Quote:
Originally Posted by dilanesp
I am saying the following :
1. There may be successful sports bettors among the small group of people who have incredibly sophisticated amounts of information about a sport. Comparable to the huge computer driven horse racing betting outfits.
Also comparable to who wins playing daily fantasy sports online, which has been widely documented. Picking players shouldn't work any different than picking teams, and yet only the big data operations consistently win. That pretty much shows the reality of sports betting.
2. Variance is incredibly large and it is basically impossible for any modest sports bettor to establish a statistically significant winrate.
3. Sports betting markets are highly efficient, like financial markets, and therefore you are going to generally need inside information or some sort of arbitrage to win as an average player.
4. Most of the claims in this thread about angles (although not your claims!) really don't work mathematically or don't work often enough to get you a decent sample size.
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Sports bettors can bet any time they want and lock in the line. So while the closing line is likely pretty efficient a sports bettor can bet the opener that might be 2 points bettor than the closing line (obviously at lower limits). Last time I checked in the NBA a point was worth almost 4 %. Since at random you can hit 50% and most games swing at least a point, from opening to closing, just by being sharp, a player is almost at break even, before he even gets started(assuming he can consistentlly get a 1/2 point beter than closing line).
If you want to live under the delusion that there are not factors in sports that dictate outcomes, fine, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is not like a deck of cards where your Ace King is x% better than your opponents likely hand, it is human beings playing a very competitive game, riding a wave of emotions and reacting to winning streaks, losing streaks, big wins, embarrassing losses, pressure, fatigue and of course there are matchups, injuries, significance of those injuries.
Also, you give linesmakers way too much credit. They are good, but it is the sharps that iron out the line to make it really good, not the linesmaker.
I do not care what game you are taking on, horses, poker, sports, they are all very beatable, and they are all very tough to beat at the same time.
Also regarding variance, the higher you go up the ladder the less the variance is. If a player could truly hit 57% long term he is not going to have many losing seasons. At 55% he is in pretty good shape. It is just when they hit in the 53-54% or even worse that the things you are talking about really come into play.
We are all adults here (I think) and we all have to determine where we are in all our endeavors, including our gambling/investing ones(whatever you want to call it). If we keep good records we know exactly where we are. Doesn't mean we will be in the same place next month, next year or in 5 years. We live, learn and grow as individuals.
I just don't see the point in anyone coming on here and saying, Poker isn't beatable or sports isn't beatable or horses aren't beatable, or so and so is full of it when he says he has a 20% roi............we all know that they all can be beat, but only a small percentage will beat them. Whether poster x is in that unique class, none of us will ever know for sure. I tend to take people at their word, but it isn't costing me anything to do so.
