On December 8, Washington was hosting Dallas. Bing, the Google’s rival search engine by Microsoft, has a subdivision focused on making predictions for several sports and events. According to bing Predictions, Redskins had 53% chance to win the game.
Experienced handicappers know that the win probability is useless without comparing it with available odds. So here’s what happened on Monday as a prologue to get you familiar with my way of thinking.
4 hours before the game took place, cappers could bet at as high as 2.60 (+160) on Dallas win.
Bing at the same time, concurred with the betting markets, showing Washington as the favorite. Yet, Washington’s short odds meant the home win wasn’t a value bet. On the other hand, the 47% winning chance that bing estimated for Dallas, did create a fruitful opportunity for bettors.
Assuming that bing correctly estimated the true probability of Dallas beating Washington, any odds above 2.13 should be snatched by cappers. Now, notice what was happening at online betting markets four hours before the game.
People were betting heavily on Dallas, despite being the underdog. Cowboys went for the win eventually, proving the handicappers correct to have taken advantage of the generous odds.
Week 14 NFL picks
We are still three days before Minnesota vs Arizona game sets off Week 14 NFL schedule. Yet, we might be able to grab some out-of-market odds already, given bing Predictions are already known to the public.
Let me explain what you are seeing in the following table.
Next to each team and inside parentheses we are presented with the highest odds available at the time of writing. So, as an example, we can bet today on Buffalo Bills at 1.95 (-105) or on Philadelphia Eagles at 2.00.
In the adjacent column, I have inserted the supposedly fair odds calculated by bing Predictions. For example, given bing predicts a 55% chance for Buffalo to beat Philadelphia, that corresponds to 1.82 (-122) odds.
I have pointed out the biggest differences between current odds offered by sportsbooks and bing’s odds. Obviously, we are looking for available odds being larger than bing’s.
So, I’d be looking to bet on Minnesota, Buffalo, Detroit, New Orleans and Oakland that soon. More risk-seeking cappers would be tempted to also bet on San Diego, Tennessee and New York.
More conclusions from this analysis can be extracted, such as sportsbooks pricing home teams a lot lower than the expected, fair value of odds as estimated by bing. In addition, it’s remarkable how close bing Predictions and sportsbooks estimates are at some occassions!
May I remind you that sportsbooks are more interested in estimating accurately how the crowd is going to bet. Thus, even odds mean that they expect about half of the cappers would bet on that selection. As long as they are correct and people bet according to those ratios, bookmakers are making money no matter the results.
What should we expect till the weekend? Well, if betting dynamics reacts similar to the way it reacted to Monday’s game, we will likely witness a drop of the aforementioned odds. Imagine this scenario: you bet on Oakland (4.00) and Raiders’ odds plummet to 3.40 on Sunday! Wouldn’t that mean you bet correctly? At least, you know you got a better price than Sunday cappers!
We’ll be taking another look at the odds and their charts during the weekend, to check out how these early NFL picks perform. Who knows, maybe more odds move away from bing estimates, thus creating more value betting opportunities!
