The following is my daily disclaimer. Anything in bold is something I added recently.
FWIW...
For those that are unfamiliar with my plays, I play games based on the announced referee matchups for each game. I have compiled sides and totals ATS records for every NBA ref for the past 8 years and ranked them all. My rankings are weighted more toward more recent seasons to take into account refs that change their style over the years. They're also weighted more heavily toward refs with more games officiated to downplay short term trends that may be just coincidental (ie. I rank Marc Davis, a ref with a career 23-13 home/away record below Joe Derosa, a ref with a career 242-234 record). Just this past month I added each ref's fouls/game average to the rankings, with the assumption that more fouls/game equates to a better chance for the over. Indeed, I have found that there is a pretty decent correlation factor between the two.
The results are quite interesting. There are numerous refs with a definite bias in one way or other. For example, one of my favorite refs is Joey Crawford who has made money for under bettors every year AND he's one of the best ref's for playing road teams every year, too. Very often, when he's reffing, I'll play the home team to go under the individual team total as a way of combining both trends. Of course, this is assuming that the other 2 refs do not have tendancies in the other direction. My go / no-go decision on playing the game is based on ALL 3 REFS in other words.
Each game has 3 refs assigned to it, so what I'll do is compare the relative rankings of all 3 refs to see if they all have the same bias in some particular direction (home, road, over, or under). When I find a combination of refs whose biases combine to exceed my predetermined "go / no-go" level, I make the game a play.
I have used this system for 3 years and have hit 55% sides and nearly 60% on the totals. It has always worked best in the 2nd half of the season. I believe that is due to some refs that change their reffing style. My guess is that they are most likely to change their style between seasons, and consequently the early season games are more of a crapshoot. This season is showing the same trend. I was 17-19 before I stopped playing the games in early Dec. Since I started up again in early Jan, and after updating my data with fouls/game stats, I've gone 29 -20.
The one downside to posting these plays, however, is that the ref matchups are very often not announced til just a couple of minutes prior to gametime. Consequently, many of you wishing to play these games will miss out if you don't catch my post right away. My suggestion is this - if you miss out on the game start, wait til halftime and make the same play for the 2nd half. The refs don't change at halftime, so theoretically it should work just as well for 2nd half totals. I have checked this out for myself and the plays win the 2nd half just as often, regardless of what happened in the 1st half.
I have started adding my rating for each game that I'm playing. My rating is a numerical value of how strong the play is. The number is basically the ADJUSTED sums of the ATS career records of the 3 assigned refs for each game. For example: The refs for last night's Phil/NO game were Joe Forte, Monty McCutchen and Pat Fraher. The career (adjusted) ATS average winning pct for Home teams when one of these refs were officiating were 47.3%, 44.4%, and 50.5% respectively. I calculate my rating by summing the averages and subtracting the result from 150% (3 times a perfectly "average" ref). Therefore in this case we had 47.3 +44.4 + 50.5 = 142.5. 142.5 -150 = -7.5. I make a game a play if the number is higher than 7.2, so this game became a play on the road team. Then I do the same analysis for the over/under. Note: I still make all plays for 1 unit regardless of the strength of the play.
Anyway, good luck to anyone wishing to use this info. Tonight's plays coming up soon
FWIW...
For those that are unfamiliar with my plays, I play games based on the announced referee matchups for each game. I have compiled sides and totals ATS records for every NBA ref for the past 8 years and ranked them all. My rankings are weighted more toward more recent seasons to take into account refs that change their style over the years. They're also weighted more heavily toward refs with more games officiated to downplay short term trends that may be just coincidental (ie. I rank Marc Davis, a ref with a career 23-13 home/away record below Joe Derosa, a ref with a career 242-234 record). Just this past month I added each ref's fouls/game average to the rankings, with the assumption that more fouls/game equates to a better chance for the over. Indeed, I have found that there is a pretty decent correlation factor between the two.
The results are quite interesting. There are numerous refs with a definite bias in one way or other. For example, one of my favorite refs is Joey Crawford who has made money for under bettors every year AND he's one of the best ref's for playing road teams every year, too. Very often, when he's reffing, I'll play the home team to go under the individual team total as a way of combining both trends. Of course, this is assuming that the other 2 refs do not have tendancies in the other direction. My go / no-go decision on playing the game is based on ALL 3 REFS in other words.
Each game has 3 refs assigned to it, so what I'll do is compare the relative rankings of all 3 refs to see if they all have the same bias in some particular direction (home, road, over, or under). When I find a combination of refs whose biases combine to exceed my predetermined "go / no-go" level, I make the game a play.
I have used this system for 3 years and have hit 55% sides and nearly 60% on the totals. It has always worked best in the 2nd half of the season. I believe that is due to some refs that change their reffing style. My guess is that they are most likely to change their style between seasons, and consequently the early season games are more of a crapshoot. This season is showing the same trend. I was 17-19 before I stopped playing the games in early Dec. Since I started up again in early Jan, and after updating my data with fouls/game stats, I've gone 29 -20.
The one downside to posting these plays, however, is that the ref matchups are very often not announced til just a couple of minutes prior to gametime. Consequently, many of you wishing to play these games will miss out if you don't catch my post right away. My suggestion is this - if you miss out on the game start, wait til halftime and make the same play for the 2nd half. The refs don't change at halftime, so theoretically it should work just as well for 2nd half totals. I have checked this out for myself and the plays win the 2nd half just as often, regardless of what happened in the 1st half.
I have started adding my rating for each game that I'm playing. My rating is a numerical value of how strong the play is. The number is basically the ADJUSTED sums of the ATS career records of the 3 assigned refs for each game. For example: The refs for last night's Phil/NO game were Joe Forte, Monty McCutchen and Pat Fraher. The career (adjusted) ATS average winning pct for Home teams when one of these refs were officiating were 47.3%, 44.4%, and 50.5% respectively. I calculate my rating by summing the averages and subtracting the result from 150% (3 times a perfectly "average" ref). Therefore in this case we had 47.3 +44.4 + 50.5 = 142.5. 142.5 -150 = -7.5. I make a game a play if the number is higher than 7.2, so this game became a play on the road team. Then I do the same analysis for the over/under. Note: I still make all plays for 1 unit regardless of the strength of the play.
Anyway, good luck to anyone wishing to use this info. Tonight's plays coming up soon
Last edited:
