Update 1.3.6.8 - boxing improvements

[ProlinePlayer]

Hi all,

This new version should download/install by itself over the course of the next few days.

I've been working on this since the start of the baseball season and think it's pretty well set to go.

The ability to box 2 and 6 teamers has been available in the program almost from its inception. The concept of adding in additional boxed games for 4 teamers, etc in case of a push was also introduced years back when the OLG starting using even numbers for NFL pointspread.
But I think that for the most part these features have never really been taken advantage of by most users. My fault probably as they were never clearly explained.

I've tried to make this more intuitive for the user so that the boxing feature can be a part of your regular ticket printing.
Open up an OLG Pointspread tab and you'll see that there is a new feature. Between the 'Play Items' panel and the 'Generate Play List' panel we have a new section to control boxing games.

In this panel there are 3 options
The first is a check box called simply 'Box Games' . The purpose I think is fairly obvious. You can consider this as more or less an all purpose on/off switch. If this is unchecked then nothing will be boxed.
If the 'Box Games' option is checked then 2 and 6 team parlays will automatically have an additional game boxed in.

Next there is a drop-down menu with several options. These let you select if you want additional games boxed in case of a push. This option is available for 3,4,7,8 team parlays. This option works slightly differently depending on the sport. I'll cover this later. The last option 'Skip Box For $2 Wager' will also be explained later.

And last there is a text input box which allows you to select the game to be boxed. Just enter the game number eg 17, not 17v. At some point I'll probably rewrite this so that if blank the program will select a game by itself but for now you need to enter this. If you not enter a game then the program will not apply the box feature when printing tickets.
A few suggestions on picking a boxed game. Use a game that is not included in the 'Play Items' list and therefore not already present in the parlays. This would probably already be the case but I would suggest using a game with about the same -ev on each side. Only because you don't want to go to the store and find that your tickets won't go through because the boxed game has been pulled off the list due to LLE. And lastly do not use a game that can itself push - the idea is to increase the size of the parlays - if the boxed game pushes you have not achieved that!

How the boxing feature works.
The program will try to avoid printing extra tickets if there is no real need. Baseball and other sports are handled slightly differently.

For football/basketball
When printing the ticket the program will check the parlay to see how many games in the parlay could result in a push. If the ticket is a 3 teamer, then if 1 or more of the games is an even spread the program will box in an additional game. If the ticket is a 4 teamer then the program will require that at least 2 of the games have an even spread. In short, if it is possible for the parlay to drop down to a 2 teamer then the program will add a boxed game, otherwise it will just print the ticket as is.
And of course the procedure is the same for 7/8 team parlays.

For baseball
Unlike the other sports in baseball in is possible for the parlay to also be reduced because of rainouts/cancelled games. Because of this the program will not check to see how many possible push games there are in the parlays. Instead it will just assume the worst and automatically assume that a boxed game is best.

There is one other thing that probably needs explaining
All of the above is simple enough if your bet size is $10. But what if it's $2 (or3). Kind of hard to box that into 2 tickets of half value each.
So by default here's how the program handles this. If the bet size for the parlay is less than $4 it will only print one ticket, but it will make a random selection between the 'V' and the 'H' and add that play to the parlay. I know this is not ideal but feel that it is the best way to handle the situation. If you started with say 20 $2 7 teamers what you would end up with is 20 $2 8 teamers, the the boxed game is 18, half the tickets would end in 18H and half in 18V.
This means that sometimes the random game will cause a ticket to lose. But other times it will double the payout. On average this will even out. The purpose of boxing in the extra games is that it will in the end increase the average payout. The random selection of the additional game will accomplish the same thing.
I realise that some of you will not be comfortable with this method. The last option in the 'Box Options' drop down list will let you override this default behavior. If 'Skip Box For $2 Wager' is checked than any parlay with a wager of less than $4 will be not be boxed.

Hope this explains how to use the box games feature when playing OLG Pointspread.

PLP

[ProlinePlayer]

This update required quite a few changes to the original code. Any time that is the case, there is always the danger of creating new and unexpected problems.

Naturally I've tried to avoid that as well as testing the new version myself.

But more often then not there are some bugs that find their way in.

So feel free to let me know of any problems and I'll try to stamp them out as quick as I can.

PLP

[Kaboshed]

I have version 1.3.7.0. It was the latest version on the site, maybe I'm blind but I cannot find the boxing section. Is it not in the version I have?

[ProlinePlayer]

I have version 1.3.7.0. It was the latest version on the site, maybe I'm blind but I cannot find the boxing section. Is it not in the version I have?

On the left hand side
The panel between 'Play Items' and 'Generate Play List'.

It only appears if the tab selected is Province=Ontario and Game=Pointspread.

PLP