A good sports betting column should be backed by a profitable gambler with a proven track record. It should offer picks generated by a sophisticated and conceptually sound model. Most importantly, it should treat the subject with the seriousness it warrants.
This is not that column.
Instead, this will be an off-beat look at the sports betting industry-- why Vegas keeps winning, why gambling advice is almost certainly not worth the money, and the structural reasons why even if a bettor were profitable, anything they wrote would be unlikely to make their readers net profitable, too.
While we're at it, we'll discuss ways to minimize Vegas' edge and make recreational betting more fun, explain how to gain an advantage in your office pick pools, preview games through an offbeat lens (with picks guaranteed to be no worse than chance), and tackle various other Odds and Ends along the way.
Some Trends of Note
As everyone knows, the key to succeeding as a sports bettor is slicing the data super thin and overfitting on any spurious trends you might notice. With that in mind, here are some notable trends as we head into the Divisional Round.
Kansas City Chiefs
Teams coached by Andy Reid are 22-4 in the regular season coming out of a bye week. Include the playoffs and that record rises to 29-5. Remove games where the other team was also coming off a bye, and the record is 28-4, an 87.5% lifetime winning percentage.
Houston Texans
For the 11th time in 14 playoff games, the Houston Texans will be kicking off at 4:30 Eastern. They are 6-4 in this time slot and 0-3 in all others.
Detroit Lions
The Lions currently sit as 8.5-point favorites; Detroit hasn't lost a playoff game it was favored to win since 1995. Sure, Detroit has only been favored in a playoff game twice since 1995, but it won both. That's a 100% success rate.
Washington Commanders
Washington has never lost a playoff game started by a rookie quarterback who passed for 3200+ yards with a passer rating over 100, rushed for 800+ yards with a ypc over 6.0, and had two fully functional knees.
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles have an 81% lifetime winning percentage in road games played on Saturday with kickoff times between 3:17 and 4:32, where temperatures at kickoff are higher than the closing O/U and the spread is smaller than three points. This week's game doesn't satisfy any of those criteria, I just thought it was interesting.
Los Angeles Rams
Among the 63 quarterbacks who have thrown at least 200 passes in the postseason, Matthew Stafford ranks 3rd in passer rating behind Patrick Mahomes II and Bart Starr. He trails only Kurt Warner in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, which is yards per attempt with a bonus for touchdowns and a penalty for sacks and interceptions. There's no punchline, that's really kind of impressive. Good for him.
Buffalo Bills
The Baltimore Ravens beat the Buffalo Bills during the regular season, which is notable because the Bills haven't lost a playoff game to a team that beat them in the regular season since the last time they lost a playoff game to a team that beat them in the regular season.
Baltimore Ravens
The Ravens have looked unstoppable at points this season, but there is a chink in their armor. The team is 4-1 in games with a kickoff time ending in 5 and 3-0 in games that kick off at 4:30 but is just 6-4 for all other kickoff times. Exclude games played on FieldTurf, their record falls to 4-4. This weekend, they have a non-4:30 kickoff time that doesn't end in 5 for a game played on natural grass. This should be cause for serious concern among their partisans.
Lines I'm Seeing
| HOME TEAM | ROAD TEAM | Over/Under | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KC | -8.5 | HOU | 41.5 | |
| DET | -8.5 | WAS | 55.5 | |
| PHI | -6 | LAR | 43.5 | |
| BUF | BAL | -1.5 | 51.5 | |
The Iced Coffee Lock of the Week
The Iced Coffee Lock of the Week finished the regular season 8-2 (in games we counted). It then picked the Packers in the Wild Card Round, dropping its postseason record to 0-1.
Billy Beane, former general manager of the Oakland As, once famously said, "My (colorful language) doesn't work in the playoffs. My job is to get us to the playoffs. What happens after that is (colorful language) luck." Is the (pseudo)random number generator like that? Well, yes and no-- everything after it gets to the playoffs is (colorful language) luck, but everything before it gets to the playoffs is (colorful language) luck, too. It's a pseudorandom number generator.
Philadelphia (-6) vs. LA Rams
Last week the (P)RNG hated the Eagles. This week it loves them. It's almost as if there's no rhyme or reason to its picks-- as if they were completely random. But it only seems that way; they're not actually random at all.
They're pseudorandom.
