NFL week 1

Well, I just looked at how public underdogs did in college football in the first real week of the season.....they went 1-10 ATS....will track this throughout the season in both college and pros...I am using vsin's stats from Fanduel, which would be a more square book than Circa.

As of Saturday night with the first week of the NFL season almost 1 week away, here are the public underdogs as we stand right now, using percentage of bets OR percentage of handle (total amount bet).

  a)  Miami +1', both percentage of bets and handle are over 70%, which could mean I will fade them closer to game time.

  b)  Giants +6, 52% of handle is on Giants....will monitor closely throughout the week...could possible buy-out of my NYG play.

  c)  Raiders +3, 53% of bets are on Raiders

  d)  Falcons +2', 55% of handle is on Falcons

  e)  Lions +2', 77% of bets and 65% of handle is on Lions....possible fade of Lions

  f)  Texans +2', 58% of bets and 60% of handle is on Texans...possible fade of Texans

  g)  Ravens pik.....both public percentages are heavily on Ravens....won't fade "Regular Season Lamar", but won't play them either.

  g)  Bears +1', 54% of bets and 53% of handle is on Bears....will definitely will not be ON Bears and may fade them

NICE. I would venture to guess that totals offer up a new trend as well this season.

@Indigo999

 Bol this season

I’m not on all the unders but the craziness is seeing all the games on the under. 

Sure, anything can happen, and usually does.

I was wrong...the Packers, instead of becoming underdogs, have become bigger favorites on the back of the Parsons trade.

Instead, there is the possibility that the Dolphins may be favored.  I had  a very strong angle favoring the Dolphins, but Miami has become a very strong public underdog, which has gotten me off the play.   It all becomes a wash if Miami becomes favored, as home dogs that are non-divisional matchups in week 1 historically haven't proved to be that great.

Neither the Raiders and the Giants over the 50% public betting threshold has held, and the Patriots and Commanders have become majority favorites.....we like that as those two games are probably the games I like the most.

Both Seattle and Cleveland are very much being ignored by the public with public percentages below 30%.....very good, we like that too.

The game I don't like too much is the Falcons who are starting a tackle who was making pizza a week ago (just kidding)...their top two right tackles have gotten hurt, but of course Tampa Bay's really good tackle is out and two of their best receivers are hurt or recovering from injury as well.  They can't throw it to Mike Evans 35 times can they?

I've been able to get the Falcons at +2.5 as it creeps up ever closer to +3. 

We cannot take either team in the Lions/Packers game, as the Lions are a very public dog, which we consider fading, but they are under a 31-5 ATS angle that I went into in post #1.

Houston, Baltimore and the Bears remain public dogs....will consider fading Houston and the Bears closer to game time.

Plays:

                                     covers bet %                                        

1)  Browns +6                  31%

2)  Seahawks +3              36%        

3)  Giants +6'                  37%

4)  Falcons +2'                34%

5)  Raiders +3, -114        39%

Panthers still a possible play....25%

  l)  Since 2008, week one divisional dogs of 3 or less have gone 23-6-2 against the spread (+6.4).....if we extend the parameter to divisional dogs of less than 7, they've gone 45-21-2 (+3.7), 68.2%

Meanwhile non-divisional dogs in the same scenario have been less than a 50% proposition, being particularly bad as a home dog............19-32-3 ATS (-3.3)....VERSUS Saints, Jets

@dubz4dummyz

 You are correct. I live in Cleveland and just a gut feeling on this one says that Cincy-5 is the way to go. BOL…

Plays all for 1.5 units.......

Adding:

6)  Chargers +3, -105

Divisional dogs of less than 4 points have gone 7-0-1 ATS  (+10.6), 7-1 straight up, (+7.1) in non-Sunday games since 2008.....Bears, Chargers

D and month = 9 and line < 4 and week = 1 and division = o:division and day!=Sunday and season>2008

_____________________________________

5)  Browns +6

4)  Giants +6'

3)  Seahawks +3, -118

2)  Falcons +2'

1)  Raiders +3, -114

Public betting has changed some lines.....

Colts are pik, rather than favorites and could well be underdogs by Sunday.

Huge public betting has put Ravens into the favorites role.

And, we have the magic phrase, "reverse line movement" in a couple of games...the Green Bay/Detroit game and the Vikings/Bears game.

For the uninitiated, meaning of reverse line movement= public on one side, line movement going the opposite way of majority opinion....for some bettors this is an auto-play on the way the line movement has gone.

Vikings up to -2 in some books, Packers up to -2.5 in some places despite public being on Bears and Lions and we could say there has been slight RLM in the case of the Falcons and the Rams.  The opposite of reverse line movement is the public betting on the Dolphins and the Ravens, and the line moving towards those teams.

Indigo, I have a question about your process (if I may ask)

On the opening post or two of this thread you delve into some systems that over a period of time have hit around 70%. Great stuff.

System players will tell you there are a ton of systems on Chicago and Miami (among others) but my question is this - why would you

get scared off of (example: Chicago) just because of 'bet percentages'

Aren't you automatically assuming 'the majority of bets=losing bet' when in reality it probably is a 50-50 proposition. I just found it to be an odd 'filter'. Love your stuff by the way. Just think the 70% trend is stronger than any 'public betting percentages'

Thanks for stopping by,...excellent question,....as with any betting type question, there are nuances and we learn from experience.  Also, our perceptions are not always reality.....and the sooner we can realize what our deficiencies are the better.

I've used betting percentages in the past, mainly as a filter for my my side angles (not totals, which I have not researched) in college football that I divine from using killersports.....which if you have that type of mind, I highly recommend.  I found that when incorporating that filter of not allowing publicly bet teams to be bet, it improved my results, about 5-10%, which is not insignificant.

In baseball this year, I used betting percentages exclusively for the middle part of the season on underdogs, successfully, so it solidified my thinking that it could be used as a standalone strategy.

I mentioned earlier in this thread that 4% of bettors win over extended periods of time....and my thinking is "do I want to be on the side that 96% of those people lose?.....or do I want to be opposite of them?"  And this is a point to be made when I say to myself "is that thinking sound?"....."you really don't know because you haven't researched it enough, have you?" 

I have not yet done a season full of data, where I input the indicated plays, and then to see how the publicly bet teams did against the spread and those that were out of favor with the public did on those games where there is some good high percentage angles.....that will happen this season in both pro and college football.

I will say this....last weekend was the first time I actually sat and did the data on a weekend of college football publicly bet underdogs....using visn's data they went 1-11 ATS, and using covers' King of Covers contest data they went 2-7 ATS, which obviously it would be very, very rare that a handicapper would beat that kind of percentage with their own handicapping versus fading the public.  Perhaps blindly fading the public is a more efficient way of beating the books than my own processes....that I want to find out this year.

Is the public going to be THAT terrible after going a combined 3-18 ATS going forward? (I am sure there was an overlap of betting public bet games from  visn and covers, but I am too lazy to go back and find out)....doubtful....but if 4% of bettors win, and sportsbooks live in billion dollar casinos, and I am not living in a billion dollar mansion with the betting processes I am using, why would we not at least consider figuring out how to benefit by the poor prognostication skills in general of our sports betting marketplace?

Eagles 24 Cowboys 20.

Excellent game....Cowboys coulda/woulda/shoulda won.

Teams are going to have to learn how to play a running quarterback to beat the Eagles....it's fruitless to try to sack Hurts, I'd rush two guys and keep two guys back to play the quarterback run.....I'd play linebackers or safeties in the front four if it's 3rd and long.

Eagles now with both starting guards from last year's team not playing as Dickerson probably will need surgery and other guy left via free agency....AND their all-pro center retired a couple of years ago, that is a lot of turnover in the middle of the line.

No way does Hurts and Barkley get through the season without at least one of them getting hurt.

The Eagles play 10 playoff teams from last season this season,, including all four of the teams they beat in the playoffs last season, that is a lot of revenge minded teams they'll be facing giving them their A game.....I'd be surprised if they have a winning record against the spread....it will be a major victory for them if they win eleven or more games.

In games where they're over a field goal favorite I'll look to fade them, except if they are off an embarrassing loss and even then I wouldn't take them unless a dog or very close to pik.

The Cowboys look like a backable team....their new offensive coordinator and their scheme looks excellent, their whole team effort was excellent...they tried really hard....they ran the ball really well, and Dak looked great, if not for their butterfingered wideout and a dropped tight end pass in the endzone, they would've won.

The linebackers of the Eagles won them the game...Zach Baun ran down a running back that ultimately saved a touchdown, and him and their other linebacker successfully defended three passes in or around the endzone.....whatever they are paying Baun, they are not paying him enough.

Perhaps blindly fading the public is a more efficient way of beating the books than my own processes....that I want to find out this year.

Not perhaps, but certainly, contrarian /anti recency bias has been profitable as regression is REAL imho.

NICE POST professor.

You didn't  have to agree that my process perhaps is not as good as a pure fade of the public, so offhandedly and easily.....LOL!

Here are the public betting numbers for this week's games.  I will use Thursday as a cutoff point for no particular scholarly reason.  If someone bets blindly on fading the public, which I have no idea if many bettors do so, that would skew the natural numbers that we would see early in the week.  Obviously in some cases the number will change, as do betting lines as the game gets closer to starting time.

I'll make comments about what I see about public betting numbers if there are huge swings on Sunday, keeping in mind this is is the first time I will have really studied this in depth, so I don't know what to expect.

I'll list all teams that are underdogs and then VSIN's handle and pubic betting percentages, and then covers contest picks, in that order.  Normally I would expect contest data to be non-tainted, however there have been some shady things going on with certain posters in the covers contests where some have gotten the line move correct 98% of the time (impossible to do) that doesn't give me full confidence  that they wouldn't be above fudging the stats, so buyer beware.

My picks first....I had the Cowboys today, but it wasn't posted, so it won't count on my online record.

Team        V handle             V %              Covers %

Cowboys      39%              35%                 43%......chalk one up for the anti-public, or sportsbooks.

Giants          48                 37                    39

Browns        24                  23                    33

Falcons        45                  31                    36

Seahawks    20                  35                    36

Raiders        44                  49                    44

_____________________________________________

Non-play data 

Jets            25                   29                     30

Colts           20                   25                     37

Panthers      40                   42                     29.....they remain an interesting possibility to me

Saints          18                  26                     35

Titans          19                  27                      25

Lions           77                  72                      57....HUGE public dog....if not for a 31-5 angle favoring the Lions I would be fading them

Texans         55                  59                      41....big difference in the numbers

Bills             36                  42                      44

Bears           57                  51                      49.....Bears getting a lot of public confidence, me?...not so much

The prudent thing to do would be to wait and see what transpires to see what patterns might occur....prudent isn't always a part of my M.O., so we'll see.  Baseball this season, it took six weeks before fading the public kicked in, will it take 4 or 5 games before this happens in the NFL?

And of course if we got some insane percentages of greater than sixty percent over a 4 or 5 game sample, we would then fade those results going forward.

CBS Sports Experts Picks,...we consider a fade when either 6 or 7 out of 7 of the experts are on one side.

This week they are on.....1)  Bucs -1' (6 out of 7), 2)  Cardinals -6 (6),  3)  Jaguars -3' (6)

Consider fading the teams mentioned above.

thanks much appreciated 

There's a discrepancy between covers and visn's data in the Bills/Ravens and Rams/Texans games....so they'll likely be no-plays.

Adding Panthers to my week 1 plays....

All plays for 1.5 units.

Plays/bets:

7)  Panthers +3' .....the betting consensus numbers on Carolina are 38, 42 and 29 percent....VSIN handle, betting %, and covers' KOC contest picks respectively.....they fall into a betting angle  that has been 38-8-6 ATS (+6.2), which is....

Play a week 1 away dog of less than 7 points, that won 4, 5 or 6 games the previous season, playing a team that will be an underdog their next game.  

Jacksonville will be an away dog at the Bengals next week.  By contrast, if the home favorite will be a favorite their next game, the angle is only 11-9 ATS (+0.1)....big difference!....it shows the relative strength of the home team, and also the cosmic truth that time is not linear, and what happens in the future is affected by the past and vice versa.

Query text........week=1 and AD and 7>PRSW>3 and on:D and line<7 

6)  Chargers +3, -105

5)  Browns +6

4)  Giants +6'

3)  Seahawks +3, -118

2)  Falcons +2'

1)  Raiders +3, -114