"non-standard" football bets

There are a couple of "non-standard" football bets i haven't noticed before that are being offered for week 13's games, see below:
1. "All games decided by 2 or more points" - yes @ -260, and no @ +180
2. "All games decided by 3 or more points" - yes @ +125, and no @ -165
There are 16 games this week, and I think the "no bet" for both "1 and 2" above is likely to be + EV.
When betting on the "no bet" and using the slightly modified figures^*^ below, I get a +25.5...%^^^ EV for "1" and a +13.6...%^^^ EV for "2"
^*^: I used 3.65% for 1 point victories and 3.75% for 2 point victories, in the above EV's (i did it this way to get a "minimum estimated EV" for these bets)
^^^: If i used the figures below, i get an EV of: +26.8...% for "1" and 14.4...% for "2" (when betting the "no prop")

Below is the source of the "margin of victory" figures :
3.7% for a 1 point victory and 3.8% for a 2 point victory***
***source: https://wizardofodds.com/games/sports-betting/nfl/ >>>>> then scroll down to the "Margin of Victory in the NFL" table.

I would just like to confirm if I did the math for this correctly?

thanks

Ksdjdj

I don't think it's as simple as plugging in historical data.

You also need to account for the spreads on the games. i.e., does this week have a more than usual number of close or large spreads.

I just did a quick count and about half the games have a spread of 3.5 or less (I think the average spread for the week is between 4.5 and 5 at the moment)

I don't know how important the above is, but at the moment i plan to only have small amounts on the bets mentioned in the OP

I assume you would only count games since the extra point was moved way back? I am sure there are substantially more 1 and 2 point games when extra points are missed. Probably 50 missed so far this year compared to a few when it used to be a 20 yard kick.

Quote: ksdjdj

There are a couple of "non-standard" football bets i haven't noticed before that are being offered for week 13's games, see below:
1. "All games decided by 2 or more points" - yes @ -260, and no @ +180
2. "All games decided by 3 or more points" - yes @ +125, and no @ -165
There are 16 games this week, and I think the "no bet" for both "1 and 2" above is likely to be + EV.
When betting on the "no bet" and using the slightly modified figures^*^ below, I get a +25.5...%^^^ EV for "1" and a +13.6...%^^^ EV for "2"
^*^: I used 3.65% for 1 point victories and 3.75% for 2 point victories, in the above EV's (i did it this way to get a "minimum estimated EV" for these bets)
^^^: If i used the figures below, i get an EV of: +26.8...% for "1" and 14.4...% for "2" (when betting the "no prop")

Below is the source of the "margin of victory" figures :
3.7% for a 1 point victory and 3.8% for a 2 point victory***
***source: https://wizardofodds.com/games/sports-betting/nfl/ >>>>> then scroll down to the "Margin of Victory in the NFL" table.

I would just like to confirm if I did the math for this correctly?

thanks

Ksdjdj

Looking up margins for victory since 2002 up to and including 2014, the following website shows:

https://www.sportingcharts.com/articles/nfl/what-is-the-most-common-margin-of-victory-in-the-nfl.aspx

3.45% for each, which is for both one point and two points, which I wouldn't have guessed.

Wizard's table contains a slightly larger sample size as well as more recent data, so while much of this data overlaps, SOOPOO seems spot on that there has been a trend in having more games decided by such a short margin.

Furthermore, given the new overtime rules, a tie becomes slightly more likely because you can go FG-FG-Keep Playing-No More Scores. More than that, OT is only ten minutes.

Okay, so even with Wizard's data, we have a combined 7.7% probability of having a game finish with a points differential of two (or less) in any given game. So, let's first look at our three or more points proposition:

All Three or More

Probability Three or More (All Games): (.923)^16 = 0.27747714441

Win: 0.27747714441

Loss: 1-0.27747714441 = 0.72252285558

YES BET: (0.27747714441 * 125) - (.7225228558 * 100) = -37.5676425287

NO BET: (.7225228558 * 100) - (.27747714441 * 165) = 26.4685567523

Okay, so based on that, the "NO,' looks good on three points.

All Two or More

Probability Two or More (All Games): (.961)^16 = 0.52914439805

WIN: 0.52914439805

Lose: 1-0.52914439805 = 0.47085560194

YES BET: (0.52914439805 * 100) - (.47085560194 * 260) = -69.5080166994

NO BET: (.47085560194 * 180) - (.52914439805 * 100) = 31.8395685442

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Okay, so that all looks interesting enough. However, there are actual future games to be played, so let's take a look at the lines from:

Vegasinsider.com

Okay, so if you want to go by a percentage of the lines, here's what you have:

Less than three: 25%

Three Exactly: 25%

More than three: 50%

Bears (-3) @ Lions (+3)
Bills (+6.5) @ Cowboys (-6.5)
Saints (-7) @ Falcons (+7)
Packers (-6.5) @ Giants (+6.5)
Redskins (+10) @ Panthers (-10)
49ers (+6) @ Ravens (-6)
Titans (+2.5) @ Colts (-2.5)
Eagles (-9.5) @ Dolphins (+9.5)
Raiders (+10) @ Chiefs (-10)
Buccaneers (+1) @ Jaguars (-1)
Jets (-3.5) @ Bengals (+3.5)
Rams (-3) @ Cardinals (+3)
Chargers (-2.5) @ Broncos (+2.5)
Browns (-1.5) @ Steelers (+1.5)
Patriots (-3) @ Texans (+3)
Vikings (+3) @ Seahawks (-3)

Okay, so you have eight total games with a Line of +/-3, or fewer, points. With that, when we look at the actual results from the WoO Page, we see actual results of margins of 0-2 to be at 7.7%. However, we have two games that are certainly below TWO POINTS and we have two games at 2.5 points, so we go ahead and call that one game, which means that 3/16 games are expected to be with a result of three (or fewer) points and five games (the other half of the 2.5 games included) are expected to be right on three points.

ACTUAL:

Two or Less: 7.7%
Three: 14.5%

EXPECTED WEEK 13:

Two or Less: 18.75%
Three: 31.25%

Simultaneously...

We have seven games that are expected to be decided by six points, or more, which means that only one game falls in the spread of 4-5 and five total games are in the spread of 3-5.

Normally, given actual results, we expect 23.1% of games to be decided by 3-5 points and 8.6% to be decided by 4-5 specifically. In this case, we have 37.5% of games (the five three point games and the 3.5 line) all expected to be decided within this margin, which is also close to that two and three.

The next thing that you have to look at is that we have seven games that are expected to be decided by six, or more, points. That 7/16 represents 43.75%, however:

1-.034-.052-.145-.038-.037-.002 = 0.692 Actual results would indicate that 69.2% of games finish with a range of 6+ points That means only 30.8% of games are usually five or less. However, we see that only 43.75% of this week's games are expected to be 6+ points.

CONCLUSION

The conclusion on this week is that this is a very unusual week in NFL Football. The reason why is because we have just enough lopsided spreads that the average point spread is kept from looking ridiculously low, but we have an expected very close finish (three or fewer points) for eight different games. In addition to that, yet another game has a line of only 3.5 points.

AVERAGE POINT SPREAD:

Average point spread has nothing to do with the actual question. A game could have a point spread of 25 and that would drive the average point spread up by more than one full point, quite probably. What really matters is how many games are expected to finish close.

If nothing else, the NO bet looks even better for both than would be normal given actual results in the past, as far as I can tell. We're expected to have MORE close games than usual, rather than fewer.

It is still a good bet, but I have some bad news:
1. They only include Sunday and Monday games for these bets (sorry for not mentioning it earlier, as it only tells you this when you are about to confirm the bet).
2. Since it is such a "novelty" bet, i can only get "to win $50 (for the -165 bet), or $50 down (for the +180 bet)"

Based on just the historical data. It is still an ok bet, but it is now about a +13% edge for the "no bet - All games by two or More" prop and about a +3.9% edge for the "no bet - All games by three or more" prop.

note: I will see how many times I can get this bet down at the "good odds", before I do anymore research***,

***: As was pointed out earlier, I should go through all the games that have been played since the pertinent rule changes (eg overtime reduced to 10-minutes, going for 1 PAT "no longer a near certainty", etc...)

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Update (205 pm) :

I can get a "$50 bet" on every 15 minutes or so at the moment and so far the odds haven't changed.

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Update 2 (215 pm):

There is another prop called "Safeties scored in all games under ½" @ +160, and this looks good for about a 12.3% edge .
Note: This is very rough as I used 93.75% as the average chance for 1 game having "no safety" for all of the games this Sunday/Monday.

More bad news:
After managing to only get 3 x "$50 bets" on the props previously mentioned, the odds have been shortened, see below:

The no prop for "All games decided by 2 or more points": went from +180 to +145,
the no prop for "All games decided by 3 or more points": went from -165 to -210, and
the "Safeties scored in all games under ½": went from +160 to +125.

I will probably still have these novelty/prop bets in the future, but I won't be posting about them anymore (unless they increase the betting limits significantly)

The book i got these bets on at was 5dimes, if anyone is interested.

I don't know if it was posting about them that did it, but you never know.

As you mentioned in the subject, the bets are, "Non-standard," could be that just your action was sufficient to swing the lines.

I managed to get some fairly decent money down for the following prop two weeks in a row.

Prop: "Successful 2 point conversions under 3.5, for all games on Sunday and Monday"

I think it is a good bet, but I would like more relevant information.
Does anyone know "how many successful 2 point conversions per game" have occurred, since the rule change*** of making a single PAT "harder"?

***: I will probably have to go through all the games and manually count them if no one has these details (but thought it wouldn't hurt to ask).

Note: I said I wouldn't post again, "unless they increase(d) the betting limits significantly", so even though it is still "to win $50" per bet, I think to win $400 @ -262.5 "just qualifies" (in my opinion).

Also note: I already used the WoO "nfl prop bet calculator" to give me a "ball-park" estimate for the "per game, 2-pt conversion chances".