Buying a half point in the NFL

As you may know, I've been looking at half-point parlay cards in depth this season. Important to knowing the value of disparities between the lines on the card and the market is the value of those extra half points. I previously looked at how often games ended on each margin of victory to determine the value of each extra half point.

However, in thinking about this in greater depth, that understates the value. For example, 4.68% of games end in a margin of victory of 7. Previously, I was going off of such average. However, if the point spread is already -7, then it is more likely that the home team will win by seven than for the average game. After doing a lot of math, which I won't bore you with, here is my updated table of value of the fair price to pay for a half point off each spread. For the sake of comparison, I'm also including my old number.

Spread	Old	New
0	0.2	0.4
1	4.3	4.4
2	4.2	4.4
3	20.8	21.4
4	5.7	6.7
5	3.5	3.7
6	6.3	7.4
7	11.9	14.0
8	3.8	4.6
9	2.2	2.2
10	7.5	10.6
11	3.5	5.2
12	1.8	3.2
13	4.3	5.4
14	5.7	9.9
15	1.6	2.9
16	1.8	4.5
17	4.6	7.9
18	2.7	5.6
19	1.5	4.3
20	3	3.5
21	3.8	9.8

since parlay cards pay less 6.5 FOR 1 vs 6 to 1 parlays off the board.

does your advantage of finding half point value here and there outweigh the loss in payout?

Quote: LarryS

since parlay cards pay less 6.5 FOR 1 vs 6 to 1 parlays off the board.

does your advantage of finding half point value here and there outweigh the loss in payout?

Definitely! See my page on parlay cards for more information.

I just put my point tables into a calculator form. Please check out my NFL Point Spread Calculator. All comments are welcome.