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Can You Handicap This Football League?

This is from the original manuscript of a column written for Casino Player magazine in 1993. It's about sports betting and how many people can easily be fooled by trends that have no basis, other than luck. - Mike Caro

Caro On Winning
By "America's Mad Genius" Mike Caro

How Well Can You Handicap This Football League?

Pretend you're betting football on another planet where you've gone for a three-month vacation. There are eight professional teams in a league, and you have nothing to base your wagers on. You'll simply have to make your decisions after analyzing the boxscores for several weeks. Sadly, the boxscores deal with only two statistics: the final score and first downs. The casinos are glad to take your bets, for any amount of money, provided you lay the traditional 11-to-10. Fine, now here's what you read in the sports section on the morning after the first day of the season:

Week 1 games...

Asteroids
Big Bangs

Black Holes
Comets
42
24

11
25
(17 first downs)
( 9 first downs)

( 9 first downs)
(18 first downs)

To the right of each team name are the final points, followed by the number of first downs. Let me give you a few clues. Don't think about which team is listed above the other, because the crowds are very polite, almost impartial, and there exists no home-team advantage on this planet. And don't think in terms of touchdowns or field goals, because points don't come in clumps of seven or three in your new world.

Now let me show you the next 10 weeks, leading up to the final games.

Week 2 games...

Black Holes
Asteroids

Comets
Big Bangs
18
38

15
31
( 8 first downs)
(18 first downs)

(10 first downs)
(13 first downs)

Week 3 games...

Asteroids
Comets

Big Bangs
Black Holes
2
16

34
35
( 2 first downs)
( 5 first downs)

(17 first downs)
(17 first downs)

Week 4 games...

Big Bangs
Asteroids

Comets
Black Holes
32
8

16
19
(15 first downs)
( 3 first downs)

( 9 first downs)
( 6 first downs)

Week 5 games...

Asteroids
Black Holes

Big Bangs
Comets 35
18

5
20
(20 first downs)
( 9 first downs)

( 2 first downs)
(13 first downs)

Week 6 games...

Comets
Asteroids

Black Holes
Big Bangs 10
6

41
18 ( 4 first downs)
( 6 first downs)

(16 first downs)
( 9 first downs)

Week 7 games...

Asteroids
Big Bangs

Black Holes
Comets 26
2

27
35 (12 first downs)
( 2 first downs)

(16 first downs)
(19 first downs)

Week 8 games...

Black Holes
Asteroids

Comets
Big Bangs
14
6

13
38 ( 9 first downs)
( 5 first downs)

( 7 first downs)
(17 first downs)

Week 9 games...

Asteroids
Comets

Big Bangs
Black Holes 15
28

23
40 ( 7 first downs)
(10 first downs)

(10 first downs)
(18 first downs)

Week 10 games...

Big Bangs
Asteroids

Comets
Black Holes 26
7

35
16 (11 first downs)
( 8 first downs)

(18 first downs)
( 8 first downs)

Week 11 games...

Asteroids
Black Holes

Big Bangs
Comets 5
6

22
26 ( 3 first downs)
( 3 first downs)

(10 first downs)
(18 first downs)

OK, now it's time to bet. But first let's make a chart of the season statistics so far...

Team

Comets
Black Holes

Asteroids
Big Bangs

Wins

8
6

4
4

Losses

3
5

7
7

Ties

0
0

0
0

Points for

239
245

190
255

Points against

192
270

194
273

First Downs for
131
119

101
115

First Downs Against
96
146

85
139

After studying the chart, how would you bet these lines for next week's games? Game 1: Asteroids are a 3 point favorite to beat the Big Bangs. Game 2: Comets are a 7 point favorite to beat the Black Holes.

Think about it before you read on. Now I'm going to tell you a secret that may someday earn you some money. On the planet where you're vacationing, nobody has any advantage over anyone else. All results are based on pure, dumb luck. How do I know? Because I devised this league inside a computer. The Comets boast the superior record, but not because of skill.

Now that I've told you my secret, how would you bet the games? You'd take the points in both cases, right? Fine, but you might not grasp the importance of this just yet. Similar situations happen from time to time in real life on our own planet Earth. And you should be on the lookout for these opportunities if you want to earn some easy money.

Sometimes when I explain this concept, people remark that there's no way to know if the results are just dumb luck or if skill made some teams win more than others. But there is a way. Before you get trapped by analyzing how much each first down contributes to the score (in the computer's mind, it averages two points, by the way), or by looking back to see how the same teams did against each other in the previous meetings, try this...

Go through the season to date and pretend you always bet the team with the most wins going into the next game. If they both had the same number of wins, pretend you didn't bet. Now, count up your wins and losses. Guess what? You won eight out of 16, half the time. It didn't do you any good to bet the best performers, and you shouldn't lay points if there's no reason. What you see is the signature of what I call a "coin flip" league. That's a league where some teams do better than others, but it's all due to luck. You could get similar win-loss results by flipping coins.

But, in this case, you were able to look at the results and determine, without using any sophisticated statistical tools, that something might be wrong, that the favorites might not be the favorites, and that there might be money to be made.

I concede that the number of games shown in this example is insufficient for you to feel comfortable about betting big, especially on a strange planet. But you see the point, right? Although you aren't really going to find any sports bets where the teams are exactly even and the results are all luck, you will find situations where the teams are closely skilled and the results are mostly luck.

In such cases, the lines will tend to reflect public sentiment, rather than the true relative values of the teams. This is when you must bet the underdogs. Think about it.

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