Conference Tourney Odds Recap

Throughout the conference tournament previews, I mentioned how terrible the odds for the longshots were. If any of those teams made a run, you could make a lot more money betting on the money lines in each individual game than you would if you bet on the futures odds at the beginning of the tournament. Conversely, there seemed to be significantly more value in the the odds for the top three or so teams in each tournament.

Over the last few days, I tracked the money lines for each conference tournament game. Using this information, we can determine the "true odds" for each team that reached their conference tournament final- that is, the odds you could've gotten if you bet on their money line each game, rolling the winnings over to the next game. The table below shows these "true odds" for each team, and compares them to the best odds you could've gotten on that team at the beginning of the tourney.

Georgia's run was quite improbable. If you had bet $10 on them to beat Mississippi at +175 in round 1, and rolled that money over all the way to betting on them at +310 to beat Arkansas this afternoon, you would've turned that $10 into $1,725.10. A little better than ending up with $510 if you'd bet on them at 50:1, I'd say. The fact that they had to play three games in two days factors into this discrepancy somewhat, but it's also true that they didn't even have to play the conference's beat team, Tennessee.

The same is true for Pitt; their game-by-game odds were almost twice as good as the pre-tournament 12:1 odds. And there is no disclaimer here- they had the insane task of having to beat Louisville, Marquette, and Georgetown on three consecutive days. At least they were rewarded by being placed in the same pod as Michigan St.

The Illinois lines look strange, since their pre-tournament odds were actually better. This can be explained pretty simply- they ended up being favored in the semifinals, since they played Minnesota after the Golden Gophers upset Indiana. If the Illini had faced the Hoosiers in the semis, that +1888 would've become +2891.

Each of the other teams to reach the final were in the top 3 in their conference. UNC's "true" odds probably would've been closer to EV had they faced Duke in the finals.

As expected, Wisconsin at +200 was excellent. They did benefit slightly from facing Illinois in the final, but they would've been significant favorites against any opponent.

Finding Value In Futures Odds

Last week, in the MVC and CAA conference tournament previews, I suggested that both league champs, Drake and VCU, had favorable odds. Drake ended up winning their tournament, while VCU lost to William & Mary in the semis. As it turns out, VCU would have been a much smarter wager. Let me explain.

The Greek had VCU at +175. In their first game against Towson, they were favored by 14; their money line was about -1200. Today, against W&M, they were 12 points favorites, with a money line of -800. If they had won, they would've faced George Mason; that game probably would've been around a pick'em (-110). So, if they had won out, and you had bet $10 on their money line in the first game, and carried that money over throughout the tournament, you would've ended up with $23.67; their implied odds for winning the tournament, from the lines of the actual games, were +137*. That makes +175 quite the bargain.

The opposite was true for Drake. Since they reached (and won) the final, we conveniently have the actual lines to all their games, which were 10, 3, and 2.5, respectively (Drake being favored in each). The corresponding money lines for these spreads are -500, -155, and -145, respectively. If you'd started with $10 and continued putting it all down on them for each game, you would've netted a profit of $23.36*. In contrast, putting that $10 down on their odds at the beginning of the tournament (+175) would have only given you a profit of $17.50.

The outcomes for these two teams are irrelevant. By betting on Drake to win, you are doing yourself a disservice. On the other hand, VCU's line of +175 significantly better than the market value determined by the individual game lines. When considering futures like this, one has to not only figure out if the odds are profitable by themselves, but also assess whether that is the best option.

*Obviously, this depends on who each team ends up playing in each round. Drake faced the #8, #4, and #2 seeds, which is the most difficult possible path. VCU went up against the #9 and #5 seeds, and would've faced #3 George Mason in finals. This has a marginal effect, but nothing extreme. It's interesting to note that George Mason was favored by 7 over the #2 seed, NC Wilmington (which, as previously noted, was vastly overrated). So Creighton would have been favored substantially in the championship game over NC Wilmington, likely making their implied odds even lower than +137 (lower in this case meaning closer to EV, +100).

Comparing National Championship and Final Four Odds

Rob made a very good point in the comments of yesterday's "Final Four Odds" post:

"I agree that Sportsbook did not really make any assumptions regarding seed. In fact, I think these odds are simple extensions of their odds to win the title...Simply, it looks like they are dividing the odds of winning the title by a factor between 4.5 and 5."

This is very true. It is also an awful way to go about creating these Final Four odds. Let's take a look at the Final Four and National Championship odds of the 14 longshots that have F4 odds listed.

The first three columns should be self explanatory (all odds taken from Sportsbook). The final column is their implied odds of winning the title should they reach the Final Four. For example, Indiana is 8:1 (11.1%) to reach San Antonio, and 40:1 (2.4%) to win the title, so their final column is .024/.111, or 22.0%.

For these two sets of odds to be equal, each of these teams would have to have between a 22% and 23.5% chance of winning two F4 games. None of them are even close to that number. Take Purdue, for instance. Let's give them a 30% chance of winning either game in the F4 (this is being generous). That puts them at 9% to win both. If they are 22:1 to reach San Antonio, they should be at least 250:1 to win it all. They are 100:1. You would be insane to bet on their NC odds over their F4 odds.

I could go through this exact same process with each of the other 13 teams listed above. For each, there is at least two times more value in the F4 odds than in the NC odds. This is precisely why Sportsbook's strategy does not work for handicapping F4 percentages; if they want to make these odds equal, they should be dividing the NC odds for these teams by a factor of 10, rather than 5.

Here is this same comparison with the favorites:

Sportsbook's strategy works a little more efficiently here, but it is still far from perfect. Take Texas, for example. I would absolutely not bet on either of those numbers, but if I had to take one, it would definitely be the +220. Even if we say they'd be a pick'em in an average F4 game (which is not true; they'd be underdogs against any of the six teams listed above them), their percentage should be 25%; Sportsbook's implied odds have it at 29.1%.

The same can be said for each of the five teams listed below Texas. For each one, there is significantly more value in the F4 odds than the NC odds.

I think there is a more general lesson here as well- there is rarely much value in longshot futures odds this late in the year. If you think Purdue is going to make a run in the tournament, then you should bet on their money line in every game. If you do this, starting with $10, and they win it all, you will likely end up with something in the range of $2500. If you just bet on them at 100:1, you'll have $1010 if they win it all. I don't think I need to further elaborate on which of these is the superior option.

This Is Pathetic

I happened to, accidentally, see the cover of this week's ESPN The Magazine today. Here is the top third*:


*The issue I have in front of me actually says "The 7 Smartest Super Bowl Bets (And 1 That Could Break Your Heart)", but that's far from the point.

Naturally, I was intrigued by the top headline. This sounded vaguely familiar, so I looked through it. Not surprisingly, on page 50 they have a collection of wacky Super Bowl props, including "Length of National Anthem", and "Will Tom Petty Perform 'Free Fallin' At Halftime".

Sure, it's strikingly similar to my post (which did appear on freaking Hashmarks), but I'm over that. My issue with it is this- it's terrible.

First of all, the Tom Petty thing is idiotic. There is no line on this, and where they have put the line for other props they say, "LINE: Technically there isn't one, but go find yourself a Radiohead fan and see what he'll give you". Cute. They then proceed to explain why Tom Petty is going to play "Free Fallin" as part of his 12-minute set. Revolutionary. I know this song, of course he's going to play it at some point. There are odds on the first and last songs everywhere- why not use those?

Also, if you're going to write an article on Super Bowl bets, you should at least have a basic understanding of odds. For their MVP section, they have Brady at 1-2, Moss at 4-1, Welker at 5-1. These make sense.

But for their "First Team To Score A Touchdown" writeup, they have the Pats at 2-1. And "First QB To Throw A Pick" has Eli at 5-2. Both of these are completely wrong. You can bet $1 to win $2 on the Pats scoring a TD first? Really? Of course you can't. The line is 1-2. Same for the Eli line- it's 2-5.

If you are going to write an article that is essentially the same as my post, fine, coincidences happen (maybe). But at least do at decent job on it.