DO NOT BUY POINTS IN BASKETBALL - Huge Statistical Data Write-up Included

Allow me to show you why point buying is NOT worth it in college basketball.

To understand this, please understand that YOU ARE NOT A PSYCHIC and you can NOT ONLY PICK THE "GAMES WHERE POINT BUYING WILL MATTER".

People will claim this: "Point buying has made me money A LOT of the times that I have bought points."

A LOT of the time?!?!?  I think not (I will show you what percentage of games it will change the outcome of your push or loss)...again, you are not psychic and you do not pick the majority of games where the POINTS ACTUALLY MATTER.

Matter of fact, you are only donating money to your book.

Allow me to pull a sample of 1 whole day of college basketball games on the busiest day of the week, a Saturday.

I pulled the ATS points covered by off of VegasInsider.com because they were the most thorough in stats that I could find.

In this statistical date, basketball is scored on a linear graph where you can make points in increments of 1, 2, or 3 points (and some times 4 in rare cases) where as in football it is NOT linear where teams score in increments of MOSTLY 3 and 7 and in some cases 2 and very rare cases of 1 (as seen this year in the NFL).  Football is NOT linear and therefore is very difficult to put statistical data together as to whether point buying is beneficial or not to your bankroll....so A CASE COULD BE MADE THAT POINT BUYING IS WORTH IT IN FOOTBALL.

BUT HERE IS THE DATA IN BASKETBALL:

Saturday January 19th, 2013

111 games played
222 teams played
3 games pushed and ended at exact spread where ANY amount of point buying would have changed it from a push to a win, so 6 teams out of 222 (2.7% of bets/sides) where point buying would have won you money instead of just push
18 total games/teams where point buying Could Have changed whether you won or pushed on a game instead of LOST.

Here are the 22 games where a team covered by 3 points or less:

Younstown St @ UW-Milwaukee             PUSH
Elon @ Wofford                                     PUSH
Akron @ Kent                                       PUSH
Whichita St over Creighton                    +0.5
TX-El Paso over SMU                           +0.5
Providence over Villanova                      +0.5
Cal Poly SLO over Santa Barbara          +0.5
Iowa St. over TX Christian                     +1
Mich. St. over Ohio St.                         +1
Denver over utah St.                             +1
Colorado St. over UNLV                        +1
Pepperdine over Santa Clara                 +1
Davidson over Col. of Charleston           +1
Kansas St. over Oklahoma                   +1.5
Wake over VA Tech                             +2
SanFran over Loyola Maryland             +2
BYU over Sand Diego                          +2
Uconn over Pitt                                   +2.5
Central Florida over Houston                +2.5
Bowling Green over Buffalo                  +2.5
Troy over FL Int.                                 +3
Wright St. over Valparaiso                   +3

Buy 0.5 Points (-120)
Win on the 3 games that pushed, so 6 teams that could have won instead of pushed...BUT you wouldn't bet on both teams in those games, so really it would only change the outcome from a push to a win in 3 bets, but I'll include the FULL 6 just to boost ALL THE PERCENTAGES HIGHER THAN THEY REALLY SHOULD BE...so technically any percentages that I spell out for you are HIGHER than they should be and should be 3 bets/teams shorter in the stats.
Push on the 3 losers against the spread that DIDN'T cover by 0.5 points (Creighton, SMU, Santa Barbara, and Villanova). It would NOT have made a difference had you bought 0.5 points for the team that ALREADY covered the spread.

So in conclusion of buying a half a point:
Buying 0.5 points would have won you money instead of push 6 times out of 222 teams (really just 3 out of 222 because you wouldn't bet on both teams in 1 game, but I'll state again that I'm adding in the extra 3 games just for the "nay-sayers" benefit) or 2.7% of the time
Buying 0.5 points would have allowed you to PUSH instead of LOSE (1.35% of the time)

Now that you understand how I'm explaining buying points and the percentages, I'm just going to state the numbers for the rest of the 5 OTHER point buying scenarios:

Buy 1 Point (-130)
Win 10 bets (4.5%)
Push 6 bets (2.7%)

Buy 1.5 Points (-140)
Win 16 bets (7.2%)
Push 1 bet (0.45%)

Buy 2 Points (-155)
Win 17 bets (7.66%)
Push 3 bets (1.35%)

Buy 2.5 Points (-175)
Win 20 bets (9%)
Push 3 bets (1.35%)

Buy 3 Points (-195)
Win 23 bets (10.36%)
Push 2 bets (0.9%)

TexasD, I appreciate your info and your statistics as always, but SOMETIMES, it's necessary to buy points...

So, in conclusion, if you buy 3 points in basketball, you are practically Winning only Half of what you bet or Losing Twice as much for a return of only 11.26% of the time it will even change the outcome of a loss or a push.

Also notice who the point buying is linear from 0.5 points to 3 points but the tax is NOT, they charge 20 cents of the dollar just to go from buying 2.5 points to 3!!!  If you buy points, YOUR BOOK LOVES YOU.

Buying points is just another way to make money off of you....think about it....if point buying was BENEFICIAL TO YOU, would the money hungry books and Vegas even give you the OPTION of buying points?!?!? Think about it.

HERE IS MY BIGGEST THOUGHTS ON BUYING POINTS:

IF YOU ARE BUYING POINTS:

#1....IT IS NOT A STRONG PLAY FOR YOU AND YOU HAVE NO BELIEF IN YOUR PICK

#2....IF YOU REGULARLY BUY 3 POINTS, YOU MAY WIN OR PUSH 11.26% MORE OF YOUR BETS, BUT THEN YOU ARE WINNING LESS MONEY OR LOSING MORE THE REST OF THE 88.74% OF YOUR BETS WHERE YOU BOUGHT 3 POINTS AND IT DIDN'T MATTER.

#3....YOUR BOOK AND VEGAS BOTH LOVE YOU AND IT IS NOT BENEFICIAL TO YOUR BANKROLL, IT ACTUALLY HURTS YOUR EARNINGS

#4....IF YOU ARE BUYING POINTS, YOU THINK IT'S GOING TO BE A CLOSE GAME ATS.....WHY ARE YOU BETTING ON SUCH A SHITTY PICK WHERE YOU ARE SCARED YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE UNLESS YOU BUY POINTS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

#5.....ALL YOU ARE BUYING IS PIECE OF MIND SO THAT YOU DON'T SWEAT THE GAME OUT AS MUCH....THAT'S IT...THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE BUYING,....PIECE OF MIND AND LESS STRESS ON A SHITTY/WEAK PICK

FRESH, always good to here from ya brother, but that "SOMETIMES" where it is "NECESSARY" doesn't make any sense.

Please explain to me where point buying IS NECESSARY and what kind of percentage you believe it changes the outcome in a bet out of all the times you bought points.

Let's say you looked back at the last 50 times you bought points in basketball and give me a percentage where buying those points ACTUALLY changed the outcome of your bet...i guarantee it'll be 15% or less of the time in BASKETBALL.

As for Tennis:

Prop bet of Serena to win Australian Open at -134
Prop bet of Andy Murray to NOT win Australian Open at -317
And the more expensive bets:
Novak Djokovic over Tomas Berdych
Maria Sharapova over Ekaterina Makarova

I would NOT bet on an ALL-SPANISH match after David Ferrer put on a PINK t-shirt for the 2nd set of the World Tour Finals 2 years ago

I would NOT bet on Na Li and Agnieszka Radwanska because THAT IS GOING TO BE AN AWESOME MATCH TO WATCH!!!!!!

Best of Luck

I buy 1 or 2 points, probably once or twice in a month. I think it is okey to buy points sometimes, especially with a small spread. It is about picking up the right spot...

It helps me when I do it, everything is always about which games you pick.

So would that make you the first person to claim that they are psychic and that you ONLY buy points on the 11.26% of the bets on the board and that you NEVER buy points on games where 88.73% of the time where the points would NOT have mattered?

Not trying to be an behind buy asking that last paragraph, just no other way to ask it.  What do you mean by "it helps me when I do it" and and what does it mean that it is "about what games you pick"?

Never done it..doesn't make much sense in ballball

The problem with your advice is you used one day, in a bball season . There are over 7500 games a year and you used 111 games . Do the whole season,see what happens.

I did this last year also and I pick Saturdays because it has the biggest sampling of games.  I am FAR from wanting to do 7500 games worth of stats man....ONE Saturday was a LOT of work JUST TO BRING YOU GUYS THE STATS AND ADVICE THAT MAY HELP YOUR GAMBLING SKILLS,...NOT MINE, I ALREADY KNOW THIS STUFF, MY TIME AND EFFORT IS  NOT FOR ME,...BUT FOR ALL OF YOU WHO CLICK AND READ.

You are MORE THAN WELCOME to do all 7500 games! If you think doing all 7,500 games will change the stats much, you are far from right!  I implore you to do 7,500 games and prove me wrong!

The HIGHEST percentage that I have ever done on a Saturday was just under 15% for buying 3 points, the overall average of a sampling is between 10-15%.

ONE day of college basketball and 222 games of sifting through data is a GREAT SIZE sampling...if you don't understand the idea of a "sample" and it's importance, then you are more than welcome to do all 7,500 games and show me how the average of buying 3 points is NOT between 10-15% where it matters and 85-90% where you are ONLY WASTING MONEY or WINNING LESS.

Best of Luck!

I WILL however do some more Saturday stats in the future to add to the overall stats.

What REALLY MATTERS is LOOKING AT YOUR BETS IN BASKETBALL WHERE YOU HAVE BOUGHT POINTS, find out which games where it mattered (10-15% on 3 points) and which games it didn't (85-90% on 3 points), figure out HOW MUCH EXTRA MONEY you put lost or how LESS MONEY YOU WON, and see for yourself if you are a "psychic" and hit over 15% of the games WHERE IT MATTERED.

Again, I didn't do all this research and statistical data for MY benefit, I'm just OPENING EYES and helping bettors to GIVE LESS TO THEIR BOOKS.

Best of Luck

Opinions and thought are more than welcome in my threads whether you agree or disagree with me

nice read man, im fairly new to online books. so are you saying teasers are sucker bets? coz what i do, i get my two best plays for the day(nba) and buy 5-6 pts making sure it pays out even money.

Like the jokavich match to win but in 4 sets joker might b still tired from the five set

Nope, I simply usually buy more points than 3 and put them in a parlay, I dont normally buy for just one team.

The only place I buy points is in the NFL for obv reasons...

And I'll say it once more,...I DID include an extra 3 games in the stats, so the percentages are 3 games higher than they should be.

In the 3 games where they PUSHED on the actual spread, i should only have counted 3 teams/bets where buying the points would have made a push into a win because nobody is going to bet on BOTH TEAMS in the ONE GAME. So all percentages are higher than they really should be, but none the less, there WERE 6 teams in those 3 games that pushed, that COULD HAVE had points bought to make a push into a win.

What do you guys think of my statistical data on point buying?

VERY interesting read as I too am new to online betting forums...always felt like, its my money, why let others decide. lol.  

Never even set foot in Texas, Wisconsin my whole life.  When I made my screen name and joined covers.com, I was really high on the Texas Longhorns men's basketball team when they had Tristan Thompson and Jordan Hamilton and the whole Texas Defense they had,...but then they let me down in the NCAA Tournament,...along with St. John's Red Storm that year. Two teams I thought were great teams and were undervalued, but apparently didn't have what it took to go deep in the Big Dance.

...and Corey Joseph from that year's Longhorn team

Here is a thought for the people who think that there are "certain" games where it is beneficial to buy points:

Would anybody be willing to make picks on college basketball games buying 3 points?

I would do all the stats on it to show that buying 3 points is only going to change about 10-15% of the bets made while 85-90% of the time they are paying -195 odds where they Win Half of what they bet or lose Twice As Much money as they would have had he/she just taken the -110 line as is.

PICK THE GAMES WHERE 3 POINTS WILL MATTER

A few questions for point buyers:

1. Does buying points show how WEAK of a play you are placing your money on? I mean, why do you need to buy points if it IS A GOOD/STRONG PICK?

2. Do you feel "better" or have Less Anxiety after you Buy Points?

3. Does buying points give you Confidence?

I buy points once in a while. One of the books I use it's minus 165 or 170 to buy 3 points, depending on the game. Minus 105 on regular spread. Got me a win on Oklahoma tonight. Mostly do it on 4 to 8 point spreads when on the favorite. Agree with the premise of your post for sure. Along the same line as teasers in college football being much worse value wise than in the NFL.

What do you guys think of my statistical data on point buying?
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i agree buying points is for peace of mind and the same for playing big moneyline faves