rmwesley
Yearling
I can't remember if the book recommendation came up on UKBF but I'm most of the way through The Logic of Sports Betting by Ed Miller / Matthew Davidow. It is predominantly focused on the US betting market and does a good job of explaining how market makers and retail sportsbooks build their lines every day, plus the betting / trading opportunities that arise as a result. The book focuses entirely on US sports (NFL, NBA, MLB etc.) and mostly on the three main markets for each: match total points, match points spread, win/lose (moneyline). The authors are clearly very knowledgeable, therefore it is well worth the read and at £9.99 for the Kindle version, won't break the bank.
One of the key themes of the book is finding two correlated & opposing bets to create a synthetic scalping opportunity. It isn't actually scalping, but easiest to describe it as that for the mo. For example (translating one of their examples to football/soccer), say Ipswich are playing Rotherham.
Bet #1: You can get evens on Rotherham to win with a 2.5 goal advantage.
The authors have then built statistical models from historical data to show that in this situation Ipswich will most likely win the game 67% of the time, i.e. a Championship team who are favourites to win by up to 2.5 goals. Converting a 67% win ratio to decimal odds gives (1 / 0.67), i.e. decimal odds of 1.5.
Bet #2: If you can then find a bet on Ipswich (normally with a different sportsbook) to win at odds of at least 1.5, you have a potential opportunity based on the two synthetic opposing bets. They recommend looking at markets out of the spotlight where the lines may not be 100% efficient. Nothing new here, but you just have to be confident about translating between the two different markets.
However, they then take the view that you have a "risk-free" bet since there is no over-round between the two correlated bets, i.e. you could take either side of the bet and over time you would win and lose in equal measure. They then take one side of the bet, based on their "edge" (e.g. in-depth knowledge of the current fortunes of Championship teams like Ipswich and Rotherham) for an overall long-term profitable system.
So... was just wondering if anyone on here actually uses this general approach and whether it has proved to be a successful one for them? Not interested in understanding what systems people have built, just whether anyone uses the approach.
One of the key themes of the book is finding two correlated & opposing bets to create a synthetic scalping opportunity. It isn't actually scalping, but easiest to describe it as that for the mo. For example (translating one of their examples to football/soccer), say Ipswich are playing Rotherham.
Bet #1: You can get evens on Rotherham to win with a 2.5 goal advantage.
The authors have then built statistical models from historical data to show that in this situation Ipswich will most likely win the game 67% of the time, i.e. a Championship team who are favourites to win by up to 2.5 goals. Converting a 67% win ratio to decimal odds gives (1 / 0.67), i.e. decimal odds of 1.5.
Bet #2: If you can then find a bet on Ipswich (normally with a different sportsbook) to win at odds of at least 1.5, you have a potential opportunity based on the two synthetic opposing bets. They recommend looking at markets out of the spotlight where the lines may not be 100% efficient. Nothing new here, but you just have to be confident about translating between the two different markets.
However, they then take the view that you have a "risk-free" bet since there is no over-round between the two correlated bets, i.e. you could take either side of the bet and over time you would win and lose in equal measure. They then take one side of the bet, based on their "edge" (e.g. in-depth knowledge of the current fortunes of Championship teams like Ipswich and Rotherham) for an overall long-term profitable system.
So... was just wondering if anyone on here actually uses this general approach and whether it has proved to be a successful one for them? Not interested in understanding what systems people have built, just whether anyone uses the approach.
It wasn’t about whether people back and lay.
