Glad to finally be back, and finally get things going for BBT. And for the first ever post for 2011, here's a lil' challenge I have for myself this season. But before anything else, let me lay down the basic 411 first.
Ever heard "+5.5", or "-3.5" in basketball betting? Well, say there's a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Philippine Patriots (a promotional game perhaps? I dunno. hey, this is my hypothetical scenario, so, bite me). Not to take anything away from the Filipino representatives in the ABL, but I think I can bet my neighbor's dog that the Lakers will win this thing. And so it won't be much of a bet if we are just trying to figure out who will win. Everyone will bet on the Lakers. And so the Bets loggers of the basketball world thought of a way to fix this.
The Spread is actually the handicap that a team will have even before the game starts. So if I say "Lakers -20.5", that means the Lakers' score will be subtracted by 20.5 even before the game starts. So if I bet on the Lakers, they will have to win by 21 pts for me to win the bet. And so if the Lakers win with a final score of just 100-90, those who bet on the Patriots still win the bet, because LA wasn't able to cover the spread.
Why the .5?
Because if the spread was just -20, had the final score been 100-80, that would essentially be 80-80, hence a tie. So to break that tie, the spread always has a 0.5.
What's the difference between a plus and a minus?
A 7yr-old can answer this. A plus adds to a score, and a minus subtracts from it.
Captain Obvious aside though, this is basically a glass-half-full-glass-half-empty thing. If TEAM A has a +5.5, that means the opposing team has a -5.5. So if a team has a plus, that means that team is NOT favored to win. So don't celebrate that your team has a +20.5 on it. That means, some people are convinced they can beat your team by more than 20pts.
THE TOTALS
There is however, another way to bet on basketball. The over/under line. This one doesn't pick a side, but just bets on the total score of 2 teams. If you bet 190-over on the Lakers-Patriots game, it doesn't matter who wins, the total of the 2 teams' score just has to be 191 and above. Those betting "under" wins if the total is at most 189. If the final score is 96-94 though, no-one wins. So there is also a .5 in totals sometimes.
The spread and a the totals scheme are actually a bit more complicated, just primarily because of the money involved. I won't go into that anymore though since I'm not a money man myself.
THE BETS-LOG CHALLENGE
Since the start of the season, I put a spread on each game, and pick a team to win. I determine my own spread based primarily on, well, nothing, it's just instinct. I cover every game everyday, so I trust my judgment (most of the time).
Why don't I have an external source for the spreads?
I would actually rather have that. But not every game has a spread on other betting sites. And like I said, I bet on every single game.
Why the heck do you do this thing?
Like I said, there's no money involved. I just do this to determine how well I could predict games. If I get other contributors here however, maybe we can have some sort of wager if ever one side loses. Hmmm...
The spread would look like this:
TEAM A (W-L record) vs TEAM B (W-L record): <TEAM I WOULD BET ON> <SPREAD>
For simplicity's sake, the spread is already actually the team I would bet on.
THE SCORE SO FAR
So far into the season, I'm at 154-127 (I missed a few days, especially this holiday season), which is about 55%. Of the 154 wins, 11 were spot-on (won by .5), and of the 127 loses, 8 were heart-breakers (lost by just .5). If there were no spread involved, and just a matter of predicting which teams would win, I'm actually at 193-88 (about 70%).
THE BETS-LOG: 010211
Finally, let's log the bets! This'll be (hopefully) a daily thing. I'll recap the score for yesterday, and give-out my bets for the day. I won't explain as to why the spread is such, let's not spoil the previews.
Since this is the first ever post, let's just bet for tomorrow. Here are the spreads for tomorrow's games:
IND (14-17) at NYK (18-14): KNICKS -4.5
ATL (21-14) at LAC (10-23): HAWKS -7.5
BOS (24-7) at TOR (11-21): RAPTORS -2.5
DAL (24-8) at CLE (8-25): MAVERICKS -3.5
HOU (16-16) at POR (17-16): ROCKETS -3.5
PHO (14-17) at SAC (6-24): SUNS -5.5
MEM (14-19) at LAL (23-10): LAKERS -6.5
Agree? Disagree? Just say so in the comments below. Best of luck Bets-loggers!
No comments:
Post a Comment