PICKS & season summary (UTD)

[Darrell]

Here is a summary of results for all 32 teams:

http://www.scoreboard.msnbc.com/msnbc/main.asp?frames=0&sport=n...

BTW, folks, the table at the link updates automatically -- so it always has the latest info.

[Belles]

Ooooh... I'm anxiously awaiting! Hehehehe

[Darrell]

odds evaluations [winner/loser]:

okay ... pick your poison (week 4 predictions by dg)

chicago over detroit by 5.0 [56/44]
cincinnati over cleveland by 11.8 [65/35]
oakland ties houston (overtime game at even odds) [50/50]
indianapolis over seattle by 3.0 [54/46]
jacksonville over tennessee by 0.6 [51/49]
ny giants over kansas city by 11.5 [63/37]
baltimore over new england by 6.7 [58/42]
washington over tampa bay by 6.8 [59/41]
buffalo over miami by 3.0 [54/46]
new orleans over ny jets by 5.5 [56/44]
denver over dallas by 3.5 [55/45]
san francisco over saint louis by 10.5 [64/36]
san diego over pittsburgh by 2.0 [53/47]

minnesota over green bay by 2.2 [52/48]

understand:

spread is for betting even money; odds are for fair bet money ratios based on expectation of win outcome for zero spread.

example: for the san diego/pittsburgh matchup, betting pittsburgh + 2 has the same expectation as betting san diego - 2. If betting odds for winner, the person betting on san diego would pay 53%; whereas the person betting on pittsburgh would bet 47% for the same prize (100%).

[Belles]

Got it and copied.. what do you like?? It could be an interesting match up on the SD/Pittsburgh game.. we need Barb here. Hehehehe.

If you have one that you are leaning for.. let me know and I will do it any way you guys want.

So if I was to say SD over Pittsburgh by 2 points? I'd bet that??.. hehehe. We should go check out the odds for the match up this weekend. Mwahahaha.

I can always play these anytime. We have a sports book (several of them) right here in Phoenix at the Indian Casinos.. there are a half dozen of them.

[Darrell]

las vegas odds on that game have pitt the favorite by 3.5 to 7 points ...

http://www.vegasinsider.com/nfl/odds/las-vegas/

(and they are aware that tomlinson and merriman of sd are out for the game, with polomolu out for pitt)

so it looks like you could get sd + 3.5 (which is better than my sd - 2) by 5.5 points.

[Darrell]

now it's sd + 4.0 points ...

btw, they currently have houston a 9.5 point favorite over oakland (I have it even), so betting oak + 9.5 looks yummy to me.

[Belles]

OK, we'll bet Oakland to win then.. in case they ask for a spread, I'll see what I can come up with.

I need to ask them first if I can place the bet and then have them mail us our winnings should we win. We're leaving on Sunday.. before the game. If not, then maybe we can shoot for next week and I can put the wager on our game choice for next week at our local sports book casino. Hehehehe.. either way, this will be fun to win and donate it to our favorite charity.

[Darrell]

belles:

THEY set the spread for the game; you choose the side of the bet you want. SO if they have houston by 9.5, you can bet either hou - 9.5 or oak + 9.5. Given that I have the game even, you would select oak + 9.5 as your bet.

Understand that if oakland lost by 9 or less, you would still win.

[Darrell]

we need to save a copy of this page before it changes ...

http://i497.photobucket.com/albums/rr340/dgsignals/lvodds10-4.jpg

[Belles]

Darrell.. our ticket lost! Oakland needed to lose by no more than 9 points.. Houston routed them to say the least! That's ok, we'll do it again!

[Darrell]

Yep! We should improve some as the season develops. Some teams have had soft schedules thus far which makes them seem tougher than they really are.

Here is how the sunday predictions stacked up for week 4:

Had the bettor picked the lv favorite - lv spread (9 wins out of 13 games)
Had the bettor picked my favorite - my spread (7 wins out of 13 games)
[perfect spreads would result in 6.5 out of 13 games, so currently lv is biased towards the winner]

Average lv spread error (13 games) = 10.35 points
Average my spread error (13 games) = 13.90 points

note: where lv and I agreed on the favorite, the favorite won 7 out of 7 games (ignoring spread)
and if considering spread, the combined favorite won 5 out of 7 games with lv spread and 4 out of 7 games with my spread.

Keep in mind that lv and my model both pick minnesota to win tonight's game. lv has minn -3.5 and I have minn - 2.2

[Darrell]

week 4 final summary .... (surprise, minn beat GB)

lv identified 12 winners of 14 games, I identified 10.
Where we agreed on winner, we were right 9 out of 9.

With perfect predictions, (predicted spreads = actual spreads), a prediction system would develop equal odds for either side of a spread bet. lv was biased toward the favorite by 3 out of 14 (10:4), mine was biased by only 1 out of 14 (8:6).

Average error per game was 9.86 points for lv and 13.25 points for me. Hopefully my numbers will improve as more schedule is encountered for data base. But like I said upfront, vegas is hard to beat.

The important thing for all to understand is that vegas isn't trying to beat anyone by its game predictions. In reality it is trying to make each side of the bet equal odds. At equal odds, they configure betting tickets that favor the house as games of chance. Ironically, right now that is the only thing I beat them at.

[Darrell]

week 5 predictions ... (las vegas versus me)

MIN - 10 VS STL ...........min - 15.3 vs stl
DAL - 7 VS KC ..............dal - 8.3 vs kc
WAS VS CAR - 3 ...........was - 7.6 vs car
TB VS PHL - 13 .............tb vs phl - 10.3
OAK VS NYG - 15 ..........oak vs nyg - 10.9
CLE VS BUF - 5.5 ..........cle vs buf - 4.1
CIN VS BAL - 7.5 ...........cin vs bal - 4.5
PIT - 10 VS DET. ...........pit - 7.3 vs det
ATL VS SF - 1.5. ...........atl vs sf - 5.5
NE - 4 VS DEN ..............ne vs den - 4.6
HOU VS ARZ - 4 ............hou - 2.1 vs arz
JCK VS SEA ..................jck - 2.4 vs sea
IND - 4.5 VS TEN...........ind - 9.6 vs ten

NYJ - 3 VS MIA.. ...........nyj - 1.9 vs mia


Looks like we agree on 10 winners; but of course the spreads are different.