I use stats for every bit of my sports betting. I'm very familiar with regression and trying to figure out the drivers, rsquared, etc and to predict who covers and who doesn't cover - the problem I find using regression or any type of statistical package - we don't know exactly what variables and the weight of each of those variables when it comes to what the line makers use to come up with the line. That being said - I bow my head and say they are extremely smart folks who have the time money, data etc to come up with a number that they feel is appropriate. Thus my evaluation doesn't argue about the line but rather uses it when it comes to taking the underdog or taking the favorite. For example, I will use the ranks for 6 categories - Off. Rushing, off. passing, def. rushing, def. passing, sagarin rank and sagarin sked. strength and then mimic history - let's look at last Thursdays game:
3 Indy 19 6 25 11 25 27 (52)
Jax 28 32 27 25 31 11 (42)
The 3 represents the opening line (exactly why 3 - I can't answer and nobody but the Odd maker themselves can with exact certainty). What I have found by trial and error and accumulating data in a spreadsheet since 2006 - that there are patterns you can use to predict future games. In this particular game - 5 categories Indy was better - thus I have what I call a 5/1 situation (in this particular case weighting doesn't matter). In addition to the numbers I have a composite of each teams sagarin - 52 for Indy and 42 for Jax (lower the better). What I have tracked in my spreadsheet - are previous games - when I go to my spreadsheet - what I see - in these scenarios - the away team covers and usually crushes - thus I took Indy. I even shared with the covers community in the nfl forum. All i'm trying to get across - you gotta look at the drivers but you also need to consider the vegas line - just doing regression or statistical analysis without considering the line will most likely lead to failure.
Ed-colins - if there is a program that would extract data from several websites and put them into a spreadsheet with a simple click - i'm willing to pay you - would save me a lot of time.
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