Bow Tie Betting Football

So often people seem to think there is a system when picking the outcome of sporting events, and so often something like the Kentucky Derby happens.  A 50 – 1 LONGGGGGGGG shot manages to come out of no where and win the whole darn event.  The interesting thing to point out is that the 50-1 odds seem to indicate that someone, somewhere was betting on him.

So how did they do it?  Was there a system that was used that made this 50-1 long shot an obvious choice?  No.  It was simple mathmatics.  Often times some gamblers do not pick the horse/team/whatever that they think is going to win, they pick the team that has the best ROI with a decent chance to win.

What does that mean?  It means it was the Kentucky Derby, just about every horse in that race has some sort of hype behind it – be it the horses sire, or past performances, the moral of the story is that every horse had a chance.  And that was even more aparent when the early line and morning line favorite “I Want Revenge” was a late scratch.

So how does this apply to football – it’s simple really, teams that are supposed to win, don’t always win.  Not something that should be a shock to anyone, but the key is to find 3 or 4 teams to select who offer a fair ROI and have a chance in the game.  For example, Ole’ Miss v. Florida this season.  Why would anyone bet on Ole’ Miss?  Ole’ Miss is an SEC team, and for as bad as they have been they still were able to bring in some solid SEC type recruits.  They had a coach now who knows how to win in the SEC – and their QB was a transfer from Texas where he was supposed to be the next big thing, not Colt McCoy (according to Rivals Snead was only ranked slightly below Tebow.)  Couple with those factors the fact that Florida probably felt like they could walk over a team like Ole’ Miss and you have a recipe for an upset.

Now how many times does it happen that you have a recipe for an upset, and it doesn’t work out.  The favorite goes out and destroys that poor underdog – I’d say fairly often.  That’s why some would suggest you hedge your bets with 3 or 4 upsets that could happen, and not just on a miracle but based on some form of research.  Ole’ Miss is a team that you can keep your eye on as an “underdog” this season.  They have some talent, they won’t pull out a ton of wins in the SEC, but they will win SOME.

That’s just one type of “betting Theory” out there, keeping an eye on ROI not what you think is going to happen.  In fact this betting theory doesn’t suggest you bet on games you feel “good” about but games you feel least bad about.

With Purdue having their best returning offensive player, and starting quarterback, dismissed from campus for 3 semesters for “Academic Violations” Purdue is a team to watch.  Why?  Well let’s take a look at the 2009 schedule:

2009-2010 SCHEDULE ( Click on an event for complete event information )

Date	Opponent / Event	Location	Time / Result
09/05/09	vs. Toledo	West Lafayette, Ind.	TBA
09/12/09	at Oregon	Eugene, Ore.	TBA
09/19/09	vs. Northern Illinois	West Lafayette, Ind.	TBA
09/26/09	vs. Notre Dame	West Lafayette, Ind.	TBA
10/03/09	vs. Northwestern	West Lafayette, Ind.	TBA
10/10/09	at Minnesota	Minneapolis, Minn.	TBA
10/17/09	vs. Ohio State	West Lafayette, Ind.	TBA
10/24/09	vs. Illinois	West Lafayette, Ind.	TBA
10/31/09	at Wisconsin	Madison, Wis.	TBA
11/07/09	at Michigan	Ann Arbor, Mich.	TBA
11/14/09	vs. Michigan State	West Lafayette, Ind.	TBA
11/21/09	at Indiana	Bloomington, Ind.	TBA

Why do I like this schedule, 2 reasons:  Toledo and Northern Illinois.  If you are Big 10 Purdue you are going to be the favorite vs. a Bad MAC team in Toledo and a strange MAC team in Northern Illinois.  What I like best about this is that Purdue will go 0-3 in their first 3 games and most likely will go 1-2 ATS (I think whatever the line is vs. Oregon they will end up covering.)

I’ve always liked betting MAC teams early in the season vs. BCS foes.  They most likely will not win the games but they will pound the spread (Look at NIU vs. Minnesota last season that I picked in week 1.)

Justin Siller being dismissed is terrible news for Purdue fans and that young man, but great news for the MAC squad.  The good news is that Purdue still has their cheerleaders!

Hey...Purdue has good looking cheerleaders!

Hey...Purdue has good looking cheerleaders!

It’s Tuesday, a little too early for me to make any early picks so I decided that today I was going to discuss a little bit of football betting theory with you guys.

Before I get into that I’d like to point out that numbers are exactly what we thought they were:  representations of what HAS happened to hopefully predict what WILL happen.  It doesn’t always work out like that, but it’s always nice to look at if you are one of those type of people.

The Numbers ARE what we THOUGHT they were!!!!

So, if you listen to Denny I think you will agree that numbers are a nice baseline, but in no way should they be the reason behind a bet.

These numbers should influence your NFL betting more than your College betting (the numbers hold more true in the NFL, but they do still hold some value for us).

Ok, let’s start with the average margin of victory for HOME teams vs. AWAY teams in the past 21 years, any guesses?  That’s right folks, it hovers right around that mystical 3 points.  It does at times move a little away from it high or low over the years but 3 seems to be the best number to use for the lines.  We see that if the game should be even the home team gets 3 points no matter what.  Personally that’s a stat I hate to use, something that if I keep in mind it makes me want to bet on the away team ALL the time (homefield advantage isn’t much in some stadiums so to give 3 to everyone is just dumb in my opinion).

Now we know that home teams get 3 points no matter what, how do they do against the spread?  Here is a real fun stat, the home team has won approx. 50% of the time.  That’s right folks, 50%.  So what we are saying here is that the home team and the away team have the same chance of winning ATS.  Weird!

Hmmmmm, so we can’t use any of that to our gambling advantage can we?  Here is a stat we can use to our advantage, over a 21 year period the underdog has won around 52% of the time ATS.  So if you were a crazy person who bet on every single game that year, if you bet on underdogs every time you’d have a pretty darn good chance of winning around 52% of the time based on past data.  Neat!!!  Although 2% isn’t really that great of an advantage when betting on a small sample now is it?

Here is actually a good stat when talking ATS, Home underdogs vs. Visiting favorites.  Any guesses as to what happens here?  This is a pretty big one actually, the home dog wins against the spread roughly 53.5% of the time.  WOW (Mostly WOW because the home team usually GETs 3 points that I don’t think they normally deserve).  That means the visiting favorite is sitting on 46.5%.  This stat is one that I SOMETIMES use when picking games.  A home dog usually keeps the game closer than the experts would predict.  I mean look at what happened to USC at Oregon State.

Those are just SOME of the fun stats you can use while betting on sports, but once again in a small sample does a 20 year trend really affect how you bet?  It shouldn’t.  If you don’t bet on enough games the percentages won’t really benefit you at all.

There are great books that cover these percentages and all sorts of other great numbers that you should pick up if you are interested in learning more about sports betting and some of the data over the years found in our Bowtiebetting Store!

Check back tomorrow for my picks on the games!