We’ve all come to accept that the Manning family is pretty damn good and whatever they set out to do…but rockstars? Add that to the list of...

You know you’re going to bet it, may as well understand that my advice comes from a good place before you delve into betting meaningless (not to bettors) football games.  One thing I didn’t include in the video is discussion of key numbers.  Unlike the regular season when 3,4,6 and 7 are drummed into our head, anything between pk and 3 is pivotal this time of year knowing coaches will avoid ties at all costs.  Make sure you shop (as always) and don’t take a burnt price post steam. Click here for the most up to date preseason...

Talk to anyone who bet on sports 10-plus years ago and they’ll reminisce about the time when realizing profits was far more attainable with the right information.  Back in the day, rogue numbers and middle opportunities were ever-present for savvy bettors to take advantage of and those with access to actionable knowledge enjoyed a pronounced edge over the competition.  Today—in a world dominated by technology where information becomes instantly ubiquitous—those with valuable insight have only minutes, if not seconds, after lines are posted to get their money down before the marketplace corrects itself. Written by Justin Zovas The NFL betting market has undoubtedly become more efficient over the years so this should cause lines to also improve in accuracy, right? This was my thought process which led me to the question: Are point spreads today better at predicting NFL contests than those 10 or 20 years ago? In short, the answer is no.  Here are the numbers… Seasons % of games within 3 pts. of line within 7 pts. within 10 pts. 1989-92 22.0% 45.2% 59.2% 1993-97 21.7% 45.1% 59.8% 1998-2002 20.8% 45.2% 60.2% 2003-07 21.6% 43.0% 57.5% 2008-12 20.3% 44.9% 57.8% *Note the point spreads used in this analysis are those that were bet into by the greatest number of people, not necessarily the opening or closing line. Obviously everyone wants to know what the takeaway is from this analysis.  Although the NFL betting community comes to a consensus line far more quickly in 2013, this agreement has not translated into an improved ability over the years to forecast the outcome of football games.  But enough of the college kid, let’s get an expert’s take on the topic. Todd’s Take:  Justin is completely right in his analysis that the market in 2013 corrects...

When it comes to NFL totals, the casual bettor is generally more inclined to wager on the over than they are the under. This information is neither groundbreaking nor surprising, as football fans are programmed to root for scoring. To bet an under is to go against human nature, with those who wade into the hopefully low scoring waters cursing every running back and receiver who dashes out of bounds and stops the clock. Many of us have developed our own approach to tracking under bets. Personally, I divide the game into 12, 5-minute intervals while continuously performing shoddy arithmetic to make sure my bet is on or close to a winning pace. Needless to say, I’m an absolute blast to be around in these aforementioned circumstances. But as we’ve discussed time and time again, the betting public—yeah, that’s the same betting public that prefers to back overs—is rarely successful turning a profit wagering on sports over the long haul. Sure, it’s more than possible to produce a highly successful week or even a very profitable month. But over the course of the five-month NFL season, continuously supporting overs will more than likely yield a negative result. With the start of the 2013 season just under two months away, let’s take a look at how NFL totals have played out over the last ten years in just Week 1. But before we get to the data, here’s a quick look at how NFL scoring has been on the rise since 2003. That must mean overs are hitting at a more consistent rate than unders, right? Actually… Click here to read more Todd’s Take: Betting sports is all about identifying opportunity, gaining that half step over the oddsmakers before they catch up to you.  Joe’s...

I dare someone to argue that there is a deeper division than the NFC West in 2013. Ok, maybe the NFC South will be more hotly contested but their best 2 teams won’t compete with the Seahawks and 49ers. Will we see sophomore slumps from both QB’s?...

We know who the top dog is heading into the 2013 season.  However, Kenny White believes its one of the other 3 teams in the division that will be the real money maker this season. Who is it? You’ll have to watch to find...

When competition reaches it’s highest levels, any edge—no matter how small—can have a significant influence on the outcome of a sporting event.  Even in the league where teams only play a 16-game schedule, discrepancies in motivation are evident and have an impact on the final score of NFL contests.  For those of us who are concerned with the ultimate margin of victory, this can make all the difference. Follow the Author Justin Zovas on twitter Rivalries, past performance, and a myriad of scheduling factors cause a team’s effort and focus to fluctuate from week to week.  The point is: Over the course of a season, matchups arise where one team is more motivated to win than its opponent.  Identifying such situations and investing in these teams when the market fails to account for psychological intangibles can be profitable. Here are three trends that capture situations where a team has a motivational edge.  Notice these are far from guaranteed; just general trends that have proved to be long-term winners over a fairly large sample size.  Data goes back to 1989 and is courtesy of KillerSports.com. Underdogs that are coming off back to back losses of 14 or more points are 158-129-9 (.551) ATS. Fading a road favorite in a non-conference matchup that is facing a divisional opponent the following week is 110-89-5 (.553) ATS. Teams are 368-308-23 (.541) ATS when facing a divisional opponent after that opponent beat them in both matchups the previous season. Such success over large sample sizes indicates that the market is slightly inefficient when accounting for discrepancies in motivation and also tends to overreact to recent poor performances. It’s important to remember, however, that each individual matchup is unique and it would be imprudent to blindly follow these trends.  For...

We brought in the big guns, no not me, but Kenny White to break down the NFC East.  Every division yields a plethora of wagering opportunities, from win totals to division odds, and the goal is to cover them all. Don’t believe me? Just...

Which of the following wins was worth more: October 21, 2012 at Gillette Stadium: New England 29, New York Jets 26 October 24, 2011 at EverBank Field: Jacksonville 12, Baltimore 7 The answer is a tie, as both victories were worth exactly one win. But if we were to rephrase the question and ask which win was more impressive, the result would bring an entirely different answer altogether. The Patriots came significantly short of covering the 11-point spread in the team’s three-point win over the 3-3 Jets, while the Jaguars posted a five-point victory as 10-point underdogs over the 4-1 Baltimore Ravens. Using the Las Vegas point spread as our key factor, Jacksonville’s win would be deemed more impressive. Click here to read the full article Todd’s Take: As Joe highlights in his article, we don’t care about wins and losses in the desert: only covers.  Through a back and forth dialogue between Joe and myself we struggled to figure out which statistic was more indicative of dominance: avg margin of cover or ATS W/L record.  Upon further review I’ll contend domination doesn’t rely on the margin of victory but rather overall record. Yes, the Ravens +11.7 margin looks tremendous but their record of 3 games over .500 is not nearly as impressive as Seattle’s home dominance.  However, playing at home in the role of underdog is much different than that of a favorite and we see that reflected in both team’s avg spread.  I personally believe the biggest takeaway from Joe’s findings is the ability to identify teams that exceed expectations at home regularly only to disappoint on the road. The name of the game in sports betting is buy low, sell high and more often than not, the team that buries the number one week regresses...

The NFL may be a league of parity but in any given game two teams are rarely evenly matched.  Even if it’s only an edge through home field advantage, sharp minds can almost always agree on which team should be considered the favorite.  Opinions quickly differ, however, when we try to determine the degree to which one team is superior to another.  This is where Vegas comes into play; oddsmakers produce their own projection to settle such disputes.  And the business responsible for taking all of our action is pretty good at what they do. Written by Justin Zovas After all, if Sportsbooks were inept at posting lines (and also adjusting for the money-backed opinions they receive), far greater than just a select minority would be able to consistently find success betting professional football.  This led me to thinking and subsequently asking one question: exactly how accurate is Vegas at predicting the outcomes of NFL games?  Dating back to 1989 (a sample size of 5,996 games), the final score has landed within +/- 3 points of the point spread 21.2% (1,272 games) of the time.  Below is a chart that illustrates the relationship between the point spread and the final score of games over the past 23 seasons. Final score margin from point spread Percentage of games +/- 1 9.9% 2 15.4% 3 21.2% 4 27.4% 5 32.7% 6 38.9% 7 44.6% While these results should curb the belief that oddsmakers are omniscient and “always get it right,” the fact that the final score falls within a field goal of the consensus line in 1 out of every 5 games is still beyond impressive.  To put it into context, in a given week when there are 16 games on the board, the spread will...

All odds courtesy of LVH ODDS TO WIN 2014 SUPER BOWL XLVIII @ METLIFE STADIUM — EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2014 SUPER BOWL XLVIII GAME LINE NFC AFC -1    TOTAL  51 SUPER BOWL PATRIOTS 5 49ERS 5 BRONCOS 5 PACKERS 12 SEAHAWKS 7 TEXANS 12 FALCONS 14 STEELERS 25 SAINTS 20 RAVENS 30 GIANTS 20 REDSKINS 35 BEARS 30 BENGALS 30 COWBOYS 35 CHARGERS 60 LIONS 60 VIKINGS 50 COLTS 35 PANTHERS 60 JETS 100 EAGLES 60 DOLPHINS 50 RAMS 50 BUCS 50 BROWNS 60 CHIEFS 60 TITANS 100 BILLS 100 CARDINALS 300 RAIDERS 200 JAGUARS 300 2014 NFC CONFERENCE 49ERS 5-2 PACKERS 6 SEAHAWKS 7-2 FALCONS 7 SAINTS 10 GIANTS 10 REDSKINS 17 BEARS 15 COWBOYS 17 LIONS 30 VIKINGS 25 PANTHERS 30 EAGLES 30 RAMS 25 BUCS 25 CARDINALS 150 2014 AFC CONFERENCE PATRIOTS 2 BRONCOS 9-4 TEXANS 5 STEELERS 11 RAVENS 13 BENGALS 13 CHARGERS 25 COLTS 15 JETS 45 DOLPHINS 23 BROWNS 25 CHIEFS 25 TITANS 45 BILLS 45 RAIDERS 90 JAGUARS 135...

In sports, we often hear phrases such as “the final score was not indicative of how close these two teams played”.   Such rhetoric is grounded in the belief that scoring margin is an imperfect measure of a team’s true ability.  Randomness and variations of luck over the course of a game or season can result in a team’s performance on the scoreboard deviating from its actual talent level. Written by Justin Zovas This understanding served as the primary motive in last week’s In case you missed Part 1 of the story click here column which discussed my creation of a second-order Pythagorean expectation for NFL teams.  A team’s yards per play and yards per point metrics are regressed to predict what its net scoring margin should have been.  From there, we can calculate how many games the team should have won based on its key performance statistics. Listed below is each team ranked by its adjusted Pythagorean wins along with its actual and standard Pythagorean wins.  It is important to remember that it is a retrodictive evaluation of last season that documents which teams overachieved or underachieved relative to their Pythagorean expectations.  Over the past four seasons, teams that have outperformed their adjusted Pythagorean expectation by greater than one win have experienced, on average, a 1.77 decrease in wins the following season.  In contrast, those who underperformed by greater than one game have seen their win totals increase by 2.75 games, on average. Below is a chart of how many games each team won in 2012 vs what would have been expected by their advanced metrics. Team Wins Pythag. Wins Adjusted Pythag. Wins Seahawks 11.00 12.39 12.26 49ers 11.50 11.33 11.53 Broncos 13.00 12.32 11.53 Bears 10.00 10.75 11.26 Patriots 12.00 12.39 10.44 Falcons...