What is an edge?

[Arch]

Yes PLP I believe it was Mr. Feustel who was behind the #PinnyPulse back then, He worked for Pinny for just a short time and then went to work for SBR. I believe last I heard he has left SBR due to them doing some very shady things, and he was quick to break ties so his good rep wasnt compromised.

[BTS]

Yes PLP I believe it was Mr. Feustel who was behind the #PinnyPulse back then, He worked for Pinny for just a short time and then went to work for SBR. I believe last I heard he has left SBR due to them doing some very shady things, and he was quick to break ties so his good rep wasnt compromised.

Hmm, I seem to recall daringly only working for Pinny briefly and in a few small markets. Unless something changed dramatically I doubt he would be writing the Pinny Pulse much later but I could be wrong.

[Arch]

Yes PLP I believe it was Mr. Feustel who was behind the #PinnyPulse back then, He worked for Pinny for just a short time and then went to work for SBR. I believe last I heard he has left SBR due to them doing some very shady things, and he was quick to break ties so his good rep wasnt compromised.

Hmm, I seem to recall daringly only working for Pinny briefly and in a few small markets. Unless something changed dramatically I doubt he would be writing the Pinny Pulse much later but I could be wrong.

Yes BTS I pointed out in my post that Feustel was with pinny only for a short time but he did If I recall take part in the pinny pulse, I think I heard about it in a podcast he was on. Regardless Feustel is sharp as they come

[mlansky]

I promised I would elaborate on how to calculate the win probability from the Pinnacle line. Here it is...

Calculation works the easiest if you use the decimal line. Suppose you have V 2.00, H 1.926. First, figure out the juice that is built into the line. 1/2.00 + 1/1.926 = 1.0192

Now multiply each side by 1.0192 to get V 2.0384, H 1.963. This is the "fair" line, or no-juice line.

Win probability is simply the reciprocal of those numbers. So, visitor win prob = 1/2.0384 = 49% and home win prob = 1/1.963 = 51%.

Try a few for yourself and see if they match up to PLP's win probabilities. If it doesn't match up, could be a timing issue. His site updates every 15 minutes but the Pinnacle lines are updating all the time.

Chin,

Sorry guys in advance if I'm posting this in the wrong area on of the forum. On the OKC/Hou (NBA) game 6 last night, a local bookie's line here was OKC -1 where on Pinnacle Houston was -1. So does that mean there's an edge on Houston +1 with this local bookie? I watched that video about if you can beat the closing line in baseball in the long run, you'll have an edge over the bookie in the long run. My question is how can I figure out my edge in regards to this betting scenario? Even though OKC won the game, if I was wager on soft lines like this would I have a long term edge over this local bookie?

Kind regards,

mlansky

[MattyKGB]

Chin,

Sorry guys in advance if I'm posting this in the wrong area on of the forum. On the OKC/Hou (NBA) game 6 last night, a local bookie's line here was OKC -1 where on Pinnacle Houston was -1. So does that mean there's an edge on Houston +1 with this local bookie? I watched that video about if you can beat the closing line in baseball in the long run, you'll have an edge over the bookie in the long run. My question is how can I figure out my edge in regards to this betting scenario? Even though OKC won the game, if I was wager on soft lines like this would I have a long term edge over this local bookie?

Kind regards,

mlansky

Hi mlansky,

If pinnacle has Houston -1 and we assume pinnacle's line is efficient (this is usually a good assumption), then we can conclude that Houston -1 has 50% chance of winning (counting a push as 1/2 a win).

Now, there are two things we have to consider in order to evaluate your Houston +1 bet:

1) How much vig does your bookie charge?

2) How much extra win probability do you pick up by moving from Houston -1 to Houston +1? This is not an easy question to answer. You can look at a historical database of NBA scores to see how often the margin of victory is exactly 1. Or, you can see if Pinnacle has an alternate line that's Houston +1 and look at the odds on that.

Let's suppose that you are able to figure out that going from -1 to +1 adds 2% to the win probability, so the win probability for Houston +1 is 52%. Let's also suppose that your bookie charges -110 vig. Then, your edge is:
win prob x (odds for 1) - 1
= 0.52 x (210/110) - 1
= -0.7%.
This is an example of how because of the vig, you may not have an edge even if your win probability is greater than 50%.

[mlansky]

Chin,

Sorry guys in advance if I'm posting this in the wrong area on of the forum. On the OKC/Hou (NBA) game 6 last night, a local bookie's line here was OKC -1 where on Pinnacle Houston was -1. So does that mean there's an edge on Houston +1 with this local bookie? I watched that video about if you can beat the closing line in baseball in the long run, you'll have an edge over the bookie in the long run. My question is how can I figure out my edge in regards to this betting scenario? Even though OKC won the game, if I was wager on soft lines like this would I have a long term edge over this local bookie?

Kind regards,

mlansky

Hi mlansky,

If pinnacle has Houston -1 and we assume pinnacle's line is efficient (this is usually a good assumption), then we can conclude that Houston -1 has 50% chance of winning (counting a push as 1/2 a win).

Now, there are two things we have to consider in order to evaluate your Houston +1 bet:

1) How much vig does your bookie charge?

2) How much extra win probability do you pick up by moving from Houston -1 to Houston +1? This is not an easy question to answer. You can look at a historical database of NBA scores to see how often the margin of victory is exactly 1. Or, you can see if Pinnacle has an alternate line that's Houston +1 and look at the odds on that.

Let's suppose that you are able to figure out that going from -1 to +1 adds 2% to the win probability, so the win probability for Houston +1 is 52%. Let's also suppose that your bookie charges -110 vig. Then, your edge is:
win prob x (odds for 1) - 1
= 0.52 x (210/110) - 1
= -0.7%.
This is an example of how because of the vig, you may not have an edge even if your win probability is greater than 50%.

MattyKGB,

Thanks for the reply. So there is no real definite/concrete way of calculating my win probability in this particular situation? What you're saying is it's pretty much based on speculating what the win probability is based on "how much extra win probability do you pick up by moving from Houston -1 to Houston +1"? So my best bet in this situation would be to check Pinnacle for an alternate line and then compare the odds to see if there's a possible edge? I'm trying to get the lines from a friend of mine who deals with this bookie so that I can attempt to compare them to Pinnacle. Ohh and yes the the bookie charges the standard -110.

Kind Regards,

mlansky

[MattyKGB]

Yes, correct. For this reason you will find it easier to look for edges on bad ML lines rather than bad spreads. The edges can still be there on bad spreads but it will be harder for you to identify and quantify them.

[Streaker]

Thanks Chinmusic, and everyone that adds to these GREAT valuable threads. It's Fantastic!!!

[BTS]

Sorry guys in advance if I'm posting this in the wrong area on of the forum. On the OKC/Hou (NBA) game 6 last night, a local bookie's line here was OKC -1 where on Pinnacle Houston was -1. So does that mean there's an edge on Houston +1 with this local bookie? I watched that video about if you can beat the closing line in baseball in the long run, you'll have an edge over the bookie in the long run. My question is how can I figure out my edge in regards to this betting scenario? Even though OKC won the game, if I was wager on soft lines like this would I have a long term edge over this local bookie?

You never mentioned the vig on Pinny's line but assuming the juice was identical on both sides, you had about a breakeven bet at -110. 1 is a weak number in the NBA and the 0 is obviously worthless.

All you need to figure this out are push probabilities. If you don't have these just see how much Pinny pays you for selling a half point off a number. It's worth slightly more than this. They tend to overcharge substantally for selling you points and will offer you slightly less than fair value when you sell them a point.

[ProlinePlayer]

I promised I would elaborate on how to calculate the win probability from the Pinnacle line. Here it is...

Calculation works the easiest if you use the decimal line. Suppose you have V 2.00, H 1.926. First, figure out the juice that is built into the line. 1/2.00 + 1/1.926 = 1.0192

Now multiply each side by 1.0192 to get V 2.0384, H 1.963. This is the "fair" line, or no-juice line.

Win probability is simply the reciprocal of those numbers. So, visitor win prob = 1/2.0384 = 49% and home win prob = 1/1.963 = 51%.

Try a few for yourself and see if they match up to PLP's win probabilities. If it doesn't match up, could be a timing issue. His site updates every 15 minutes but the Pinnacle lines are updating all the time.

Chin,

Sorry guys in advance if I'm posting this in the wrong area on of the forum. On the OKC/Hou (NBA) game 6 last night, a local bookie's line here was OKC -1 where on Pinnacle Houston was -1. So does that mean there's an edge on Houston +1 with this local bookie? I watched that video about if you can beat the closing line in baseball in the long run, you'll have an edge over the bookie in the long run. My question is how can I figure out my edge in regards to this betting scenario? Even though OKC won the game, if I was wager on soft lines like this would I have a long term edge over this local bookie?

Kind regards,

mlansky

A couple of good answers already but thought this might help as well.

http://www.sbrforum.com/betting-tools/h ... alculator/

Gives the push probability for different numbers. I haven't checked myself but believe it is considered to be fairly accurate.

PLP