Marching Toward Madness

Do Line Moves Matter? As long as I've been reading about "apps" and guys going to March Madness, I have heard about these guys who believe very strongly in "line shopping".   This is the concept of ensuring you find the best "value" for your bet.  The theory is why bet $5 on Duke to cover 26 points in the first round at William Hill when you can bet $5 on Duke to cover 25 points in the first round at CG Sports.    There are guys who are splitting their bankroll over a few different places so they can pick which line they want to play.    This kinda arbitrage seems silly to me for the purposes of bankroll.   Having to have significant extra money layed out that you won't ever play just to keep the option of shaving off a hook here or there.   Seems a pain to manage reporting and/or even the need to quickly get a bet in etc. But before you had the guys shopping lines, you had the guys trying to bet on a prediction of the lines...

The Best Favs in March Madness So when it comes to March Madness, many square bettors will talk about teams from year to year and/or historical performance and assume there is some correlation to performance.  This is a logical fallacy however there are some concepts which I guess you could feel were material and valid in your handicapping. I assume (and there is data coming) that some coaches are better at preparing their team, scouting opponents etc; no matter their players and opponents they would be more likely to win and cover games in the tournament.   This is a legit factor maybe. I assume that some programs are so "prestigious" that opposing players are materially and unique impacted by the opportunity to play that team that they grew up "dreaming about" and didn't get to play for;  but I'm not sure if that would make you be intimidated and play poorly or make you raise your game, for each kid it would be different. That said, I'm here t...

  Seeds in 2020 One of the most common discussions I see online is discussions around the "seeds" in various games.  As a Data Driven Punter ("DDP"), we know how the NCAA tournament uses the "seeds" and it is NOT the absolute science that everyone assumes it is.  In 2020, we could very well see significant adjustments to the S Curve based on the NCAA Seeding Guidelines.... Here is a reminder of how it works:  Use this reference:    Long Form -- NCAA  There are 3 steps, they are unique and although at times overlapping done mutually exclusive to each other.    The hardest part is Step 3, which is why we learn the most important thing we need to understand about how to assess "seeds" when we are punting;  "A team may be moved up or down one (or in extraordinary circumstances) two lines from its true seed line (e.g., from the 13 seed line to the 12 seed line; or from a 12 seed line to a 13 seed line) when it is pla...

So the spreadsheet has been updated, the numbers crunched and I have flown to Vegas; I am ready to post the Bracket selections for the 2018 March Madness.  If you are in a work pool and/or are not sure what you are doing, start here...  Here is my methodology:   For 1st Round,   Determine % of chance for each team to win that round based on a poll of polls for many trusted models and gut insight from 3 top handicappers (Rick Donegan, Robb Silverstein and myself).    From there I have to decide how many upsets I want to play; the matrix has an 8.3% upset rate in round 1 which means rounded up you have 3 upsets + 2 flipped games (FSU is Fav as a 9 seed, Butler is fav as 10 seed).    So most common upsets in the model are Arkansas (10), Texas (10), Loyola-Chicago (11) and then I"m adding in a gut pick of New Mexico St (12) as I only cost myself 1 round as I have Auburn winning the Round 2 game and the mo play for the 11 seed t...

The Slow Teams Don't Cover Once again we deal with things that are logical but are they always true?.  I have heard many a person talk about how teams that play fast cover as they have more possessions to extend their lead where as favorites that play slow can't cover since they don't have time.  Now we all know this is illogical since Vegas knows their pace and sets the lines with that in mind.    But is there correlation for other reasons? As we did with Totals, lets look at the relationship between favs and dogs that play fast v slow compared to their opponents and their ability to cover & lets look at what possessions really mean to the cover/no cover bet and finally look at how the game types look.   This approach is very similar to what I did in the blog post "The Slow Teams go Under".    To understand some of what I'm saying here, you should read that post.   As always, this is 2 years of data set on p...

The Slow Teams Go Under Many a novice will believe the above statement and assume it is too logical, ie "super simple".  But clearly Vegas knows slow teams go slow and sets lower totals.  So it can't be that simple.    I often see posts in the MMILV group that I am part of on Facebook that also seem to lack understanding of Totals and results compared to trends.  This should provide some real data to drive a real conversation.   Again 2 years since this is all data that is SUPER impacted by possessions and we know since "The Change" the models would reset.    Lets start with the basic, Do slow teams go under?    We have to review off a par , since the past 2 years have not been a 50/50 result in my dataset (which could be a point or hook off to yours since we all bet at different books and at different times into slightly different lines).  My over par will be 59.22% which is the 61-42-1 recor...

The Spread Smart dudes spend a lot of time trying to determine what the Spread will be for each game.  Now most people will get this wrong and assume it is still 2007 Vegas where books really wanted to be books and were trying to drive 50/50 splits of bets and just profit off the vig but in 2018 we know that books will take a position when that position aligns to where they see a sellable line that will drive bets yet still be less than logical meaning they will win more than than lose and profit from the line.    We see this when we look at the public information given out about % of bets and % of money on each total, spread and half on sites like www.sportsinsights.com etc.    What Vegas sportsbooks do tend to do is make sure their sharp money is as 50/50 as possible and/or they have enough squares offsetting sharp money; they generally don't want to be against sharps BUT squares like March Madness are small fish to these sharks.  Marc...

The 1 Seed Money Line Myth Somewhere along the path to March, someone will come up with the same brilliant idea that has never been thought up before, "what if I just played a Money Line Bet with all of the 1 seeds, that would guarantee a win".   "I mean a 1 seed has never lost in the first round bro!" 1.  Vegas would never allow anything close to a guarantee stay on the board.  They are smarter than you, have hired the best and brightest and they may have some clear fixed guarantees they are in on but they'd never let you bet on something if they knew they could not win.   So alas, they don't have Money Lines on 1 v 16 match-ups.  Some offshore books do but why are you in Vegas if you are using your offshore book, stay home in Sandusky, Ohio and bet from the local Buffalo Wild Wings.   2.  If they did, bro probably shouldn't do it as it locks up too much cashflow that could be better used.   Lets use simple ma...