Tips for Tikay

[TightEnd]

Works both ways though, no?

Liverpool have been over-estimated by punters for three years, and no real sign of that correcting in the marketplace

They still look poor value in quoted prices most weeks, and routinely start shorter than opening quotes...........

[Bad Beat]

Anyway. I'm now going to try and explain the point of all that other stuff I was talking about.

 I think you can say that when betting on sports there are several different kinds of markets and these can be characterised by the amount of liquidity in the market, the sophistication and maturity of that market and the prescence of inefficiencies.

 When someone posts a tip on a market like next Ryder Cup captain or the Booker Prize winner where there may be only one book offering prices then we have a great chance to win money. It is our opinion against their's. The bookmakers think they have the edge because they have chosen to price something which they have detailed knowledge, (maybe inside knowledge), about, but we have the edge, because a group of people thinking about something and spending time on it will probably be collectively smarter. We also have the valuable option of "no bet" (the bookmaker has the valuable edge of the juice, the overound, the vig).

 To test this theory all you have to do is play any arbs on small markets like this that will surely come up between the bookmakers and Betfair for a year. By the end of the year you will have had all your bookmaker accounts closed, (they will all be winning), and you'll have done your bollocks on Betfair. The collective mind will have won.

[Bad Beat]

The second kind of market is the slightly more mature, liquid and sophisticated like rugby league, next manager, most sixes, number of 180s or will the safety car come out.

 These are things where the odds-compiler has seen the thing before and there are stats to go on. Not too many people are plunging one way or another due to public sentiment or other kinds of bias though, as there simply isn't much liquidity. If all the money is going one way it is probably because of a rick (in the safety car or 180s) or team news or just a bad price (in rugby handicaps).

 These kind of markets can be deceptive. You can look at an odds-comparison site and see a large consensus but everyone can be wrong as all the small firms just copied Hills or Ladbrokes who went up first.

 You then get markets that are very mature and settled, like golf tournaments outright, but where people can make a living comfortably by picking off mistakes. These mistakes are often due to many variables but they can be hard to benefit from in the short term due to high variance. Horse-racing can fit into this category, but this is a slightly tricky animal due to animals and also cheating. A player drifting in golf might mean he is unfashionable but in horse-racing it could mean it can't win.

 These are not the markets I wish to talk about though. The markets I'm talking about when I talk about splitting the result as against splitting the money are very mature markets with enormous liquidity and many many market makers as well as bettors.

 I am talking here about the Asian market in soccer, the Indian (Dubai) market in cricket and the Vegas and Caribbean market in NFL and US sports.

[Bad Beat]

For the purposes of this discussion I shall stick with talking about US sports and particularly the NFL.

 In all US sports there are loosely two kinds of bettor. They are often referred to as "the public" and "the wiseguys". The public are many in number and they often bet small, while the wiseguys is a term attributed to any winner but it is largely referring to the large syndicates of professional gamblers that operate in these markets. If you wish to read more about these fellas you should Google Billy Walters or the Computer Group. Several poker players were and are involved in these syndicates including, most notably, Chip and Doyle.

 If we look at the market in NBA on a quiet Thursday in December the bets may be split between public and wiseguys 70/30 with the wiseguys providing most of the action, (I'm talking about volume here not number of bets). The line may be set in the Caribbean and it will be followed by all the Vegas books and the many illegal books accross America, as well as books accross the world. Bookmakers will look to move their numbers very quickly when the wiseguys make plays but they will not be keen to move at all when the public plays. They know that in the long-run you need to split the result and the bets of the wiseguys are telling them when they have made an error in trying to do that. They will not care about splitting the money. The 11/10 that everyone has to lay should ease them through a run of public teams winning.

 Sometimes a situation will occurr when a game is on national TV and it features a public team. This might be a rare spot where the line moves on a public move. The wiseguys could now be tempted in the other way. The books will now move the line in the way the syndicates bet to entice more public money. They don't care about their exposure as they know they are on the "right" side and they are splitting the number.

 Now fast forward to May and the NBA play-offs. The public are now starting to bet big. All the games are on national TV and there is often just a couple of games a day. The public money may now be 50/50 with the wiseguy money. It could even be the public putting down 65% of the money. The bookmakers may fear that everyone going with the popular teams, (often the favourites), could cause them pain. They may allow a situation to occurr where they are giving away value. They know they are doing it and it bothers them but they do it.

 Maybe the Heat, (who are loved by all), are playing the Pacers (who are unfashionable). The Heat opened 8 and the public bet them to 8.5. The ticket count (number of bets as a ratio) is 90/10 but the handle (volume of bets) is 65/35 Heat.

 We get closer to game time and the public just keep coming. The wiseguys haven't made a  move yet, nobody seems to want to back Indianna, maybe the syndicates are having a night off or leaving this one game alone. The books move the price to 9 and some weaker books who take mostly public money, (the Station casinos in Vegas say), move to 9.5.

 Eventually the wiseguys come in and snap up any 9.5 going. They are playing offshore and all over the US and have agents to do their bets. They move fast and the prices change. The books know that what they were doing in the first place (taking 11/10 Indianna + was a good thing to do and they start to invite the public again at 8.5.

 You can see how this is the same as it was at City Index. The price that splits the result is, by defintion, always the right one and we know that the public are less likely to find that price than the professionals. We were just letting a few clever guys in because our bosses weren't totally happy with the exposure and we needed to be able to show them that we had the "smart side" on games where we did our bollocks and all the ice-creams won.

[The Camel]

Works both ways though, no?

Liverpool have been over-estimated by punters for three years, and no real sign of that correcting in the marketplace

They still look poor value in quoted prices most weeks, and routinely start shorter than opening quotes...........

Virtually every shrewd punter I know has been opposing Liverpool since Hodgson took over.

However for some reason the big players keep backing them. Red suggests it's because they consistently have a high shots to possession ratio.

Whatever it is, perhaps they will be proved right when Rodgers leads them to a 20 game winning streak and storms to the Premier League title.

[Bad Beat]

 In the NFL you can see this effect massively multiplied. The NFL season is the only time that the books spend little time worrying about the wiseguys. They are swamped with public money and they are often glad to "give away" value to the syndicates.

 So you may now ask how can we tell which is the right way to be on the games and how do we know what the wiseguys are doing?

 In essence - what the fuck is the point of all this and how can we make money off it.

 The answer is to find out the "true line". The line that splits the result and to bet against things that effect the market but not the result.

 These are not always 100% obvious questions to answer but with some common sense and market reading skills we should be able to see the right way to go. You'll note that throughout this discussion I haven't really mentioned players, yardages, injuries and many of the things you'll here people talking about. I am aware of some of those things but I am much more aware that the market and particularly the wiseguys have done all the work. Many big syndicate moves in US sports are injury or weather related and many public moves are based on factors that are overbet, overemphasised and unimportant. The public criteria for having a bet is more likely to include sentiment, betting teams that have appeared on national tv, playing in games where there are high profile but meaningless (non QB) injuries etc. I tend to keep an eye on reasons for moves and weigh them as being public or professional.

[Bad Beat]

We can see an example from week three in the NFL of a game where the public and the syndicates disagreed and the books were happy to "green up" as it were. In the Minnesota/San Fransisco game Minnesota were at home against a team that everyone loves who many are thinking of as conteners for the Super Bowl. San Fransisco either opened 6.5 or 7 at Minnesota depending on who you went to.

 Early in the week the syndiates came in and played Vikings +7 and the line moved to 6.5 with some books even going 6. The sign that this was wiseguy money was that 88% of tickets said 49ers but the line went down. On the day WillHill and Cantors reported the 49ers their worst results and said that literally nobody was backing the Vikings. The line on Betfair was 6.5 with the Vikings 10/11 and the 49ers 11/10. The Station Casinos who are just getting local public money and who don't get big money from professionals, were 7.5 and the places that have most wealthy public players like The Wynn and The Bellagio were 7. Despite all of this volume "shrewd books" offshore, who don't get the volumes of mug money and who's clients are generally clued up, like Olympic, Pinnacle and CRIS, stood firm at 6.5.

 The bookmakers were happy to take 11/10 Minnesota +6.5 and be on the side of all their biggest winning punters. At 11/10 they need to be right 48% of the time whereas the wagons backing San Fran have to be right 52% laying 11/10. They pronbably had thought San Fran -6 was the right price according to the xs and os 9the power rankings, the average points scored and conceded, the team news, historical lines in these games...all the things they would think of when 1st setting a line). Now they are getting 11/10 and some points and all their sharp guys agree with them.

 They took the risk.

 This one was pretty clear and the wiseguys won the stand-off. We don't have to really know why they went that way to know they did. As it happens it was probably just fundamental core values. The syndicates like home dogs, they like unfashionable teams against fashionable sides, they like "situational handicapping" (for example they oppose teams flyng west to east to play a game early in the morning and teams who are playing a lowly opponent when they have a bigger fixture waiting for them next week. They have rules that they follow. They are WAY ahead of the game on injuries, particularly in NBA and they also have the edge on weather factors.

 Anyway, I've written enough for now.

 My point, which I'm sure I could have made with less words, is that markets that are sometimes dismissed as perfect in sports are clearly not. They have inefficiencies in them that can be exploited and it is that reason that keeps the big winners winning.

[JaffaCake]

Captivated by Lord Channing's wittering, just like in real life. Thanks for taking the time to put all this into words.

Can I ask, how do u know 88% of the tickets were for 49ers while the line was still going down? And where do Cantor and Hills say that a 49ers win would be terrible while the market seems to be moving the oppo way? Presumably these form part of your market reading....

[Bad Beat]

 Basically Twitter is great for picking-up snippets and info and the internet has things that give us a lot more knowledge about these markets than we used to.

 THE SF/MV was fasinating to me. The books clearly moved to 7 to tempt in the syndicates just to reassure themselves they were on the right side, before they weren't charging back in again. When it went to 6.5 on Sunday afternoon that was the massive clue as to what was going on. They cleaned up.

 In fact if you think they don't care who wins and they just balance their books and take the 10/11 edge you are wrong. This week they got the absolute lot. The public love favourites, there are certain teams they like (Packers, Dallas, San Fran) and there are others they just don't back (Tampa, Tennessee, Cinncy).

[Nico29]

Fantastic stuff Neil.

[redarmi]

Captivated by Lord Channing's wittering, just like in real life. Thanks for taking the time to put all this into words.

Can I ask, how do u know 88% of the tickets were for 49ers while the line was still going down? And where do Cantor and Hills say that a 49ers win would be terrible while the market seems to be moving the oppo way? Presumably these form part of your market reading....

On my iPad at the moment and it is very late at night here but there are sites where you can view what % of tickets are wrote on each side at x sportsbook.  In my experience they are fairly accurate barometers f public sentiment but bear in mind the wiseguys bet much more in $ amounts.

[tikay]

Breathtaking stuff by Neil.

How the hell did most of us live our (punting) lives without knowing the first thing about all that stuff?

PS - What is a "wagon"? Is it a family-pack size "ice-cream"?

[smashedagain]

Morning Tikay. Looks like a nicer day out there.

[tikay]

Captivated by Lord Channing's wittering, just like in real life. Thanks for taking the time to put all this into words.

Can I ask, how do u know 88% of the tickets were for 49ers while the line was still going down? And where do Cantor and Hills say that a 49ers win would be terrible while the market seems to be moving the oppo way? Presumably these form part of your market reading....

Sums it up for me, & the EXACT same question arose the very moment I read it - how did he know the 88% figure?

Ticket counts, spliitting the money/handle, wagons, ice creams, Mr Boom.

Love it, & I hope there is lots more to come.

[tikay]

Morning Tikay. Looks like a nicer day out there.

Morning Jase. It does?