13-04-2006 Strategy on betting early NFL lines

Press release from PinnacleSports.com

Although the Super Bowl was just three months ago and the draft hasn’t taken place, it’s not too early to start betting the NFL at Pinnacle Sports!

The season kicks off in less than five months when the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers host the Miami Dolphins in the Thursday night opener, but Pinnacle Sports has already posted lines on every game in week one. But how does a player handicap the first week’s games and find an edge this far out?

As a starting point, look at the relationship between season wins and the first week point spreads. An average team would expect to win 50% of the time or eight games in a 16-game regular season.

How many games would a team expect to win, if it was a three-point favorite for each game? First convert the fair no-vig moneyline (ML) into a "percentage chance of winning" for each game. For favorites, that’s the (ML quote / (ML - 100)) * 100. If the fair no-vig moneyline for a three-point favorite is -145/+145, expect the three-point favorite to win (-145 /(-145-100)) * 100 = 59% of the time. If a team was a three-point favorite for every game, it’d expect to win 16*0.59 games, or about 9.5 games.

Although not an exact science, this can be used to convert season win lines into a game line for the first week. For every ½ game better the favorite is in season wins, it should give an additional 1 point on the spread at a neutral site. If a 9.5-win team played an 8-win team, the 9.5-win team would be three-point favorites on a neutral field. After that, add three points for home field advantage, so the 9.5-win team would be six-point favorites at home, or Pick’em on the road.

Then set a “baseline” using games from the prior year, in this case the 2005-2006 NFL season. While some people will simply start with the number of games a team won in the previous season, more sophisticated bettors use the “Pythagorean Theorem” for football. This formula reduces the affects of lucky and/or close wins, and gives a team more credit for blowouts and consistently solid performances.

For example, consider the 2005 Tampa Bay Buccaneers regular season record of 11-5, with 300 points scored for and 274 points scored against. Instead of simply using the win/loss record, using the Pythagorean Theorem for football, assumes games won = (PF^2) / (PF^2+PA^2) * 16, where PF=points for and PA=points against.

Using the Pythagorean Theorem for football, the Buccaneers’ baseline would be calculated as 300*300/(300*300+274*274) * 16 – giving an expectation of 8.7 wins. This suggests that Tampa Bay was very lucky to win 11 games and playing the same season with the same roster, 9 wins would be more likely.

Conversely when using this formula, one sees that last year’s record undervalued Green Bay. The Packers finished 4-12, with 298 points for and 344 points against. The Packers’ baseline would be 298*298/(298*298+344*344) * 16 = 6.9 games, nearly three full games better than last year’s record.

Another adjustment to the 2005 season wins baseline is the “reversion to the mean”. Basically this means no matter what a team did in a previous season, it tends to move toward winning 50% the following season. A general rule of thumb is to move the baseline season wins about ½ a game toward 8 for baselines between 5.5-10.5, or a full game towards 8 for very good/bad teams outside that range.

Once the baseline is calculated, one should consider roster changes. Is a team peaking or rebuilding? If a team has several veterans replaced with younger, inexperienced players, this suggests the team is rebuilding. If a team’s roster is fairly stable, the team is generally expected to do as well or better the following year.

Teams with a low roster turnover usually focus on adding talented veterans to positions lacking experience. Adding depth will have less of an impact, but also lowers the downside variance. If a team has a poor defense and an average offense, defensive changes will have a bigger impact as it has more room for improvement.

Once season win expectations are completed, then set the line for each game. Like in the above example, take the difference between the two teams in season wins, multiply by two, and add three for the home field advantage. If your numbers suggest a play, Pinnacle Sports is already open for business on NFL Week One. With a 10-cent line on NFL openers, bettors get up to 50% better value compared to other sportsbooks when they finally get around to posting their NFL openers...

How have the sharps bet the early week one NFL openers?

Miami Dolphins +5.5 at Pittsburgh Steelers

The game opened with Miami +6.5, and received multiple limit bets from sharps on the dog. Fading the Super Bowl Champion for the first two weeks from 1985 to 2005, would post a record of 28-13. So any opening number will draw sharp versus public betting.

Cincinnati Bengals +3.5 at Kansas City Chiefs

The opener of Cincinnati +2.5 saw moderate lopsided betting on the Chiefs, driving the number onto and past the “3”. Using the Pythagorean Theorem, Cincinnati appears to have over-performed in 2005, where 9.5 wins would be more reflective of the team that actually went 11-5. The early betting tends to agree that the number on the Bengals was too high.

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