New Balls? Please!

My trip to Chicago is over, and it appears that the country has gone betting mad. 

The Monday Night Football game while I was there was in Pittsburgh, between the Steelers and the Chicago Bears. I wandered down to the hotel bar to watch the second half and enjoy some beers and healthy chicken wings - while my wife wasn't able to monitor my calories - and fell into conversation with a rather loud American, cursing his luck for betting Overs. Since the total he'd bet was 40 and it was 14:3 with most of the third quarter to come, I wasn't quite sure why he was so certain he'd lost, but I bit my tongue.

Mr. Portland (Oregon, not Maine), informed me that his rationale had been that he'd been "wiped out" on the Sunday games, had decided that the Monday game would definitely go Under, but because he'd lost so many bets on Sunday he went against his "research" and backed Over. But he did want to make clear that he wasn't a complete idiot by telling me that he only bets $25 a time. This assertion (about being an idiot) was later found to be false, with the conversation turning to politics and references to "Sleepy Joe Biden", and the wild claim that "it's impossible to make any money from sports betting". I bit my tongue (again) on both topics. There was a lot of tongue biting that night.

Ultimately the game was comfortably Over finishing with 56 points, and with that bet a winner, he turned to his phone and started looking at betting on the outcome of the next play, soliciting opinions from the small group present. By this time we had been joined by a couple of slightly more normal people, one a German living in Brazil, the other an Angeleno, who both found the whole situation highly amusing, especially when towards the end our friend was about to back the Bears to win the game until I pointed out that the Steelers only needed a field goal to win the game. Cue total astonishment from the Portland Proud Boy, exclaiming "Oh yeah, that's right!" and a change of strategy subsequently rewarded with another winning bet when the required field goal was kicked with 26 seconds left. I was half expecting a beer for my troubles, but no that didn't happen.

I asked Mr. Portland which sportsbook he used, and his answer was Bovada, a company with a good reputation in the US but who typically post -110 lines (1.909) on 50/50 bets, a vig that would make it difficult to make money long term. 

Once the game was over, he wanted to move on to NBA betting, but with meetings the next day, I needed my beauty sleep but my parting gift to him was telling him to look at Unders in NBA games this season.

Prior to leaving, it appeared that "backing Unders when the total is greater than 212.5 is currently the best bet".

As mentioned in the last post, the "overt, abrupt and abnormal" rule change has had a significant impact on scoring, but there is one other factor that may be partly contributing which is the revelation that after 37 years of using a Spalding manufactured ball, the NBA now uses a Wilson.

Larry emailed me with this link, and worth a read if you're interested about this kind of thing. One paragraph states:

While it’s still early in the season, the league is currently experiencing a temporary shooting slump, with an approximately 2% lower overall field goal and three-point percentage compared to last year. While a short offseason and new foul call interpretations have been subject to blame, some trainers, players, and analysts are now pointing towards the new Wilson ball as a possible issue.

While I think the primary reason for the decline in points is the new rule, it is certainly possible that the change of ball is a secondary contributory factor. Some players are talking about it, although of course being able to blame the ball rather than your poor shooting could be convenient.

Paul George of the Los Angeles Clippers is quoted as saying:

"Not to make an excuse about the ball, but it’s a different basketball. It doesn’t have the same touch/softness that the Spalding ball had, and you’ll see this year. It’s gonna be a lot of bad misses”

He himself seems to have adjusted just fine, currently fourth in the points-per-game category, up from 22nd last season. 

As to my comment regarding the 212.5 line, the record now for the season at this entry point is 98-57-1 which is 63%, and in November is so far 40-30 (57.1%). I am indebted to schnakenpopanz for pointing me to gimmethedog.com in his comment:

Hello, long time reader, but only my first comment. Thx for all the work you put in, I learnt a lot from your experiences.

I have been working together with the killersports platform a while ago and been active in several subgroups and worked with a lot of people from the core group.

So I think this will be quite interesting for you. killersports as you know it may not exist, but there is a subsite formed by other members which continues the SDQL format.

So far it is in beta testing and hopefully will catch up to the painful emptiness that killersports aka sportsdatabase left us with.

http://gimmethedog.com/

I have used it for test purposes a lot right now and it looks solid, but shortcuts we are familiar with may not work from the get go. It looks promising.

If there are other things I may help with, feel free to ask.

Cheers.

Cheers indeed as beta testing or not, this is looking to be a hugely useful site. Many thanks to schnakenpopanz for sharing this.

Some of you may recall that AT asked about Small College Dogs recently, and while the Gimme The Dog site doesn't recognise the "Division" parameter, the numbers for all matches this season shows a less than exciting record of 44-45.

Dr Tsouts commented that:

I am tracking most of Cassini's systems for almost 2 months and I am slightly negative on NCAAF handicaps with a record of 26 wins, 28 losses and 2 void. But numbers are better when following straight wins with 9 wins and 13 losses and a 8.3% ROI. The picture in NFL is great and I am waiting a correction but now I have 7 wins and 4 losses in straight wins (money line) and 27-11 in handicap with the extraordinary 27-11 record!

The record is now 28-13 record with four selections this week.