Another quiet day, with the only football bet going down. I expected Leicester City to beat Ipswich Town by 1, but the game finished even - a frequent outcome this weekend!
The NFL Wild Card games ended mixed. In the AFC, both the Cincinnatti Bengals and the New England Patriots were higher rated, favourites and at home, but both managed to lose - the Patriots for the first time at home in a play-off game since 1978!
In the NFC, the Dallas Cowboys were my pick to win by 2, and won by 20.
My best bet was in the final game, where my ratings had the Arizona Cardinals to win by 2 against the Green Bay Packers. The game went to overtime, with the Cardinals trading as low as 1.03 in-play.
So 2 for 4 overall, and more to come next weekend.
Backing the underdogs in these games is a long-term winning strategy in the NFL.
Stats show that in the NBA, in the 20 years to 2006, the probability of winning was 0.69% higher for underdogs than favorites. This may seem small, but as most gamblers will know, finding any edge is huge. It is also not all that surprising.
In the NFL, the value in betting underdogs is even stronger. Why? Recreational gamblers tend to bet on favorites, creating value on underdogs.
On a completely non-betting topic - in an idle moment today, I was looking at weather records for the UK, and this note on wind speed amused me:
"Shetland holds the unofficial British record for wind speed, which in 1962 was recorded at 177 mph (285 km/h) at RAF Saxa Vord — just before the measuring equipment blew away"
No comments:
Post a Comment