matthearn.com

A nice football weekend for me, I went 3-4, picking all the spread winners and only missing my money-line selection on Dallas, although in my defense even a spread pick on them would have failed since Brett Favre made them his prison girlfriend. Thoughts that occurred to me:

• I picked Dallas to win outright because they were getting 2.5 points; since Vegas usually allocates 3 points to the home team, that meant they considered the Vikes and Cowgirls to be roughly equal on neutral turf. Since Dallas mopped the floor with the Eagles (theoretically also a pretty good team) twice in a row, they should be able to keep up with the Vikings, right? Uh…no. This train of thought naturally leads to “I guess the Eagles weren’t even remotely good,” which shouldn’t really surprise me, but still depresses the hell out of me considering I don’t see them adding anything of value for 2010.


• I love, repeat love, close money-line games. Which makes sense: if you think Dallas is going to cover 2.5 points, they almost certainly are going to win, right? What are the odds they lose by 2 points? Well, so far there have been 264 games this year, and 16 of them (roughly 6%) have been closer than 3 points. So historically, the odds of the Cowboys covering a 2.5 point spread and not winning the game are no more than 6% (since that value would also include situations where the Cowboys win by less than 3). A spread wager was the usual -110 (you would have to wager $110 to win $100, or if you wager $100 you win about $91), but the money line on the Cowboys was +120 (wagering a hundo nets you $120).

  
  Okay. Bear with me, it’s about to get Mathy up in this piece. Say the Cowboys and Vikings were to play the same game 100 times with the same players in the same conditions each time (say in a Many Worlds theory kinda thing). And assume that Vegas sets the spread at 2.5 because they know there’s a 50% chance of Dallas covering (they don’t, but from a consumer point of view it might as well be true). One guy bets a hundred bucks on each of the games, on Dallas to cover. He stands to get $91 from each game he wins, which happens 50% of the time, or 50 times. He wins, therefore, 91*50, or $4550. (Technically he also gets back his original outlay on those 50 wins, or another 5 grand, so his total is $9550, a pretty crappy investment of 10 thousand buckeroos.) So for one game, his expected return is $95.50.

  
  But: in 2009, 6% of games ended with a score closer than 3 (including the aforementioned underdog winners) If that’s true, then in at least 94% of the 100 games against Minnesota in which Dallas covered, they won. That’s 47 wins out of 50 covers (since we’re assuming they cover in half the games). So there’s another guy, a smarter guy, who wagered $100 that Dallas wins each of the hundred games outright, he wins $120 times 47 or $5640. Added to the original $4700 outlay for the wins (he’d obviously lose $5300 on the losses), he would total $10,340. Divided over a hundred games, he’d expect to earn at least $103.40 per game!

  
  I’m sure I’ve broken your brain. Mine is spinning. Just know that, in 2009 (plus the playoffs), if you wagered on 2.5 (or less) point underdogs to win outright, you probably won money, even though this particular Dallas pick was not good. Unfortunately, next week’s lines are -8 (Colts over Jets) and -4.5 (Saints over Vikes), so I’m not seeing money-line bargains, although if you don’t think the Colts can outscore the Jets by 8 points you are probably high.