|
SportsInsights.com Article
READ OTHER "BET AGAINST" ARTICLES
SportsInsights.com Article: Betting Against
the Public in the NBA (NBA Data Nov 2003 - June 2007)
The NBA has
been one of SportsInsights most
consistent sports, achieving a 54% winning percentage since
inception. SIs
NBA Square Plays
has had winning seasons in each of the four seasons
since SportsInsights started publishing Square Plays. Our data on Public
Betting Percentages mirrors the results of
our NBA Square Plays, finding value at the
"23% level," as we see below. The information
on this site is for entertainment and educational purposes only.
Use of this information in violation of any federal, state, or
local laws is prohibited.
NBA Data 2003-2007
The SportsInsights NBA database now includes FOUR complete
season's worth of data. Here are some notes on the data we
used for this article:
- Data for the past four seasons (November 2003 through
June 2007)
- Includes the regular season and playoffs
- Excludes pre-season and All-Star Games
- About 5,100 games.
Betting Against the Public -- NBA
We are pleased that increasing our dataset about
33% (from about 3,800 games to 5,100 games) verifies the results
we have seen previously. The increased data strengthens
SportsInsights' view that Betting Against the
Public can be an effective way of obtaining value in the NBA
Sports Marketplace. More specifically, if we see less than
23% of the bets on one team, it means that the public
might be undervaluing that team.
Table 1: NBA and
Betting Against the Public (2003 to 2007)
|
Betting % |
Win % |
|
40% |
51.0% |
|
35% |
50.5% |
|
30% |
51.5% |
|
27% |
51.0% |
|
25% |
51.0% |
|
23% |
53.0% |
|
20% |
51.0% |
SportsInsights' Square Plays
SportsInsights'
Premium Members have access to our
Square Plays. SportsInsights uses proprietary
information and sportsbook contacts to highlight plays that have
excessive "Square" action -- and thus should yield value by
"betting against" the square bettors. The performance of
our Square Plays, often the most "lopsided-bet games" in terms
of both number of bets and money bet -- has been positive across
all major sports.
As we mentioned above, basketball has been one of our most
consistent sports in terms of both "Betting Against the Public"
and "Square Plays." As we updated the statistics
this year, we were
pleased that performance has been consistently positive across
all the major sports -- and actually improved for several sports
over the past year! Below is the average performance of
our Square Plays -- for spread sports. Note that Square
Plays for moneyline sports like baseball has also been positive,
on average.
Table 2: SportsInsights Square Plays -
Average Performance by Sport (Since Inception)
|
Sport |
Square Play Win % |
|
NBA |
54.0% |
|
NCAAB |
53.5% |
|
NFL |
57.0% |
|
NCAAF |
56.5% |
We hope that you will make SportsInsights
THE PLACE to stop for your sports investing
information. Our Members enjoy some of the most innovative
sports marketplace information available!
Disclaimer
We do not guarantee that the trends and biases we’ve found will
continue to exist. It is impossible to predict the future. Any
serious academic research in the field of “market efficiencies”
recognizes that inefficiencies may disappear over time. Once
inefficiencies are discovered, it is only a matter of time
before the market corrects itself. We do not guarantee our data
is error-free. However, we’ve tried our best to make sure every
score and percentage is correct.
|