NFL Week #11 Stone Cold Lock

Putting aside all the personal comments and bickering, I'd be interested in hearing opinions as to the underlying analysis involved and as to WHY this discussion did not move the line in any fashion? Did bookies not know of this? Did bookies not care about it? Most of the information was readily available to all bettors yet there was a clear divergence of opinion. Are bookies happy to have to pay out from time to time because they make so much from the vast majority of bettors? It seems to me that The Line should have moved. Yet it didn't. Strange.

If the line would have moved, the over would still have won -- there were 51 points scored in the game. The line wouldn't have moved that much even if this info was well documented.

Bookies move the line based on very clear information anticipating disproportionate betting, or based on actual disproportionate betting patterns. Vague questionable information like this, or vague chatter, did not concern the bookies (if they knew about it) and obviously did not result in disproportionate betting (which they always follow, whether there is an explanation or not).

Who cares if Jerry was just lucky or indeed better connected than us, lets congratulate him on putting his money where his mouth is and getting the win.

Quote: FleaStiff

Putting aside all the personal comments and bickering, I'd be interested in hearing opinions as to the underlying analysis involved and as to WHY this discussion did not move the line in any fashion? Did bookies not know of this? Did bookies not care about it? Most of the information was readily available to all bettors yet there was a clear divergence of opinion. Are bookies happy to have to pay out from time to time because they make so much from the vast majority of bettors? It seems to me that The Line should have moved. Yet it didn't. Strange.

It seems like the line WAS moved from where it 'should' have been. The Wiz's 'non inside info' analysis put the 'correct' line at about 3 points lower. So the 'house' would have had more people betting the under, thus resulting in a greater win for the 'house' than if the betting had been split 50 - 50.

Quote: JerryLogan

I came across surprise info from simple shop and football talk that Justin King & Darian Stewart were both under the weather but were going to play regardless. They're important in the defensive backfield for the Rams, and against a power offense like Atlanta they'd need to be in A-1 shape, which they were not.

Thanks for letting us know. I'm not passing judgment on the quality of this information. In fact, I'm reminded of an episode of the Sopranos where Tony had such inside information via a friendly doctor and wanted to make a huge bet on the opposite team. However, he was running low on cash and Carmela refused to make him a short-term loan. Obviously, they had quite a fight when Tony's information proved correct.

As I mentioned several pages back, assuming you did have inside information that key defensive players on one team were injured or sick, wouldn't it be better to bet on the opposite team? In this game the Rams (with the sick players) were 3-point underdogs, but lost by 17 (final score 17-34).

Maybe this is a bad comparison, but based on the spread (Falcons by 3) and total (43), we would expect the Rams to score 20 points, and the Falcons 23. If it were not for the injuries, let's very loosely model the Rams score by rolls 6 dice and subtracting 1. That would have an expected total of 6*3.5-1=20. For the Falcons, roll 6 dice but add 2: 6*3.5+2=23. However, due to the injuries, instead of giving the Falcons 2 points, we give them 9 (6*3.5+9=30). That would give us an expected total of 50, which is what you predicted early in the thread, as I recall. Here are the results of a 10,000 game simulation:

Winner:
Falcons: 89.68%
Rams: 7.56%
Tie: 2.76%

Over/Under
Over: 59.05%
Under: 34.42%
Tie: 6.53%

I know this way overstates the ties on the over/under in a real game, but if we ignore them, the ratio of winning bets to resolved bets is a lot higher for the Falcons compared to the over. The reason is there is less variance in the margin of victory than the total points. Both bets are expected to win, but var (x-y) > var(x+y). I hope this makes sense. So Tony would have bet on Falcons -3 in your situation, as would I.

After I posted the above I had to suspend Jerry over a post in another thread. I welcome Jerry's response to the above in three days.

And Gosh, here I thought (and hoped others would as well) that you had better things to do with your time than
put members in timeout. I think it is silly it had to come to this, but it did. I agree with the suspension. So now
97 cents more and you can get a cup of coffee at Burger King.

What folks should actually consider is that the mean spiritedness may stifle good contributions from other members.
I don't think any of us want that, or want to do anything that would harm the website in any way.