I promise my opionion had nothing to do with that move. Its just the fact that alot of smart people who really know whats going on with this game, me being one of those people drove the price down. I dont think a single person who really knows the ins and outs of this game put a penny on the AGGIES.
That line was fucked up from the get go.
That would be like making the Royals with Scott Elerton a -150 fav against Josh Beckett.
It was bound to get bet down.
$500 is my biggest big ever on a college game.
Im not a bigtimer friend. You can call a bet in and get approved for a larger wager, or bet the game twice. I did the latter.
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I posted a spreadsheet to determine optimal hedge quantities here given an over bet, or line/price change.
I explained usage of this spreadsheet at hxxp://forum.sbrforum.com/showthread.php?t=26617.
BOX took A&M?
He must have just posted that.
If he did, all smart people make dumb plays from time to time.
Maybe I should not have used the word idiot.
That was too strong.
Maybe I should have said all people that are fully informed would have been a better way to put it.
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This is a rather common misconception even among many professional bettors that only holds in the case of perfectly linear (e.g., risk-neutral preferences). It would certainly be correct to never make a negative expectation play if your only goal were maximizing the expected value of your bets, but in general this not a reasonable goal in that in ensures (ignoring capacity constraints) that as the number of bets placed increases the probability of bankruptcy approaches 100%.
Bankroll no issue here, so what I said is correct. Sometimes opinion on the game changes and therefore if the betback is one I think will win, is the only time it should be played. And for purposes of this thread, there is no chance that Choptalk's opinion on the game changed and if he is that sure it is a great value and that sure that the current line is a bad value on AM then it is foolish to play AM.
Some mistakes:
1. Hedging this is costing you ev, so as doug said if you aren't overbetting then you has no reason to hedge....
2. Unless you are a recreational bettor that would prefer certainty with less ev. Many people won't be happy knowing they've got the best of it unless they win. A square is happy with a win, a sharp is happy with max ev.
3. -ev bets may be quite useful since there is no such thing as overbetting for scalping, but obviously serious bettors will have trouble getting a 'chunk' of their bankroll down on each side of a scalp unless it is a major sport.
Edit, there are cases for hedging such as when you don't know which is the better side. Another is when it is very possible for a huge longshot to pay up and the hedge would secure an amount that grows your bankroll considerably.
1. Hedging this is costing you ev, so as doug said if you aren't overbetting then you has no reason to hedge....
2. Unless you are a recreational bettor that would prefer certainty with less ev. Many people won't be happy knowing they've got the best of it unless they win. A square is happy with a win, a sharp is happy with max ev.
3. -ev bets may be quite useful since there is no such thing as overbetting for scalping, but obviously serious bettors will have trouble getting a 'chunk' of their bankroll down on each side of a scalp unless it is a major sport.
Edit, there are cases for hedging such as when you don't know which is the better side. Another is when it is very possible for a huge longshot to pay up and the hedge would secure an amount that grows your bankroll considerably.
This is precisely the point. For a bettor aiming to maximize his bankroll growth, after a line or price changes it will very well make sense for him to place a negative expectation bet.
Now obviously, in any given case the size of the hedge (if any) will be a function of the initial bet size. So if the OP's initial bet were sufficiently small (meaning that without betting limits he'd ideally have have bet sufficiently more) then it may very well be the case that the optimal hedge quantity is zero.
However, if the OP initially made what he considered a properly sized bet then after a line change in his favor some positive hedge will in general always be called for (this is assuming any Kelly-type preferences -- be they full Kelly, half-Kelly, quarter-Kelly, or n-Kelly).
The point is that is that a bettor seeking to maximize the growth of his bankroll (or some partial Kelly equivalent) will frequently find himself making negative EV hedges. It might initially seem counter-intuitive but the underlying economics are quite clear.
I'll give an example:
Assume OP has a bankroll of $50,000. He bets $500 on Lafayette +170, but would have bet $1,000 if not for the book's betting limits (this would make him a roughly 2/23-Kelly bettor). The line moves to UL -120/A&M +100 and the OP feels that this is a fair valuation (meaning a bet on either side has an expectation of losing only the 4.35% vig), implying a 52.17% win probability for Laf.
Given these assumptions this implies that the OP should place a $96.36 hedge on A&M even though it's a negative expectation bet. (If he had been able to bet the full $1,000 on Laf then his optimal hedge would be $831.28.
Anyway, if you play around with the spreadsheet I linked to above you can determine optimal hedge quantities given any set of these types of circumstances (although I'd note that the posted spreadsheet is slightly off with its n-Kelly calculations -- it uses the approximation that a n-Kelly bettor will choose to bet exactly n * full Kelly stake).Given these assumptions this implies that the OP should place a $96.36 hedge on A&M even though it's a negative expectation bet. (If he had been able to bet the full $1,000 on Laf then his optimal hedge would be $831.28.
I don't need some math wiz telling me that a negative expectation bet is ever a good idea to make. Over the course of a thousand of them you will have less money than you did before. No need to tell me, I know how to win the most and that is by making all positive expectation wagers, not negative ones.
