Closing Lines

Rodolfo commented: 

In recent weeks Joseph Buchdahl has published several articles on the importance of beating the closing odds. Do you consider beating the closing odds as an important factor whether particular betting strategy is profitable or not? Have you ever recorded closing odds yourself on a regular basis?

Long-time readers of this blog will know that I am a firm believer in the importance of beating the closing odds, which is why I became so excited when Joseph added Pinnacle's Closing Prices to his football sheets dating back to the 2012-13 football season.

As Joseph explains:

Closing odds reflect the largest amount of information about matches, and the maximum number of opinions being expressed through wagering on that information, and hence are most likely to be the most efficient.

As a part-timer, I have never had the time to record closing odds myself, but fortunately for all of us, Joseph has now filled the gaping hole in this area. 

Readers will know that one of my favourite sports for betting is baseball, and several years ago saw this quote on a forum discussion about closing prices:

In all free markets - pricing efficiency is generally enhanced with the addition of market participants and incremental information over time. The MLB wagering market is no exception. The closing line is generally a sharper number than the opening line. The fact that a winning MLB handicapper beats the closer more often than not is not the reason he's a winning handicapper but rather a reflection of his being a winning handicapper. He has the ability to identify the smart side of the early (weaker) number. More often than not, his good judgment will be confirmed by the subsequent line movement. His early wager will thus, more often than not, have a value edge vis a vis the ultimate closing number. It's as simple as that.

Anyone who is profitable in MLB over more than a half season without beating the closing price more often than not - who thinks he is good - is mistaking good luck for good play. And to any of you who believe that beating the closer is a meaningless or overrated measure of a good handicapper - I can only say you are wrong - and assure you that the Las Vegas books would agree with me.

So the importance of beating the closing line has been clear to me for several years and is why my MLB, NFL, NBA systems etc. all use the closing prices. In reality of course, it's impractical to place all bets at these closing prices, (sometimes you'll get lucky, other times not so lucky) but it's always the benchmark to be used when evaluating a system. It also allows others to easily verify the results. 

One of the many problems with measuring a football tipster's edge is that the prices they claim are often, to put it favourably, somewhat arbitrary. Prices move throughout the days leading up to a match, reacting to new information and money coming in to the markets. This allows someone to cherry pick the prices they record their results against. 

It is why my own selections and results were recorded using Pinnacle's prices wherever possible. This consistency and transparency was a welcome improvement to the opaqueness of others, but three seasons ago, was still less than perfect. 

Prices were scraped, at best several hours, and at worst, several days before kick-off, thus the role of luck played a bigger part than it should - for example, the late news that a star player would miss the game wasn't reflected in the odds used. The most extreme example is the scraping of a price on a Friday afternoon for a game on Monday night. Clearly less than ideal.

The long overdue addition of Closing Prices for football means that everyone now has a standard to measure their performance against. Be wary of anyone who doesn't report their results against this benchmark. 

A Closing Line for the Over / Under markets would be a nice addition too if Joseph is reading this.

Finally, Football Investor Stewboss clarified things, writing:

Sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick re your draws betting. Perhaps you should have replied to my last tweet

With everything else that's going on in my life right now, correcting a minor misunderstanding by one person on Twitter wasn't particularly high on my list of priorities. It became more important when repeated in a comment, but we're all on the same page now.