Looking for smarter sports betting action this weekend? Your weekly dose of sports betting tips, analytics and humor, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.
How to find value in the college football markets – Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow ran a software company that set markets for sports books. They looked at how sports books set not only major markets like spreads and totals but also derivative markets like the type of the first score.
To set the derivative markets, the sports book often use a model based on the major markets. However, sometimes these models are wrong.
In college football, Ed and Matthew noted that the probability of a field goal as the first score was often too high. Most likely, the sports book used a model based on the NFL, which didn’t apply to a different league with a much higher variability in kickers.
To find value, Ed and Matthew suggest looking at derivative college football markets in games with extremes: great offense, terrible defense, awful kicker, etc. They wrote about this in their new book Interception – The Secrets of Modern Sports Betting.
While I haven’t finished the book yet, I will instantly recommend anything they write based on their first book The Logic of Sports Betting (free download).
NFL interception prop – Buffalo QB Josh Allen has a thrown an interception in each of his last four games. However, interceptions are not the best way to predict future interceptions.
My research has shown that looking at bad balls, or the sum of interceptions and passes defended (plays in which the defense gets a hand on the ball), is more predictive of future interceptions. In the past four games, Allen has had 11 bad balls. The rate of 36.4% of bad balls becoming interceptions will regress to the NFL average of 20% for Allen.
Allen is better than NFL average at not putting the football in dangerous situations, and my model gives a 48.0% chance he will not throw a pick. There is value in Allen under 0.5 interceptions at +123 at Caesars (44.8% break even probability).
Members of The Power Rank have access to all of the NFL interception props.
Miami vs Kansas City, NFL Week 9 in Germany – On the Forward Progress podcast, the fantastic NFL panel made some key observations about this game:
- Dr. Eric Eager notes that Kansas City’s defensive line has been good this season, and they should get pressure on Miami QB Tua Tagovailoa.
- Pro bettor Hitman thinks Miami’s defense has been the biggest underachieving unit compared to preseason expectations.
- Dr. Eager said that Kansas City still has the best head coach and QB combination in Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes in the NFL.
No member of the panel had Kansas City side as their best bet. However, their analysis of the game and The Power Rank member prediction of Chiefs by 4.0 points suggests value in Kansas City -1.5.
Washington at USC, College Football Week 10 – On a recent episode of The Football Analytics Show, professional bettor Eddie Walls talked about this game as a race to 45.
Both defenses have struggled, and Washington’s defense would look worse had Oregon not failed on multiple 4th down plays. In addition, any defense that gives up 33 points to Stanford like Washington did last week has issues.
Eddie said he liked over 76 points in Washington at USC. Unfortunately, the market has moved to 77.5 for this 7:30pm Eastern kick off. Eddie also gave out a great tip for finding value in college football in November and talked about NBA betting in a must listen episode of The Football Analytics Show.
NFL humor – The Raiders saw this Annie Agar video and had to fire Josh McDaniels that day (skip to 3:33 if you’re short on time, although you would miss the Carson Wentz jokes).
Or maybe the Raiders had been processing all of Annie’s quips on Josh McDaniels over the past two years.
How to beat college basketball without doing the work
College basketball starts on Monday, and no one has a better track record than Right Angle Sports. Founder Ed Golden and his team are 55.4% with their bets the past two seasons (424-341).
This might not be the right service for you. Right Angle Sports will do the handicapping work for you, but the market will move within three to five seconds of release. Mostly professionals use this service, and the price reflects the value that they get.
However, Right Angle Sports is offering a Starter Service of 25 plays at a much lower price point. Both the Flagship and Starter Service run through November, the time for the biggest edge in college basketball as the sports books are distracted by football and the NBA.
Learn more about the college basketball services at Right Angle Sports.
The above link is an affiliate link, which means that you support The Power Rank if you make a purchase.
Leave a Reply