Hoops – The successful strike rate

Welcome to Issue 4 of the NBA trading and betting. This week, a short write up is coming up for you about the numbers behind the successful NBA betting.

To achieve constant success in NBA betting, you need to know what „success” means by the language of numbers. The so-called „cappers” at the American sport handicapping services work with the spread and totals to provide their customers daily „guaranteed” picks. Those services often charge horrible sums for unproven results, so why don’t YOU turn your NBA knowledge into profit and save a decent part of your investment?

On the spread and totals markets the bookies offer us odds of -110 American or 1.91 decimal, which means you have to bet 110 units to win 100 or for every 100 unit you bet you win 91. Odds of 1.91 represent a probability around 52,36%, so our breakeven point would be a strike rate of 52,36% if we are straight betting on our selections (1 unit on each).  Whenever you correctly predict the real probability is above that %, you get a value bet. As a simple principle when you bet on a particular game, try to go for something that would happen 6 out of 10 times rather then making 50-50 calls.

So what strike rate can be considered successful? In terms of profit we say a 10% ROI is great in sports betting and that would assume a strike rate of 58% in our case. While anybody can blindly achieve a 50% strike rate long term on two-fold bets, you only need to raise this to 53% to show profit, and just a little further to reach the level of the pros. Professional bettors are always careful with their selections, but they are never afraid to put on 5-10 bets a day if they tend to find value. Remember, winning 55% of 1000 bets will always show more profit than winning 65% of 200 bets. Your expected strike rate is to be taken into account when setting your stake size. At 50% the Expected Losing Sequence (calculated by a mathematical formula) would be around 10-13,3, so staking with 2% of your bank is a safe choice.

The table below shows us the 11 teams that have profitable ATS results this season, stating how many units we would be up if we had been straight betting on them ATS all season. Opposing another 13 teams on the spread also shows profit. 9 teams have profitable over results, while 13 teams have profitbale under results.

You can find the full statistics here:

http://www.thespread.com/stats/nba/teamreport?div=&season=2011&sortby=atswinpct&teamid=

How to use Betfair to enhance your profits?

If you have a 5.00% commission rate on Betfair, you need to back at odds of at least 1.96 to end up with the same profit as of backing at 1.91 with a bookie. So whenever you average higher odds of 1.96 on Betfair with your NBA selections, you are lowering your breakeven point and ensuring more value. If you act in time, you can easily back spread and totals selections around 2.00, even when they are about to shorten due to line movements at the bookies. Remember, if the lines at the bookies and on Betfair are the same, never back a selection under 1.96 and never lay over 2.04.

Weekly pigeon catcher

2 weeks before the regular season ends, the teams still have 6-8 games to play. The Playoff matchups would look like the following (as of 1 April):

Eastern Conference Playoff Places

Miami (8-2 SU, 5-5 ATS recently) couldn’t overtake Boston (5-5 SU, 4-6 ATS) despite some below par performances from the Celtics. The Heat led by the Big 3 have some easy fixtures to end the regular season against the likes of Minnesota, New Jersey, Milwaukee and Toronto. They entertain the Celtics in Miami and visit the Atlanta Hawks in their only games against Playoff teams, so if they end their last 7 games worse than 6-1 SU, then forget about them for good and all in this years title race. Boston still face 5 Playoff teams, including the mentioned Heat, Hawks and the Bulls away, 76ers and Knicks at home. Experience shows they like to push at the end of the regular season to gain momentum and to be frank, given how terrible they played lately, only better performance could come from a team of their quality. I predict them to finish 6-2 SU and reaching the 2. spot in the East.

Western Conference Playoff Places

In the West you can see that Portland (6-4 SU, 6-4 ATS recently) and New Orleans (6-4 SU, 5-4-1 ATS recently) stand with the same record with the head to head results favouring the Hornets (3-1). Both teams have 5 home and 2 away games to play and altough the Blazers’ fixtures would seem tougher at first sight, in my opinion the Hornets will have more difficulties against the likes of Memphis, Houston and Dallas, and to top it all, key forward David West has pulled out for the rest of the season. The Blazers have more potential to cause upset than any of the 5.-8. seeded teams, so avoiding the top form Lakers in the first round will be essential.

Spurs struggle

In the last edition I recommended to oppose San Antonio and what a surprise they are 0-5 SU & 2-3 ATS since, that’s their worst run since 1997! Easier games are coming for them and their starters are back, but going against them on the spread is still recommended. Thanks to their bad run, title odds for the Spurs drifted from 8.6, and as I said last time, 9.6ish odds are already great value on the first seeded team in the West.

Title odds

Chicago continue to shorten on the title odds, 9.0 to 7.6 since Issue 3. I wouldn’t touch Boston’s price now, as they will either have an easy run over or a stiff battle against the Knicks should they hold on to their 2nd spot. A lot will depend on the momentum they can gain in their final 8 games. Jermaine O’neal is back and Shaq will also be available for the Playoffs – a massive boost this could be for the team.

No new article next week as I will be off, but watch out for the Playoffs edition the week after!

Gaby