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7-Nugget Saturday, June 4, 2022

By Edward Egros Leave a Comment

Your weekly dose of sports betting tips and news, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.

NBA analytics from Drew Dinsick – To handicap the NBA, quantitative bettor Drew Dinsick uses a player based model.

He combines an ensemble of player based projections with his own estimates of playing time. One of the player based models is DARKO, whose creator Kostya Medvedovsky made an appearance on The Football Analytics Show podcast. This player model makes Boston -2.5 over Golden State on a neutral court.

During the 2021-22 season, the home team beat opponents by an average of 1.72 points. Home court is larger in the playoffs, but even a large estimate of 2.5 points leads to a pick ’em prediction for Boston at Golden State. The markets closed Golden State -3.5 for Game 1.

NBA Finals Game 2 – The shocking outcome from Game 1 wasn’t that Boston won a game at Golden State, it’s how they dominated the fourth quarter. From ESPN Stats and Info, the Celtics are the first team in NBA history to win a Finals game by double digits after trailing by at least ten entering the final frame.

While the Celtics are notoriously defensive-minded, Cleaning the Glass pointed out how well their shots went down. These percentiles are among all playoff games this season.

  • 62.9% effective field goal rate (eFG%) is 91st percentile.
  • 51.2% three point field goal percentage is 95th percentile.
  • 114.1 points per 100 halfcourt plays is 89th percentile.

What might this trend mean for Game 2? For these playoffs, Boston ranks sixth in eFG% while Golden State is second. Jayson Tatum had a down game per his box score numbers, but so did Draymond Green.

Sports books are expecting the Warriors to bounce back, as Golden State is -4 as of Saturday morning.

World Soccer Predictions – These predictions for regulation time are based on my world soccer rankings that take game results and adjust for opponent with The Power Rank algorithm. The ranks quoted below refer to these team rankings.

  • Ukraine at Wales, World Cup Qualifying – Wales has a 46.7% chance to win. Ukraine has a 26.1% chance to win. There is a 27.2% chance for a tie. Ukraine (23rd) got the supposed upset at Scotland (46th) to make it to this elimination match. However, it will be much more difficult against a solid Wales side (21st).
  • Uruguay at United States, Friendly – United States has a 41.7% chance to win. Uruguay has a 27.9% chance to win. There is a 30.4% chance for a tie. The United States (16th) looked solid in a 3-0 win over Morocco (24th). However, it’s always tough against South American teams, and Uruguay (13th) beat Mexico 3-0 earlier this week.
  • England at Hungary, UEFA Nations League – Hungary has a 13.7% chance to win. England has a 62.0% chance to win. There is a 24.3% chance for a tie. England rocketed up to 6th in my world rankings after making the final of Euro 2021. They should take care of business on the road at Hungary (43rd).

The world soccer rankings are now updated daily based on the most recent matches.

College Baseball – Regionals began Friday for the NCAA Tournament and Tennessee is a massive favorite to win the College World Series (-600 to win its regional per FanDuel and +250 to win the National Championship, with second place listed at 6/1).

As always, path matters when picking winners of a tournament, and if you need help handicapping which teams have the easiest/hardest journey to the end, Parker Fleming has compiled probabilities for every regional with breakdowns of team strengths/weaknesses.

One team that stood out when pouring over his breakdowns was Virginia Tech (10/1 on FanDuel, higher odds than the 12/1 earlier this week). Not only do they have an easier regional, the super regional they are paired with is more of a toss-up with Florida, Oklahoma and Liberty all in contention.

Predicting the NBA – While the Warriors were favorites in Game 1, many analytic models like ESPN’s BPI and FiveThirtyEight suggested going in the other direction, taking the Celtics as outright winners.

However, data scientist Walker Harrison tweeted a thread about how if you had bet against FiveThirtyEight all season, you would have earned a 20-30% return on investment. Harrison did stress though the importance of their model, saying once you remove its home court bias, there are ways to use those predictions for value.

However, we should challenge the assumption that a team’s number-one goal for any regular-season game is to win. Many coaches tweak lineup combinations and want to acquire enough different data as possible so that they know their options when the playoffs arrive. It’s perhaps one reason why Golden State projections seemed intuitively lower during their dynasty.

Hockey Trends – This week, I made an appearance on the All the Kings Men podcast to discuss the analytics of hockey. Topics included:

  • why expected goals are useful in predicting the future
  • newer stats being devised to isolate an individual skater’s ability
  • the philosophy behind tweaking lines

Shopping for the best price – The standard advice says to have multiple accounts and shop for the best price. If you want to bet the Dodgers moneyline against the Mets, -140 is a better price than -150 (break even probability of 58.3% and 60.0% respectively).

But have you thought deeper about why you should shop for the best price? As Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow explain in The Logic of Sports Betting, it’s better to think about both sides of this bet.

Let’s suppose you find one book with Dodgers -140 and another with Mets +140. The combination of these two bets gives a no hold market. You can bet $140 on the Dodgers and $100 on the Mets and end up with your original $240 no matter the result.

Compare this with the typical -110 to bet either side of a spread. Wagering $110 on each side guarantees a loss of $10, and that’s the hold of the sports book.

Shopping for the best price means lowering the hold of the sports book. To learn more about this, check out page 81 of…

Free copy of The Logic of Sports Betting

In their foundational book, Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow provide the ultimate introduction into the sports betting world. In addition to the crucial concept of a no hold market, they write about:

  • The surprisingly simple procedure that market making sports books use to determine the spread (it’s not analytics)
  • The truth about parlays

To get a free copy of The Logic of Sports Betting, sign up for The Power Rank’s free email newsletter. Valuable. Concise. Entertaining. Those are the goals with each correspondence.

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After signing up, you will get a confirmation email. Click on the link in the confirmation email. This will send you to a page to download a pdf of The Logic of Sports Betting.

Filed Under: 7-Nugget Saturday, World Soccer/Football Predictions

7-Nugget Saturday, May 28, 2022

By Edward Egros Leave a Comment

Your weekly dose of sports betting tips and news, each Saturday at 10am Eastern.

Dodgers Futures – No conversation about this year’s World Series would be complete without mentioning the likelihood that the Boys in Blue win the pennant and a world championship. After all, the Dodgers have consistently had one of the better pitching staffs in MLB, whether it’s looking at basic box score numbers like ERA or Statcast metrics like xwOBA.

But, is it wise to invest in L.A. futures given how big a favorite they are? I broke down this idea in my latest FOX Sports piece and concluded now is not the best time. For starters, randomness makes their odds too expensive.

More importantly, there is value in San Diego to win the division (+330 on FanDuel). Not only are they also near the top of the N.L. West standings, they will get Fernando Tatis, Jr. back in June or July and are already getting an MVP-caliber season out of Manny Machado.

Indy 500 – “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” will take place Sunday for the 106th time in its storied history. Not only does Scott Dixon have the pole position with one of the fastest times in qualifying history, he is one of the favorites (+650 on FanDuel, tied with Alex Palou for the shortest odds).

There’s another driver with a resume as impressive as anyone’s who may be challenging to handicap: Jimmie Johnson (+2100 on FanDuel, an increase in win probability from +2400). The seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion will make his debut at this race, starting on the outside of the fourth row.

How well do stock car driving skills translate to open-wheel racing? Other NASCAR drivers have finished as well as sixth (Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch), but as The Athletic pointed out, Johnson finished sixth at Texas Motor Speedway in his only other IndyCar start.

The story behind DARKO – Kostya Medvedovsky wanted to be a mathematician. However, he found it difficult to get into a PhD program because of his grades, which caused a lack of support from his professors. Instead, Kostya crushed the LSAT and was accepted at the University of Michigan law school.

As a patent lawyer, Kostya got interested in the NBA, and he developed the well respected DARKO projection system. On an episode of The Football Analytics Show, he talked about how machine learning weaves together two different models, one of which originated in helping rocket scientists get to the moon.

Since DARKO is essentially a PhD mathematics project, the joke is on Kostya’s undergraduate professors.

Time to Back the Oilers? – While Colorado and Tampa Bay remain among the favorites to win the Stanley Cup, Edmonton is making a push (+550 per FanDuel). In roughly half of their playoff games, the Oilers have scored at least five goals.

Granted, the sample size is small going up against only two teams, but Money Puck has tracked individual expected goals per 60 minutes and found that three of the top six skaters are Oilers: Evander Kane, Connor McDavid and Zach Hyman. That Leon Draisaitl is also capable of producing suggests Edmonton will be a tough out the rest of the way.

Game 1 between Edmonton and Colorado starts on Tuesday.

The sports betting business – The Betstamp app makes money from affiliate deals with sports books. Betstamp sends the book customers, the book pays Betstamp a fixed amount per customer.

Betstamp will not take an affiliate deal in which they earn a fraction of the lifetime losses of a customer. In fact, Rob Pizzola, one of the co-owners of Betstamp, said they would not even accept a higher fee for a customer more likely to lose.

On an episode of the Bet the Process podcast, Rob talked about how Betstamp’s primary goal is to help players win. Because of this belief, Betstamp is unwilling to take certain types of affiliate deals even if this lowers revenue.

This episode of Bet the Process also had a multitude of thoughts from hosts Jeff Ma and Rufus Peabody on ethics in the sports betting business (yeah, they talked about touts).

Criticizing Analytics – On AppleTV+ baseball broadcasts, viewers are given probabilities at the bottom of the screen of a variety of outcomes from the next pitch (in an unobtrusive way). But, as you know, there are many ways to arrive at these probabilities. Are the ones these broadcasts giving the most accurate?

FanGraphs decided to analyze how well the AppleTV+ broadcasted model stacked up against other approaches, and found some serious discrepancies. This experiment is significant because if telecasts deliver probabilities that are wildly off, it will create doubters of any quantitative analyses, not to mention further criticisms that America’s Pastime has lost touch.

NBA Finals – “More Ways to Win” will have a special NBA Finals edition Thursday, June 2nd. Catch air times and clips on Twitter @EdWithSports and @MoreWaysToWinTV.

With so many blowouts these playoffs, perhaps the value in betting individual games is either taking the favorite to cover or the underdog on the moneyline. The reasons for the blowouts are complex, but as NBA betting legend Haralabos Voulgaris suggested, teams are placing too much emphasis on shooting threes, not resting sufficiently and naturally succumbing to variance.

Data driven betting information

These nuggets were sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:

  • Valuable
  • Concise
  • Entertaining

While the emphasis is on the NFL and college football, this newsletter covers golf, baseball and basketball during the off season.

In addition, if you sign up for the newsletter, you get a free pdf copy of The Logic of Sports Betting by Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow.

To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”








 

 
 

Filed Under: 7-Nugget Saturday

Podcast: Kostya Medvedovsky on the DARKO NBA player projections

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

On this episode of The Football Analytics Show, I’m joined by Kostya Medvedovsky, creator the DARKO NBA player projections. Among other topics, we discuss:

  • How a lawyer created one of the most well respected NBA player predictions (3:22)
  • From a lawyer who uses Python to a new career (11:34)
  • Kalman filtering for basketball (20:00)
  • Machine learning and Brandon Ingram (24:50)
  • Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and predicting three point percentage (32:30)
  • Plus minus for NBA players and Tim Duncan (39:03)
  • NBA spreads (49:55)

I really enjoyed talking with Kostya about his methods, and I hope you get the same value out of this conversation.

To listen here, click on the right pointing triangle.

This episode of The Football Analytics Show is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Filed Under: Podcast

7-Nugget Saturday, May 21, 2022

By Edward Egros Leave a Comment

Your weekly dose of sports betting tips and news, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.

PGA Championship win probabilities – Will Zalatoris always seems to show up at the majors. In the 25 year old’s short career, he has four top 10 finishes at majors, which includes a 2nd at the 2021 Masters.

Zalatoris is looking to break through at the PGA Championship. After two rounds, he leads the field at -9. On Saturday morning, FanDuel has his win odds at +230 (30.3% break even probability).

Mito Pereira (-8) is in second, but the markets give Justin Thomas (-6) the second best odds to win at +380 (20.8% break even probability).

The art of bookmaking – When Matt Metcalf first got hired at a sports book, he had one firm belief. Unlike other Las Vegas books, he wasn’t going to open a number, take some bets, and then move towards the market consensus.

Instead, Matt decided that he needed an idea of where the market was headed no matter what appeared on the Don Best screen. In his early days, he challenged himself to book without looking at the market consensus.

On a fantastic episode of The Football Analytics Show, Matt also discussed how he opens the first college football spreads and totals on Sunday morning and the one thing he would change in the sports betting world.

NBA Injuries – Miami has a few players who are questionable to play Game 3 at Boston:

  • forward P.J. Tucker (knee)
  • guard Max Strus (hamstring)
  • guard Gabe Vincent (hamstring)
  • point guard Kyle Lowry (hamstring)

Lowery hasn’t played since game 4 against the Sixers in the last series, but the other three player logged significant minutes in game 2.

Boston forward Sam Hauser will not play Game 3 because of a shoulder injury.

Golden State guard Gary Payton II continues to be doubtful to play in the Western Conference Finals.

NFL Strength of Schedule – Last week on the Nuggets, we discussed which teams earned advantages based on rest relative to opponents. But, there are two added dimensions to unequal schedules: how much more traveling some teams must endure and how challenging the home schedule is.

NFL Data Scientist Tom Bliss analyzed all 32 schedules and concluded Philadelphia has the most advantageous schedule. There may be value in taking the Eagles at +210 (FanDuel) to win the NFC East.

Using our analysis where we estimated value of travel, rest and playing at home while accounting for team strength, here are wins added via matchups and schedule advantages for each team in 2022: pic.twitter.com/HSjxSpxZrA

— Tom Bliss (@DataWithBliss) May 17, 2022

The New York Giants, Detroit and Chicago round out the top four. While they all have long odds to win their divisions, making the playoffs or going over their win totals might make more sense.

Preakness Stakes – Epicenter won’t have to worry about Rich Strike stealing his thunder this time! Just like in the Kentucky Derby, Epicenter is the morning line favorite, now at 6-5. Drawing post 8 may also seem like it would help this colt, as there is likely less traffic to slow down a push to the front.

However, Neil Greenberg made a compelling case why Simplification may be a more prudent bet at 6-1, despite starting at post 1. Normally starting on the inside is often problematic because there’s no room to run and not enough early speed to take an early lead. However, at the Preakness, no one post position has a significantly bigger advantage than another.

Also, if you firmly believe the longshot can win again, Fenwick is 50-1.

How a betting group comes together – As Mark DeRosa walked to his car, he noticed a guy was following him. This guy with blond hair didn’t look that threatening, but he did seem to be getting closer.

It also seemed a little creepy that Mark had seen this guy in sports books around Las Vegas. Mark put his hand on the mace that he carried.

This encounter was the first time Rufus Peabody talked with his future betting partner Mark. An episode of The Risk of Ruin podcast tells the story of this betting group. While it features interviews with Mark and Rufus, Risk of Ruin feels like listening to This American Life in its production value.

Them’s Fightin’ Words – Alabama head coach Nick Saban and Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher–who used to work for Saban–got into a public spat over NILs this week. Saban claimed the Aggies “bought every player” in their prized recruiting class, and Fisher responded by insinuating Saban has a checkered past with recruiting, he thinks he’s God and he should be slapped.

Until college football figures out its future in this NIL era, the good folks at SEC Shorts want to keep fanning the flame.

Data driven betting information

These nuggets were sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:

  • Valuable
  • Concise
  • Entertaining

While the primary emphasis is NFL and college football, the newsletter covers golf and baseball during the off season.

In addition, you get a free pdf download of The Logic of Sports Betting by Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow for signing up.

To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”








 

 
 

Filed Under: 7-Nugget Saturday

Podcast: Matt Metcalf on sports betting and bookmaking

By Dr. Ed Feng 3 Comments

On this episode of The Football Analytics Show, I’m joined by Matt Metcalf, the sports book director at Circa Sports. Among other topics, we discuss:

  • Matt’s key to setting the market as a bookmaker (12:55)
  • How he changes his college football ratings each week (23:30)
  • Booking the NFL (33:20)
  • The decision to work at Circa (39:47)
  • Why Circa takes sharp action (45:47)
  • The one thing he would change in the sports betting industry (54:03)

This was a fantastic conversation on so many aspects of sports betting. To listen here, click on the right pointing triangle.

This episode of The Football Analytics Show is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Filed Under: College Football, Podcast, Sports Betting

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