Regarding NBA travel--and specifically back-to-back games.
I did the following research during the middle of the 2000 season. I would be very interested in seeng if the trend held up during the 2000-01 and 2001-02 seasons.
The trend I identified was to BET AGAINST THE HOME TEAM, ESPECIALLY AS A DOG, when the previous game played by the home team was away with no rest (that is, the back-to-back AWAY-HOME situation.)
This trend from 1991-2000 (partial season) was 89-123 for Home dog and 297-375 Home (Fav and Dog). Games where the away team was also playing back to back were not included. And situtations such as NETS-KNICKS and CLIPPERS-LAKERS, and vice-versa while technically "AWAY-HOME" were ignored since no travel is involved.
Here is the complete article...
12/26/00
Experienced NBA handicappers have long recognized the importance of travel schedules. Long road trips and especially travel days and rest days have to be considered. Of course, experienced oddsmakers are also aware of this important travel factor and make appropriate adjustments in most situations.
However, in doing an analysis of NBA spread stats of back-to- back games that involve travel, I think we may have discovered a travel situation where the oddsmakers have over-adjusted for the home court advantage
We loaded our computers with 10 years of statistics examining back-to-back games of both the "home/away" and "away/home" variety. We did not include games where both teams were playing back-to-back so as not to obscure the variable we were studying. We also did not include back-to-back situations such as the Clippers/Lakers and Nets/Knicks where travel is not really involved. This computer analysis yielded a surprising trend that has held steady for the entire 10 year period studied, including last season and so far this season. Here are the results of the analysis:
BACK-TO-BACK TRAVEL GAMES
(where opponent does not have back-to-back travel, pushes disregarded)
Trend ATS% = Winning% betting AGAINST team having back-to-back travel
1999 2000 1991-2000
W L ATS % W L ATS % W L ATS %
Overall 180 205 53.2 48 65 57.5 1723 1753 50.4
Home 25 44 63.8 13 16 55.1 297 375 55.8
HomeFav 16 29 64.4 9 9 50.0 201 247 55.1
HomeDog 9 15 62.5 4 7 63.6 89 123 58.0
Away 155 161 51.0 35 49 58.3 1423 1378 49.2
AwayFav 42 35 45.5 9 15 62.5 350 340 49.3
AwayDog 108 123 53.3 25 34 57.6 1059 1015 48.9
Fav 58 64 52.5 18 24 57.1 551 587 51.6
Dog 117 138 54.1 29 41 58.6 1148 1138 49.8
Because of its large sample size, the most significant columns in the above chart are the last three, representing 10 years of data. The interesting, somewhat counter-intuitive trend we discovered in running the above analysis is that when a team travels back home from an away game without a rest day, they are able to cover the spread only 42-44% of the time.
It's not a huge percentage factor, but it has held up over the years and was particularly significant last season (1999.)
It appears that the typical 3 to 4 points that oddsmakers give for the "home team advantage" is negated when the home team has played an away game the previous day. Betting against the home team is such situation would have yeilded a 55.8% winning percentage for the player over the last 10 years and, although the situation is somewhat uncommon, an even more significant winning betting percentage of 58% when the home team was also the underdog.
Note that there is no advantage in betting against an away team playing back-to-back games on the road--over 10 years, away teams playing without rest on the road have covered 50.8% of the time.
To summarize, bet against the home team if it has played a road game the day before, especially if the home team is the underdog.