Following on from the last post, we are indebted to Hkibuzz for providing more details about the upcoming changes at Killer Sports. He comments:Hi Cassini. The free access to KS will be limited to 10 searches per sport per day. While it should theoretically be enough most of the time, it is still not enough on the days when you will want to do further research. I believe I will be a basic member, and hopefully it will mean the site will keep going for a long time. https://killersports.com/plans-premium
The linked page shows the following tiers and confirms what Hkibuzz stated:
Sunday 27 October 2024
The Buzz Around Killer Sports
Killer Sports Pro Time
Weirimdi left a comment on the blog:
Hi there it is me again. What is your opinion on the new paid structure of Killer Sports? i don't want you to be positive or negative about it, but rather like to know if this will have an effect on the user structure and use cases of this great tool. I used the Db to experiment and to research. It was fun for me, but now i think a lot of silent researchers will leave the ship and this might lead to a decrease in researchers.
Included in our tiered membership structure is a free access to the ability to run a limited number of queries / Simple Searches and some saved systems to satisfy our most casual users. The paid tiers expand from there to accommodate our avid users who want to frequently search the database and/or take advantage of our expanding number of valuable tools.As I do not use the feature which allows you to 'save' systems, I'm hoping I will stay under the radar and be considered on of the 'casual users', but if the 'limited number of queries' is set too low, then I may be in the Pro tier, but at $39 a month, I would consider this to be excellent value. As my account is now showing Pro, I suspect I'm enrolled in the 30 day free trial.
As I wrote on the blog at the time, a little over three years ago that it looked like Killer Sports would be shutting down which would have been terrible, but fortunately the site was saved with more sports being added. It's not perfect as I have mentioned before. The data isn't 100% accurate but it's a wonderful resource nonetheless.
For the time being the site remains free to use but should that change I'll update you all here.
One subscriber asked me if a strategy of betting the Moneyline rather than Against the Spread (ATS) would be profitable. It certainly should be since the odds are aligned, but the beauty of ATS is that the ride is a lot smoother.
A few years ago I came up with a table showing the approximate 'true' Moneyline odds based on historical results from the spreads for American Football (F) and Basketball (B).
Like Killer Sports, it's not perfect, but I find it helpful and thought I'd share it here.
And no, that isn't a typo for favourites giving a point in Football.
Saturday 26 October 2024
Billions, Drama and Fading in the NHL
The popular team fading works the best for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Overall, for the past ten seasons, backing the Leafs straight up or on the Puck Line in every game gives the third worst outcome of the 33 teams - Utah are new this season and have just six matches to their name so far.
As Thomas added, when they are playing against a losing team they are top of the list with an official ROI of -12.7%.
It's impossible to get a definitive answer on which team in the NHL is the most popular, in Canada but the most popular team there appears to be either the Leafs of the Montreal Canadiens who rank ninth worst in both scenarios.
Monday 21 October 2024
Sports Equinox Starring New York
While the NBA season is about to begin, for the women the 2024 WNBA season is now over with New York Liberty dramatically beating Minnesota Lynx in overtime in Game Five of a best-of-five series for their first ever Championship.
Friday 18 October 2024
Betting With the Heart
The NBA season is almost here, and a subscriber mentioned to me that:
Along the same lines I also avoid betting on the Lakers as this is probably the most hyped up team in the history of sport..
"When the Yankees are going well, we'll most likely need their opponent every night," [Johnny] Avello, a New York native and longtime Las Vegas bookmaker, said. "They say, 'Don't bet with your heart,' but we all do."
Thursday 17 October 2024
Inbox Nuggets for the NHL, NFL, NCAAF and CFL
Back in March, towards the end of the 2023-24 NHL season, I received an email from 'Anonymous fan' with an interesting idea for a system which had a promising track record supported by a solid hypothesis.
Hey Cassini,
Thank you for your work and your blog. I really appreciate everything you do. I have been messing around with killer sports since you introduced me to it and I have a lot of fun thinking about things that may matter for the sports I enjoy.
I think I may have found an intriguing one for NHL.
Since 2007- ROI +10.5% in 948 games
Since 2021- ROI +5.5% in 208 games
Since this season- ROI +12.9% in 51 games
It seems to be steadily profitable year after year, present a solid number of plays, and the games that meet the criteria are typically quite enjoyable to watch. I am not very good at math or statistics though so maybe it is too small a sample? Either way I was curious to get your thoughts.
Best,
Anonymous fan
I've said before that it's pitting your wits against others and the intellectual challenge of beating these markets that is in many ways more exciting than winning money and having fun with ideas like this is what it's all about. When we can make some of the ideas profitable, so much the better.
I did respond with my thoughts, but back in March I was about to head over to Arkansas for the Total Eclipse and with the NHL season wrapping up, I put this idea to one side and, if I'm being honest, forgot about it. Retirement was apparently a distraction, or I'm simply getting old.
I was reminded of the system when Anonymous (I shall call him Thomas moving forward) wrote with an observation about an NFL system, and there in the e-mail thread was buried the NHL system.
With 17 full seasons of data dating back to 2006, (for some reason the data we need for 2017 is missing), the numbers are now:
My only concern is that the ROI is down for the latest five seasons, a trend to keep an eye on, but overall the results are good.
Included in my numbers are playoff games where the edge appears to continue.
The fledgling 2024 season has had just one selection to date, a loser, but with two qualifiers tonight it's another system I'll be adding to the Sacred Manuscript and sharing with subscribers along with Thomas' simple, but highly impactful, NFL observation.
After running the numbers, Thomas has essentially managed to obtain the same returns but from fewer than 56% of the selections.
Side by side, here are the basic returns pre and post Thomas' modifier:
Excellent work, and two probable selections this weekend. It also appears to be effective in College Football with a similar improvement:
And in the CFL too, although with only a dozen games remaining it's a moot point for this season. Thomas deserves a medal.It's been an unusual NFL season so far, with just six games having a spread of more than a touchdown and extra-point, i.e. seven points.
At this stage of the season the average number of such games since 1989 is 18, and four of the six hotties this season have lost straight up, with only one covering the spread.
Finally, and the topic of my previous post regarding shutouts in MLB playoff games is relevant again as we had another one last night in New York as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Mets 8-0.
Wednesday 16 October 2024
MLB Playoff Shutouts
One of the recurring themes in the Sacred Manuscript is how the markets react to a team after they've been on the receiving end of what John Cleese might call a 'damn good thrashing.'
With such a small sample size, it's not surprising that the p-value isn't significant but with a good premise behind it, this is an idea that may be worth watching and of course, it paid off on Monday night with the New York Mets bouncing back from a 0-9 loss in Game 1 with a 6-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 2.
Saturday 12 October 2024
Roller-Coaster, Tight Pants, and Bromley Car Parks
It's hard to believe that next month I will have owned Tesla ($TSLA) for seven years. I've written about this investment several times since 2018 and although it had a terrible finish to the week yesterday, it's still up some 940% overall for me, but down about 12% so far this year.
Christopher DeVocht, a carpenter by day, successfully traded Tesla stock and options during the COVID-19 pandemic, when a record amount of stimulus helped stocks soar and drove a retail-trading boom.$65k to $306m to zero is quite an emotional roller-coaster. One commenter stated that:
At the end of 2019, DeVocht had C$88,000, or about $65,000, with the Royal Bank of Canada's brokerage division. At its peak in November 2021, according to the lawsuit, DeVocht's account grew to C$415 million, or about $306 million.
But DeVocht and his professional advisors didn't cash out and instead lost everything as a brutal bear market took hold in 2022, leading to staggering losses for his heavily concentrated portfolio.
Yeah I would never have made $300M. As soon as I hit $10M, I would have cashed out, set up an annuity or plopped it all into index funds and went fishing and mountain biking the rest of my life.
Easier said than done. While I'm a big fan of index funds and cycling, fishing - not so much, I suspect many people would struggle to call it quits on reaching $10M especially if that number is reached rapidly. It would be a nice problem to have, but very easy for that market driver of greed to take over.
With Kiké Hernández hitting a Home Run for the Los Angeles Dodgers as they eliminated the San Diego Padres last night, presumably while wearing his extra tight pants, and Elon Musk talking about car parks at the Tesla Robotaxi unveiling yesterday, I'd be missing a great opportunity if I didn't mention this post from a couple of years ago which addresses both car parks (Bromley Sainsbury's specifically) and baseball pant tightness.
Monday 7 October 2024
MLB Totals, Playoffs, and Ice Cream
It seems a long time ago now, but the issue I mentioned in the last post regarding the line for the Green Bay Packers @ Tennessee Titans has now been corrected, and the winning bet will now show up in the 'official' results.
Peter confirmed my thoughts, and my betting, writing:
That Green Bay spread line from Killer Sports is wrong. I placed my bet at +3 only a few minutes before the start and was watching the lines across the board until the kick offs and it didn't move into favouritism. And covers.com reports on the result: "Green Bay covered the spread of +3."
These calculations use the Pinnacle Dime line of -105 (1.952), but the system is historically profitable with the line as short as -123 (1.813):
Some of you may recall the UMPO system and while these low volume systems can be volatile in any one season and ROIs meaningless, historically the record is good, especially for qualifiers playing at Home and we have the first one for this season playing tonight.
It's often said that losing weight is 80% diet, 20% exercise but for me, calories ingested alone has a 91.1% correlation to weight loss, with exercise actually decreasing the correlation to 85.6%.
On a quarterly basis, if my average daily intake of calories is fewer than 2,230 I lose weight, as I do if I have fewer than 8 days a month with alcohol. It's that easy, but not very exciting.