The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

It's exciting, but this feels like an overreaction to me.

It's exciting, but this feels like an overreaction to me.

It's exciting, but this feels like an overreaction to me.

Maybe I should clarify.  I don't really know what power rankings are for.

We have played the 5th best football.  We aren't the 5th best team in football.

I don't have a problem with judging what we've done.  But I don't think it's reasonable to think it will hold.

  I don't really know what power rankings are for.

They don't really have a purpose other than generating ad revenue for the various sites.  Different organizations trying to duplicate the AP NCAA ratings.

Well that's not true at all.  Good power rankings are the stuff of which opening Vegans lines are made.  The rankings themselves aren't used, but the numerical values that place the teams in the order they're in certainly are.

Vegan lines are made from plants.  :)

Vegas lines don't give two shits about power ranks or even the relative strength of the teams, only about making sure equal money is flowing on both sides.

To the extent that opening Vegas lines matter - I would argue that they are relatively meaningless, and that the final lines are much better indicator of whatever it may be that betting lines indicate - they only represent what Vegas thinks the betting public believes about the matchup.

I've said this before, but Vegas has literally zero interest in setting lines that are accurate to the outcome.  A bookee that perfectly nailed every single line would be a catastrophic failure and would quickly go out of business; a bookee that was within a half point of every outcome but had wildly disparate numbers of bettors on each side of the line would also be an epic bust.

The only thing Vegas wants is a line that gets an equal number of bettors on each side, and they will post whatever number they think the betting public believes (<--- this part is important) is a 50/50 call.  Even if the house had inside info that a star player was hiding an injury, they wouldn't be able to do anything with that information outside of leaking it to the public.  It is simply not relevant to the house's interests.

Vegas has no idea what the betting public believes when it sets an opening line, as no bets have yet come in.

At any rate, the upshot is that power ratings are used to determine opening Vegas lines.

Vegas has no idea what the betting public believes when it sets an opening line, as no bets have yet come in.  If it wants equal betting on both teams -- and it does want that, from the opening line on -- then its best bet is to set the opening line at the best predicted outcome of the game based on statistical modeling.  And that's what it does.  The last thing Vegas is going to do is leave itself vulnerable to a potential whale bettor (who likely also uses statistical modeling) to take advantage of an opening line that wasn't generated with sound statistical modeling.

At any rate, the upshot is that power ratings are used to determine opening Vegas lines.  They certainly aren't just "click bait" in that realm.

Some major glaring problem with this.  

First and foremost, the statistical models to determine the likely outcome has zero basis on the various power rankings published by different media outlets.  There may be some correlation because both are relying on the same underlying data sets, but the models don't use the power rankings.

Second, setting the line on a sporting event based solely on the most likely outcome wouldn't achieve the goal of the casinos to make money regardless of the outcome, because not all betters are gamblers, many are fans.  Let's say the Cowboys (largest fan base in the NFL) are playing the Jaguars (smallest fan base in the NFL).  There is going to be way more Cowboy fans betting on the game than Jaguars fans.  (There are probably folks on this site that ONLY bet on the Dolphins.) So the casino is going to set the line not based on the most likely outcome of the game, but rather a level that will encourage more Jaguars fans to bet, less Cowboy fans to bet, and gamblers to bet on Jax rather than Dallas that requires a line that is actually skewed to give Dallas worse odds and Jax better odds than the model would indicate.      

Finally, the purpose of publishing these lists is click bait.  That is why they are written.  They are not written to influence Vegas.  

 

Vegas has thousands of bets for predictions on the teams' ultimate finishes, as well as bets from the week prior showing trends.  If heavy bets were coming in every week on a sorry Cowboys team, Vegas would skew the opening lines towards the Cowboys, regardless of their actual strengths or what any Power Rankings say.

False.  There was an opening line for BUF @ MIA (BUF -4, IIRC) on Monday morning before the Bills had even played, and Power Rankings are updated on Tuesdays.  They have nothing to do with each other.

To determine what the odds should be on a given game, oddsmakers rely heavily on advanced mathematics, scientific formulas, computer algorithms and experience. They also take into account power ratings. A power rating is a statistical representation of how strong every team is compared to each other. It focuses on key statistical categories and considerations like margin of victory, strength of schedule and much more. By comparing each team's power ratings and crunching the numbers, oddsmakers will get a rough estimate of what the line should be.

Oddsmakers then adjust or tweak the line based on home field advantage, injuries, specific head-to-head matchups, scheduling and even weather. If a team suffers an injury to a star player or a team is playing their second game in consecutive nights, known as a back to back, that is factored into the odds. If a football team with a bad offensive line is facing a team with a great defensive line, that is also factored into the odds.

Once oddsmakers set the line, it is then released to the public. The initial line is called the opening line, or "opener" for short. Bettors can then pick which team they want to bet on. Generally speaking, the goal of the oddsmakers, also known as bookmakers, is to set a line that garners balanced 50/50 money on both sides. This way they can limit their risk and mitigate their liability.

Once a line is released, the limits are low. Limits are the amount of money the sportsbooks will accept on a given wager. The sportsbooks use this initial period when the line is first released as a “feeling out” period to see how the early market reacts. Sportsbooks want to protect themselves from professional bettors betting big amounts early and taking advantage of an incorrect or off line, known as a “soft “ line. The books allow professional bettors to bet on games at low limits to help them shape and mold the line to its strongest and most accurate number. Once a universal line is established, known as a "consensus line," then the market takes over.

So you've illustrated well you know how closing lines are determined.  We're taking about opening lines, however.

Certainly they do.  You don't figure Buffalo's power ratings (the ones Vegas uses) were updated as a function of its game Monday night?

How can the opening lines be "based on" Power Rankings that come out AFTER the opening lines have already been released?

The opening lines are the point spreads when then open, not when they are "updated."  After they are updated, they are no longer the opening lines.

I notice that after my original response, you now seem to be talking about "power ratings."  Is that the same thing as the "Power Rankings" released every Tuesday that are the subject of this thread?  Or is it some other system that no one was talking about?

The rp-excel system uses genetic algorithms, neural networks, and monte carlo simulations to predict outcomes for various sporting events. With the use of these advanced technologies, rp-excel has been the only system, as documented by The Prediction Tracker, to show a positive ROI against the spread over the last 10 NFL seasons, predicting over 2,600 games.

I started a new thread about Vegas odds, because I think it's a worthy subject --

In terms of the Dolphins, maybe I'm just too close to it, but I don't really see how the Power Rankings would have created the lines we see -- If we really are the 5th best team in the NFL, would we be getting nearly a TD at home?

I'm sure it plays into it, as power rankings seem to be a reflection of public perception.

^ Fair, but I feel like (just throwing out names), but a team like the Packers (who may be lower than us on these rankings) would maybe only be -3 at home.  Maybe I'm wrong about that.

I just think that it's pretty easy to see that YES, the Dolphins have played like a top 5 team but they overperformed to get there, so it's reasonable to think that Vegas and the betting public would understand that and adjust accordingly, but that adjustment wouldn't be in any kind of ranking system.

Notice that for the 2021 NFL season the following system was best at predicting the outcomes of games against the spread:

https://rp-excel.com/

Their success rate against the spread in 2021 was .52918.
And they were one of the GOOD ones... for 2021, that is.  For 2020, they finished 51st out of 59, with a .48649 success rate against the spread.

The majority of the sources listed on that website were under .500 against the spread in 2021, which means they are somehow underperforming a coin flip.
The entire "industry" is indistinguishable from alchemy.

I haven't seen anything that indicates any of these organizations are paying their bills with Vegas winnings.
Frankly, that seems unnecessary when there is an ample supply of credulous gamblers willing to pay subscriptions for near-coin-flip-quality "insight."

P.S. To clarify: I don't dispute that casinos are able to pay their bills off the vig.  I am disputing that these collections of upjumped shamen are able to provide any sort of meaningfully accurate predictions on the outcome of NFL games.

Real tough to beat Vegas because not only are they using statistical models, but also in effect crowdsourcing as in the effect of betting on the movement of the line.  That's a tremendous amount of data and probably unparalleled.

You can't beat Vegas because of the vig.

Vegas knows just as much about sports as mutual fund managers know about stocks, 90% lose to a monkey throwing a dart.

You can't beat Vegas because of the vig.

Vegas knows just as much about sports as mutual fund managers know about stocks, 90% lose to a monkey throwing a dart.

That is not "beating Vegas."  That is beating the other people who are betting.  You are keeping Vegas in business whether you win or lose!  The vig means Vegas beat YOU the moment you placed your bet.  You're just trying to make up for it by taking money from some other sucker.

Again: Vegas does not need to be "accurate" on their predictions  (and importantly: they aren't accurate on their predictions) because they don't care.  The only thing they care about is equal bets on both sides.

The original statement was this:

"You can't beat Vegas because of the vig."

If a mere ~2.5% margin prevents you from bettering Vegas's lines over the long haul, then obviously Vegas is utilizing a tremendous amount of "intelligence" in generating lines.  Otherwise you could simply use your own intelligence and win at let's say a 60% rate and overcome the vig easily.

You don't get it.

It doesn't matter how much you win.  You aren't beating Vegas; you're beating the people on the other side of the bet. THEY are the ones who are paying you, and you're BOTH paying Vegas!

This talk about "beating Vegas" by making enough money to offset the vig is like talking about "beating the IRS" by making enough money to offset income tax.  It doesn't make sense.