Written By @Hookslide23
Week 14 of the 2017 NFL season will go down in history as the Best Week Ever, at least for those playing the underdog moneyline strategy we so frequently discuss. This was the week we so badly needed. Six of the 14 underdogs Sunday won their games — and four of them made my card.
Thank you, Arizona, for finally coming through.
Side tangent: Arizona has lost me several bets this season, but here’s my first bit of Universal Sportsbetting Advice — be team agnostic, or you’ll never survive. What that means, quite simply, play the numbers and the numbers alone. I must ignore team logos to a large extent, or I get caught up in making emotional decisions rather than logical ones based on empirical data.
After losing multiple bets on Arizona, the next time they’re on my lean list I’m naturally inclined to remember the losses and miss out on a valuable investment. That’s how you miss opportunities, though. That’s how you forego wins. The Arizona Cardinals cannot be the Arizona Cardinals on upcoming cards, they can only be Team A or Team B.
And it actually works to my benefit that the Cardinals have lost a few games the last several weeks, because the betting public is more inclined to bet against them and push the moneyline price in my favor.
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Alright, side tangent over, let’s take a few minutes to answer a question I received last week.
Hook, how do you figure out a team’s true odds of winning, and how to bet on totals?
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but determining a team’s true odds involves a fair amount of number crunching, analysis, game theory, reading, and making 1-900 Psychic Hotline calls.
I don’t have time for that, don’t you have a shortcut?
Indeed I do, especially if you like shortcuts that seem a lot more scientific and important than they actually are.
Those are my favorite, share your secret.
First, you need to find out how many points each team is scoring and allowing per game, on average. You can get this information from several sites, but my personal favorite is Pro Football Reference. Each team’s page has a quick summary header showing total points scored, total points allowed, average points scored per game, and average points allowed per game.
Ok, so what do I do with this information?
Impress your friends with it, recite it with an attitude of elitist snobbery at bars (this will lead to fights), and most of all, use it to start getting closer to figuring out true odds for each matchup. You’re going to want to collect four numbers here for each upcoming game:
- Team A points scored per game (pf)
- Team A points allowed per game (pa)
- Team B points scored per game
- Team B points allowed per game
Wait, wait, slow down. Can we use an actual upcoming game so this makes sense?
Certainly. Let’s look at this Thursday’s “Battle of Who Can Care Less” between the Broncos and the Colts. The average points scored and allowed per game for each team are:
Scored
Broncos: 17.6 pf
Colts: 16.3 pf
Allowed
Broncos: 24.2 pa
Colts: 26.4 pa
Wow. These two teams are pretty awful.
They are indeed. But we’re going to slog through this, because you wanted to know how this works. To get an estimate of how many points each team should score in this game, put the Broncos’ “points scored” average (17.6) against the Colts’ “points allowed” average (26.4), as follows:
(Team A ps + Team B pa)/2 = (17.6 + 26.4)/2 = 22 points
So the Broncos should score somewhere around 22 points for this game?
That would be the average outcome, yes. Again, this isn’t a fool-proof formula, this is just getting us somewhere in the right neighborhood. Compare Team A’s offense to Team B’s defense and you can start to get a fairly accurate sketch.
Now repeat this for the Colts:
(Team B ps + Team A pa)/2 = (16.3 + 24.2)/2 = 20.3 points
Does this mean the final score will be 22-20 in favor of the Broncos?
It could be, but what this exercise is telling you more than anything is that it should be a close game, with about a three-point difference between the teams. It also tells you that the average total for this matchup should be right around 42 points.
And guess what? As of this writing, the Broncos are 2.5 point favorites, and the over/under is 40.5 points. This confirms that we’re in the right ballpark with our calculations.
But we haven’t set the true odds yet.
Correct, we’ve just put ourselves in a position to understand this matchup a little better. To put the odds in terms of percentages, divide each team’s projected final score against the projected total score. So for instance, we think the Broncos should score 22 points on average in this matchup, and the total should be 42 points on average, so the Broncos’ come out at:
(project points scored / projected total) = 22/42 = 0.52, or 52%
That leaves the Colts at 48%, but it’s probably smart to nudge their odds a little higher since they’re playing at home.
Is this an example of what you’d call a “coin-flip game?”
Absolutely. The point margin is slim, and sportsbooks like BetOnline.AG agree, so if I can get a moneyline price on the Colts that gives me an edge, I’ll probably take it.
I cannot state this enough, though: this calculation is not super-precise, it’s just a way to give ourselves a little bit of a picture, a baseline to start working with. The raw numbers point us to a game whose true odds will be split 52/48, or 51/49, or even 50/50, but now you have to take those numbers and account for home field advantage, injuries, what the betting market is telling you, and so on.
Just remember: if you bet on one of these teams and they win, I told you so. If they lose, you didn’t hear any of this from me, and we never spoke.
