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So you're at the casino (pretend we're not in a pandemic) and you want to get a bite to eat whilst still gambling. This is where the Sports Book comes into play! You go over, say "I'll take the Kings +200", grab your ticket, and take a seat in front of the wall of 20 TVs with tickers underneath while eating your disgusting Smashburger. Which sport did you bet on? What does the +200 refer to? Why are all these TVs in Standard Definition? Well, this is the OP, so I'm going to answer one of those questions. How to Gamble on Sports (or: What Over/Under Actually Means, You Goddamn Morons) There are three primary forms of betting: moneyline, spread, and over/under. -Moneyline is the most basic form of bet, being that math is not involved - all you have to do is pick a winner, and you're done. In books, these will be presented as +/- a number in the hundreds, with the number being based around a bet of 100 of your local currency. ML of -125 means you have to bet 125 to win 100, while ML of +125 means betting 100 wins you 125.EXAMPLE: Who would win in a fight, Superman or Goku? -Spread is like moneyline, but more fun, because there is a threshold or 'line' that is placed favoring one team. The final score plus or minus the line equals whether you won or not. EXAMPLE: Who would win in a fight, Superman or SSJ Goku? -Over/under is related to the total number of points scored in a game, regardless of which team scores them. There's one number given to a game, and it's going to be either more or less than that (unless it's a push, where it's exactly the number). EXAMPLE: How many punches would connect if Superman fought Goku? How to Gamble on Sports Like a Pro If you think you've got the handle on that, there are plenty of other kinds of bets you typically can place on a game, such as the following: -Parlays are bets tied to other bets. You only win if all of your bets come in right. EXAMPLE: Who would win the following fights: Superman fighting Goku and Martian Manhunter fighting Piccolo? -Teasers are parlays for people who like to live dangerously. The odds are set better or worse depending on how much you want to gamble. EXAMPLE: Who would win the following fights: Superman with Kryptonite poisoning fighting Goku and Martian Manhunter fighting armless Piccolo? -Prop bets are side wagers given to mundane things that get magnified in significant games. EXAMPLE: When Superman and Goku fight, will Sonic the Hedgehog show up AND eat a chili dog? How Not to Gamble on Sports As someone who has won thousands of dollars on football, I have a few basic principals: -Don't poo poo where you eat. Betting on (or against) your own team might FEEL like a slam dunk, but it's not. Fandom gets in the way of determining whether or not Team A can beat Team B by X amount of points, which I learned the hard way when I put all my money on Texas State to beat New Mexico State a few years ago  -Don't bet based on one team's performance. Upsets happen every day, so you not only need to know who you're betting FOR, but also who you're betting AGAINST. -Don't follow the leader. I've seen so many good people put their faith all at once that Goliath will beat David, and what do you know, David wins. If you aren't confident in a match-up, look for a different one - I routinely clean up betting on less cared about affairs. -Future wagers aren't that fun, especially more than six months out of a championship. -DFS is 95% suckers, and that includes you if you play DFS. -Don't bet on Los Angeles Rams games (this is not a joke, don't bet on them to either win or lose). Where to Get More Information Literally everywhere. Here in the States, we've got daily shows on FS1 and ESPN2 devoted to sports betting, and SiriusXM has their own radio channel for talking about it. Any website or mobile app that gives sports scores and schedules will give you the odds, so I don't see how you can miss it. Please note that this OP only gives consideration to team sports - individual sports (such as tennis and golf) are much simpler in the realm of gambling. Horse racing, that's a WHOLE other thread.... Edward Mass fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Mar 17, 2022 |
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Jan 11, 2021 09:00
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Wat. Why.
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Jan 11, 2021 09:22
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If you live in a state that recently legalized sports gambling online (i.e. TN, where I am), there is a lot of free money available to you! I am still seeing ads of extremely generous sign up bonuses, as well as constant (weekly?) free money bets such as +100 "Will any team score a TD on wild card weekend". I have also seen weekly "spread the love" things where they increase the spread based on how many people bet on the home team. This is an extremely local thing, but I'm positive they have it everywhere. Earlier this year, I got Vanderbilt +73 in college football. It was a nail-biter, but I did win the bet. They're probably slowing down now that football is done, but they still are probably going to do generous promos to get people to bet on Hockey and Baseball when it returns.
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Jan 11, 2021 15:29
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One of the most important things (if it's available to you depending on your region) is betting at the best odds as well. Most people don't bother with that and if you are doing individual bets then sure betting at +126 against +129 or +131 doesn't seem like a big deal in terms of convenience. But over the course of a season it can be a big factor. A lot depends on the sport of course. NFL you won't see too many differences or NBA but in sports like NHL there can be. As an example for last years NHL season - I had a bad season betting wise. If I had went with the widely available lines, I would have ended up the season at a -4u loss. Due to always betting the best odds, it was a +2u profit. My general average for an NHL season is about 25u profit so still crappy but I'll take a winning season over a losing season anytime and that little bit extra work betting the best odds was the reason for that.
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Jan 11, 2021 17:46
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Hi, thanks for the informative thread. I'm so much of a noob that I had to google what "DFS" stands for since I honestly had no idea. (It's Daily Fantasy Sports if I got it right.) I am interested in learning all these terms my friends use, so I especially appreciated your Superman and Goku examples. I may just be extra dumb, but I read the whole post and didn't actually see an explanation of what the "+200" means and what it means if the numbers are different. Could you please explain that?
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Jan 11, 2021 18:54
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Whats the under/over on how many people are gonna gently caress up using u/o in this thread? I say 50% 
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Jan 11, 2021 18:56
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This is a nice intro thread, the only thing I would say is you don't really explain how betting works if people are complete beginners. For example, your question, "What does the +200 refer to?" is never explained. So what does +200 mean? And also you should note that that's generally limited to US betting sites. In the UK, probably the largest gambling country, they use fractional odds to display their odds. Or whatever it is, I haven't been in the country in 5-6 years so it may have changed with Brexit. Also the example in the spread could be fleshed out more as well, since the point of a spread is to balance what the market perceives as one side being the favorite. For example, Lakers -3.5 means they are favored, but if you're a beginner how do you figure out if you won the bet or not (some example about adding -3.5 to the Lakers final score and seeing if they still win or something). Thank you for starting up these threads though since it does take a long time to write up intro threads.
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Jan 11, 2021 18:58
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Baggot posted:Hi, thanks for the informative thread. I'm so much of a noob that I had to google what "DFS" stands for since I honestly had no idea. (It's Daily Fantasy Sports if I got it right.) I am interested in learning all these terms my friends use, so I especially appreciated your Superman and Goku examples. +200 is the odds, specially American style odds. If you bet $100 you will win $200($300 total including your original bet). -110 odds means you need to bet $110 to win $100($210 including your bet). Odds can also be in decimal or fractional form which is where you just take your bet and multiply it by the odd to get your winnings. DariusLikewise fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Jan 11, 2021 |
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Jan 11, 2021 18:59
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DariusLikewise posted:+200 is the odds, specially American style odds. If you bet $100 you will win $200($300 total including your original bet). -110 odds means you need to bet $110 to win $110($210 including your bet). Odds can also be in decimal or fractional form which is where you just take your bet and multiply it by the odd to get your winnings. Thank you! So are all those + and - numbers based on $100 bets? I'm a bit confused by the minus example. For -110, if you bet $110 you win $110? Shouldn't that be $220 total?
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Jan 11, 2021 19:14
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Baggot posted:Thank you! So are all those + and - numbers based on $100 bets? I'm a bit confused by the minus example. For -110, if you bet $110 you win $110? Shouldn't that be $220 total? Yes, it's all based around winning $100. -110 means I am betting $110 to win $100. A negative value implies that bet is favored so requires betting more money to win $100
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Jan 11, 2021 19:26
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So my brother has been writing semi-professionally about fantasy hockey and golf for the last couple years. He's been tweaking a betting model for the NHL for quite a while but last year he decided it was worth using as of about December. I started in February and used it until the season got called in March, and I cashed out several thousand dollars up. Despite knowing it was a bad idea as there was not enough data and the model wasn't designed for 7 game series, I then burned away like $200 of my winnings in the playoffs. I'm looking forward to starting again in a couple weeks though. Will let the model run for probably 3 weeks before we start it. Stats from the main season below: quote:Wins 123 Gonna do the same thing this year, but might do a bit more looking around for better lines. I just used bodog for everything. I know that there are sits that pay out when a team is up 3-0 which would have made me at least a grand because of Montreal doing that like three times. The model was in love with heavy Montreal bets.
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Jan 11, 2021 19:44
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Baggot posted:Thank you! So are all those + and - numbers based on $100 bets? I'm a bit confused by the minus example. For -110, if you bet $110 you win $110? Shouldn't that be $220 total? Sorry the second 110 is a typo, as said by Strong Sauce on -110 odds you bet $110 to win $100. This doesn't mean you have to bet in $100 increments either you can bet whatever, the $100 is just where the American odds system adds up nicely.
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Jan 11, 2021 20:01
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The mixed martial arts betting thread if people really want to be stupid (don't bet on MMA, folks)
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Jan 11, 2021 21:23
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try the new taco place posted:If you live in a state that recently legalized sports gambling online (i.e. TN, where I am), there is a lot of free money available to you! I am still seeing ads of extremely generous sign up bonuses, as well as constant (weekly?) free money bets such as +100 "Will any team score a TD on wild card weekend". I have also seen weekly "spread the love" things where they increase the spread based on how many people bet on the home team. This is an extremely local thing, but I'm positive they have it everywhere. Earlier this year, I got Vanderbilt +73 in college football. It was a nail-biter, but I did win the bet. They're probably slowing down now that football is done, but they still are probably going to do generous promos to get people to bet on Hockey and Baseball when it returns. made like $9k on various NJ sites doing just this the past 5-6 months, just be sure not to overdo it or you're gonna get limited hard.
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Jan 11, 2021 21:32
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Do sports betting odds change as more people place their bets? Or are they just set by the sports book and that’s just what they are? I’ve only placed a few bets myself on baseball and ended up winning some minor cash without really knowing anything about what I was doing
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Jan 11, 2021 21:44
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Tetramin posted:Do sports betting odds change as more people place their bets? Or are they just set by the sports book and that’s just what they are? They change over time as bets come in. In some cases, pretty drastically. I've definitely had games become unprofitable by the time I go to bet, if I don't hit it when the line comes out. For others - what are good sites to use? Bodog has been fine for getting bonuses, but the odds are kind of rough at times. Though they don't do bonuses, Pinnacle odds seem really good and it seems easy to get money in and out. I figure I want to try to run at least two sites this season.
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Jan 11, 2021 21:58
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Jordan7hm posted:They change over time as bets come in. In some cases, pretty drastically. I've definitely had games become unprofitable by the time I go to bet, if I don't hit it when the line comes out. If you're in a state that its legal I've had some minor complaints with Draftkings especially to get the option for teasers but other then that its a good app and you can get your money out via paypal and they're pretty quick.
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Jan 11, 2021 22:02
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Draftkings is bad when there is heavy action. The site will not survive march madness. Luckily every riverboat in Indiana has an online site you can use, lol.
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Jan 11, 2021 22:08
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How do professional sports gamblers like James Holzhauer make their money?
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Jan 11, 2021 23:36
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I would blow Dane Cook posted:How do professional sports gamblers like James Holzhauer make their money? He's an insanely smart mathematician that built a predictive model for all major sports leagues, simple stuff. OSU +9 seems like the best bet tonight for the CFP Championship, Saban is 0-4 ATS the CFP title game.
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Jan 12, 2021 00:04
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I'm gonna come up with a map of legal states and what their status is probably tonight or tomorrow for Edward Mass to throw in the OP
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Jan 12, 2021 00:12
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What's your lock of the week?
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Jan 12, 2021 00:22
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try the new taco place posted:If you live in a state that recently legalized sports gambling online (i.e. TN, where I am), there is a lot of free money available to you! I am still seeing ads of extremely generous sign up bonuses, as well as constant (weekly?) free money bets such as +100 "Will any team score a TD on wild card weekend". I have also seen weekly "spread the love" things where they increase the spread based on how many people bet on the home team. This is an extremely local thing, but I'm positive they have it everywhere. Earlier this year, I got Vanderbilt +73 in college football. It was a nail-biter, but I did win the bet. They're probably slowing down now that football is done, but they still are probably going to do generous promos to get people to bet on Hockey and Baseball when it returns. Yeah there is, I made $4k in like the last three months of 2020 and $1k so far in 2021 and I haven’t even hit about half of them. I just roll money out of one app and into the next, milk the promos and free bets and move on. Leave enough in to take advantage of free money bets. FoxBet is next up now that I’ve gotten about $1200 from BetMGM. It’s supposed to end soon, but Fanduels Single Game Parlay insurance is highly exploitable. Min 3 legs and total odds must be +200, and if you miss one leg you get your bet back. Well you can find alt lines with odds up to -20000 so just pick two of those, and then pick your poison on the third. I’ve made about $1500 from this easy, despite sadly only discovering it in December. It’s set to expire at the end of the month but I hope they extend it.
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Jan 12, 2021 00:28
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I would blow Dane Cook posted:What's your lock of the week? NYI -110 over NYR for Thursday's game. If hockey confuses you, I'd suggest picking the Browns +10.
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Jan 12, 2021 01:50
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i wonder if there's a space in this forum for a thread to detail stories of dealing with the willfully uneducated and stupid that we come across in this industry, as both bettors and vendors
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Jan 12, 2021 02:45
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JOHN CENA posted:i wonder if there's a space in this forum for a thread to detail stories of dealing with the willfully uneducated and stupid that we come across in this industry, as both bettors and vendors Did you guys do bets on the presidential election? Did you have a lot of people whining that it wasn't over yet etc?
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Jan 12, 2021 02:51
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Stefan Prodan posted:Did you guys do bets on the presidential election? Did you have a lot of people whining that it wasn't over yet etc? Elections aren't wagerable in Nevada. Only sanctioned sporting events are. We did get a decent number of people trying to though, including one of our poker regulars trying to drop 25k on Trump the day of. STING 64 fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jan 12, 2021 |
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Jan 12, 2021 03:11
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JOHN CENA posted:i wonder if there's a space in this forum for a thread to detail stories of dealing with the willfully uneducated and stupid that we come across in this industry, as both bettors and vendors Yes absolutely there is.
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Jan 12, 2021 03:25
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Anyone here experienced in modelling sports with the goal of making money in sports betting? A megathread about the subject would be of interest to me. I'm a complete beginner and haven't laid a single bet yet so I'm not doing it. I got interested in the subject after reading "The Logic Of Sports Betting" by Ed Miller. It explains all the basic concepts of profitable betting really well in my opinion. I have been recently developing my own models, and while like I said I haven't laid a single bet yet, it's pretty interesting in its own right. If there is anyone experienced in the subject I have a question I haven't really found an answer for online. While back-testing your model what kind of performance in terms of raw accuracy and log-loss are you looking for when comparing to the raw accuracy and log-loss of the bookmakers. My model is approaching (and maybe even passed?) the accuracy of some of the sharper bookmakers and I'm wondering if this would be enough for profitable betting?
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Jan 12, 2021 12:26
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I'm curious what sharper folks think about a place like Sportsline? I don't mean to shill for it, I got a free subscription for it with something else, and I read/skim it every day, but don't necessarily take their picks as gospel.
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Jan 12, 2021 13:33
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I’m in PA, so we have legal sports betting online now for a few sites like FanDuel and a couple loca casinos and their partnerships. What are the best signup bonuses to take advantage of? I don’t want to actually bet sports as an ongoing thing, just hit up the bonuses and get out. Max out the risk free bet on a 50/50? Clear a deposit match on a bunch of boring low variance stuff?
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Jan 12, 2021 19:00
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Elysium posted:I’m in PA, so we have legal sports betting online now for a few sites like FanDuel and a couple loca casinos and their partnerships. What are the best signup bonuses to take advantage of? Most of the ones I see require you betting stuff -200 or more to clear it.
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Jan 12, 2021 19:41
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Elysium posted:I’m in PA, so we have legal sports betting online now for a few sites like FanDuel and a couple loca casinos and their partnerships. What are the best signup bonuses to take advantage of? would wait for super bowl week to start making accounts for optimal signup bonuses
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Jan 12, 2021 20:03
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I'm just waiting for the books to open here in Virginia - latest news is that they'll be running before the Super Bowl. I'm originally from PA, though, so when I'm there, I get some time in on their PokerStars client (Thanksgiving 2019 I deposited $30 to get some deposit bonuses; over Christmas I withdrew $150) which also includes FoxBet. This past Christmas, I was able to get in on FanDuel's Spread The Love bet on the Bills/Patriots game. (FanDuel will occasionally pick a game for the #SpreadTheLove promotion, where every so many people that bet on a team moves the point spread in their favor. What started as Bills -7 ended up Bills +100 or thereabouts. Free money.)
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Jan 12, 2021 22:25
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Elysium posted:I’m in PA, so we have legal sports betting online now for a few sites like FanDuel and a couple loca casinos and their partnerships. What are the best signup bonuses to take advantage of? I think BetMGM has the best initial bonus. $500 instant bonus off the bat with a real easy to clear 2x play through. Unibet and Barstool offer $500 free bets where you get site credit with 1x or 2x play through which is way better then a free bet. Both apps are complete trash so I also just exploited the promos and bailed. If you’re close to the NJ border you can double dip on BetMGM too. I signed up for DK and FD so long ago I don’t know what their promos are now but they were both nice, and I know FD was risk free casino for one day up to $200 just recently
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Jan 13, 2021 05:13
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I thought about making a DFS thread but saw this thread and figured I'd post here instead, despite the snarky comment in the OP. Speaking of, are not 95% of gamblers suckers in every game? Isn't that kind of the point? I've been playing DFS since 2014. NFL seriously and some experiments with PGA and Tennis. In 2016 I started using a MME strategy (mass multi-entry). Each NFL week I enter hundreds or thousands of lineups in low-stakes tournaments. It's a high volatility strategy more akin to MTTs in poker. A typical ROI for a week is maybe -40% but 2 or 3 big wins a season makes up for the losses. Bankroll management is key. 2017 was my best year, I got a big win in January, the last week of the 2016 season (divisional round -- they didn't have single-game contests yet) and for the 2017 season I really ramped it up and started collecting all the data I could for eventual backtesting (I still have yet to really leverage it but I'm still collecting). I played qualifiers which I'm sure are massively -EV but I won one ticket to the DraftKings World Championship, face value $60,000, $2 million first prize, 200 entries, 3 nights in Miami with some fun events. I got drunk and made a crappy lineup and finished around 120th. Anyways, been up and down since then, the contests have changed a lot in ways that disadvantage low-stakes MME and without moving up in stakes I can't really chase the big prizes any more (150 entries x $3 is one thing but 150 x $20 is another). I've been in the black most seasons but not by much. I have my processes well automated, I spend 30-60 minutes before kickoff on Sundays and that's pretty much it. I haven't changed my strategy much since 2017 besides adapting it to new formats. I'm overdue to spend some effort improving my process, I'm sure I could be doing better. I don't know why I shared my whole life story, but uhh, ask me about DFS I guess. Or make fun of me, whatever. Anyone else play?
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Jan 14, 2021 17:35
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SurgicalOntologist posted:Speaking of, are not 95% of gamblers suckers in every game? No.
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Jan 14, 2021 18:27
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DFS is different from regular gambling, because you're not trying to beat the house - you're trying to beat your fellow gamblers. Therein lies the issue; in public leagues, your chances of winning are insignificant due to the presence of sharks who have mastered the game.
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Jan 14, 2021 18:46
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try the new taco place posted:I'm curious what sharper folks think about a place like Sportsline? I don't mean to shill for it, I got a free subscription for it with something else, and I read/skim it every day, but don't necessarily take their picks as gospel. Their "golf computer" or whatever went on a hell of a heater last year but I don't think the site in general is significantly better than any other tout (read: it's bad). SurgicalOntologist posted:I don't know why I shared my whole life story, but uhh, ask me about DFS I guess. Or make fun of me, whatever. Anyone else play? yeah i'm down about 5-6k lifetime since i started in 2013. I have no interest in bankroll management or cash games or anything like that, i just love playing poo poo like the milli maker and dreaming big. I don't know how to interact with it in any healthy way so I just quit cold turkey whenever i'm playing too much. I'm currently on a self-imposed restriction until NFL Best Ball starts but love talking about it. quote:DFS is different from regular gambling, because you're not trying to beat the house - you're trying to beat your fellow gamblers. Therein lies the issue; in public leagues, your chances of winning are insignificant due to the presence of sharks who have mastered the game. Also the rake ranges from absurd (5-6% in higher-entry) to criminal (16%+) Spokes fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jan 14, 2021 |
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Jan 14, 2021 18:48
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SurgicalOntologist posted:I don't know why I shared my whole life story, but uhh, ask me about DFS I guess. Or make fun of me, whatever. Anyone else play? I really appreciate a post like this, because it highlights the basic truth about DFS: if you're not playing it this way, you're hopelessly outmatched all the time and shouldn't play at all. The only players who even have a prayer of being +EV over a long term playing DFS, are players who have databases and processes and making large numbers of bets over and over again. Everyone else is basically buying sports-themed lotto tickets.
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Jan 14, 2021 20:16
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