.

However, I think that's kind of a bad example. Though we don't expect the Royals to sweep, or at least we didn't a couple days ago, the psychological inertia builds in the wrong direction. The men we are using as our roulette spots are thinking, "wow, red came twice in a row. Maybe we can make it four!" And, "oh crap, looks like it's curtains for black."

We want them to be thinking, "wow, two in a row. Pretty good for Red. Maybe we can relax a little. It's not like Red can really win anything anyway."

However, I imagine about 10 million people have had this idea and the bookies are still in business. Likely because, as you said, the ML becomes a killer. And, if these factors exist, they will probably be reflected in the ML.

Anyway, I'll keep updates on it. Maybe I will follow, just out of curiosity and fun. You can bet $1 online.

(This has been discussed before, here is a summary)

This works much better if you're using a spread. I think football is the best example. Has a team ever gone 0-16 against the spread? It's sort of impossible, because you'd figure the spread would have to keep getting higher and higher, and the team would just have to get worse and worse.

I think a martingale absolutely would work in football.

Quote: mwalz9

I'm a HUGE Buffalo Sabres fan and this post is disheartening. ;o( Why did your buddy have to pick us? We won't be as bad as last year! I hope not anyway! LoL

Sabres season ticket holder here.... but I like the OP's idea. The Sabres this year know they are only playing to get the worst record to have the best chance at getting McDavid in the draft next year. They have no other goal for this year. They likely will be historically bad..... on purpose. Their good young players will be sent to the minors to prevent them from possibly turning the team from horrific to mediocre. They jettisoned their best players from last year (Miller, Vanek) for future draft picks. The thought of them winning 4 in a row is almost unfathomable.

Quote: mwalz9

I'm sure no one expects the Kansas City Royals to sweep the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the ALDS, right?

Who's the idiot who posted this? Oh yeah...me! LoL

Funnily enough, though not to him, I found out this guy did try this technique against The Royals and got flushed. He didn't seem in a mood to talk about the Buffalo play. I don't know if he aborted mission.

An against the spread version occured to me. I don't know which sport would be best. You'd have to look at historical runs against the spread. I know that one of Pete Carroll's USC teams went undefeated against the spread. College football would seem like a bad sport to do this in anyway, though.

Suppose you waited till an NFL or NBA team had a nice run ATS. Let's say, 3-0 or 4-0. And you started martingaling against them at that point, ATS. I wonder how you'd do. The obvious benefit here is that you are not laying -240 on your bets.

Again, I'm sure 2 million people have thought of this before and the books are still open for business. But I wouldn't be totally shocked if this was narrowly +ev with a huge risk. Interesting question, anyway.