2010 NFL Gambling Odds Week 4: FG Kicking Follies

Well Niners Nation, there's not much to say about Week 3's peformances except for one thing: LOL. Not one of us made any money at all, and if it weren't for Chicago's upset over Green Bay, I would've lost each of my bets. Thankfully the refs received my pre-game text and flagged the Packers 18 times accordingly. Fooch didn't see much success either, but he actually won two bets by selecting Indy and Philly to cover the spreads. Similar to myself, Fooch lost some change on the Bucs getting flattened by Pittsburgh and Houston laying a deuce against Dallas.

Florida Danny had yet another week ruined by a hilarious FG miss in OT. With cash laid on New Orleans, Danny was primed for a victory when Garret Hartley lined up for the game-winning attempt in overtime. When the ball soared through the air and wildly missed, I couldn't help but laugh. After all, in Week 2, Danny had Washington to beat Houston and an iced FG attempt cost him in OT also. In comment participation smileyman lost $37, and fortyniners lost $47.72. It wasn't a good week for winning, just ask the 49ers. Here's a breakdown of the standings:

Join us after the jump to see how our bet cards breakdown this week and to get a breakdown of how Danny determines his bets...

Florida Danny's Bet Card

From Florida Danny:

There’s not much value out there this week. Along with the Packers, Saints, and Falcons, the 3 teams I’m betting on are home favorites with a winning percentage advantage over their opponents; such teams have a historical win rate of 75%. The problem is that only the Steelers are clearly a value play given the 75% win expectation. The 3 teams I didn’t play represent bets with negative bankroll expectation in the long run, and even the Titans and Eagles were borderline cases. Indeed, that’s why I’m wagering very little on them.

Which brings me to something I promised to detail at some point: how I come up with my bet amounts. I figure, with the lack of action this week, now’s a good a time as any to fulfill that promise. Basically, my method comes from this two-part article (Part 1 and Part 2) on the Kelly criterion as it relates to sports betting. If you want to learn the details of this stuff, I highly recommend those links. Suffice it to say, however, that the goal of investing – in the results of athletic contests or otherwise – is to maximize long-term growth. Naturally, people far smarter than I have figured out the math, and there’s a series of equations that tell you just how much of your bankroll you should invest given your win probability, P, and the odds you’re getting, O. The single equation most relevant for my purposes is

Bet amount = Bankroll *[((P*O)-1)/(O-1)]

In English, the equation says, “Multiply your win probability to the decimal odds you’re getting. Subtract 1 from that product. Then, divide your result by odds minus 1. Finally, multiply that result by your bankroll. So, as this relates to the Titans game I’m betting on, my bankroll is at $866.29, my win probability is 75%, and the odds I’m getting for a moneyline of -270 is 1.37 (See here for a handy odds conversion calculator). Therefore, I multiply 1.37 times 75%, which equals 1.0275. Then, I subtract 1 from that, which equals .0275. Then, I divide that by “odds minus 1,” or 0.37. The result, which equals .0743, is the Kelly criterion, and means I should bet 7.43% of my bankroll on that game, or $64.39. However, I’m really risk-averse, so I’ve been betting at 10% of Kelly thus far this season. Hence, my wager for the Titans game is 10% of $64.39, or $6.44.

I’ll point out a couple of neat little variations and byproducts of this method as time goes on, but just wanted to drop the basic knowledge I promised back in Week 1.

Fooch's Bet Card

Fooch's Comments: Fooch did not send me any comments this week. He's going for the strong, silent approach. Let's hope it works.

Andrew Davidson's Bet Card

Andrew's Comments: I'm getting a bit sick of this 10% of my bankroll, basically because I'd have to parlay my bets to see a reasonable return on such low bet amounts. I'm going to stick with it, only because I'll start hammering out big bets on fewer games if I can start building some momentum (or if I get desperate). I'm also ready to throw my model straight out the basement window. Up until I collect more data, I'm going to bet based more so in relation to what the numbers in Vegas are showing. For example, the Colts have about 87% of the bets on the Money Line, so I'm rolling with Jacksonville for a cheap amount (based on divisional home game odds). I'm also prepared to watch the real Chicago Bears lose to New York, but I'll go down swinging with them. Even though 96% of the bets are in Houston's favor ATS, I'm going to roll with the Texans to stomp out Oakland. It annoys me that the ML is in Washington's favor, but ATS is in Philly's favor, so I'm taking Washington to cover, not win.