Quote Originally Posted by sandique:
Rubbish.
-250 (10k to win 4k) represents a probability of 71.43%. Therefore the opposite side to that represents a probability of 28.57%.
If someone had revealed the future before he placed his bet and said the Flyers were only going to score 1 goal while Holtby was in net, then -250 would've represented fantastic value, because the probability of the Flyers shutting out Washington at home was nowhere near as high as 28.57%. In 41 road games this season the Flyers shut out 2 teams, one of which wasn't even good enough to make the playoffs. That's a rate of 1 road shutout every 20.5 road games played = a probability of 4.65%. Washington, on the other hand, was not shutout at home by any Eastern Conference team this entire season. They were shutout 3 times at home by Western teams, but one of those results was the final game of the reg. season (which was irrelevant from the Caps pov, so is not relevant here), so that leaves 2 relevant home shutout losses in 40 games, a rate almost exactly the same as the Flyers: 1 every 20 games. Finally, Caps had been 13-0 @home this season prior to this game 5 when holding their opponent to 1 non-EN goal in regulation.
That ckattar8 didn't know the Flyers were going to be held to 1 goal w/Holtby in net is irrelevant. Washington managed the feat, and that feat - based upon the Flyers defensive road efforts & the Cap's offensive home efforts this season - would normally have cashed his ticket 95% of the time. 95% probability is obviously far in excess of the probability that -250 odds represent, therefore he got tremendous value based upon the defensive effort achieved by the Capitals. Unfortunately for him he got that rare 'black swan' result, the kind of outlier result that's so stupid as to be negligible re one's expectations for how any event might pan out.
That people (not just at this site) continually see significant minus odds and just fail to compute that they can represent tremendous value just defies logic. It's one thing to have an aversion to betting such lines, it's quite another to fail to register they can & do routinely represent value.
Which part of your rectum did you pull that 95% figure? There is a reason the books think its 71.4% implied probability, Washington is not that much better than the Flyers, otherwise you would see odds like the ones Golden State gets in the NBA. They know what they are doing, the house always has the advantage, playing with juice is the equivalent to playing with fire....eventually its going to burn you.
Lets say you bet $200 per game (this is assuming you are not a moron and you dont increase your bets after a big loss & chase your way to bankruptcy).
200 x -250 = 280 -- > profit: 80
Lets say you are in the top 10% of cappers and you pick your spots masterfully with these -250s and you win at a 70% clip in the long run. For the sake of proving my point, 100 bets:
Wins (70 x 80) - Losses (200 x 30) = - 400
Congrats, you ran negative picking 70% of your games correctly because thats the definition of an implied probably of 71.4%, you need to hit at a higher rate than that to start profiting.
Trust me...I ve been doing this for a long time now, there is not a chance on gods green earth you will hit at a 80% clip in hockey picking -200s.