I should have googled first. That type of bet is known as a teaser.
And there is also the oh-so-scary “lightning” bet. Whatever you bet, you win or lose that amount for every point you win or lose by. Never tried it, and since I don’t bet on sports any more, I thankfully never will. I hear (from Artie Lang) that it’s a great bet for basketball.
The guy I used to do all this with developed a strategy trying to exploit the spreads themselves. (Well, his little brother did.) This was long before I knew what the gambler’s fallacy was. I still thought the Martingale was the bee’s knees, and I didn’t even know it had a name; it was just something I came up with. (Yeah, how dopey was I?)
Anyway, the idea was that no teams ever go undefeated or winless against the spread, because the spread makers wanted even action, and everybody in the world would bet on the team that was 10-0 against the spread. So, you simply tally all the records against the spread, add them together, and thus you get your picks.
While this is not a sound theory, based on my explanation of how the spread works two posts ago, (triple post…doh!), but I still find it interesting. Unfortunately, week 2 has no nice roundup in it, but I’ll manage to figure it out.
Standings against the spread through week 3:
3-0 Bengals
3-0 Jags
2-1 Bears
2-1 Browns
2-1 Bucs
2-1 Chiefs
2-1 Dolphins
2-1 Falcons
2-1 49ers
2-1 Giants
2-1 Patriots (assuming the 10-point win over Raiders covered)
2-1 Seahawks
2-1 Steelers
2-1 Titans
1-1-1 Broncos
1-1-1 Chargers
1-1 Lions
1-1 Redskins
1-2 Bills
1-2 Colts
1-2 Cowboys
1-2 Eagles
1-2 Jets
1-2 Packers
1-2 Panthers
1-2 Raiders (assuming the 10-point loss to Patriots didn’t cover)
1-2 Rams
1-2 Saints
1-2 Vikings
0-2 Ravens
0-2 Texans
0-3 Cards
So, just for fun, let’s see how the spread system does this week. The number is the weight of the pick, and only the team picked will be listed. If there is no pick, the game will not be listed:
5 Texans
4 Cards
3 Broncos
2 Colts
2 Eagles
2 Rams
2 Vikings
1 Chargers
1 Lions
1 Ravens
1 Redskins
Heh, yeah, the Texans and Cards look super, don’t they? Ugh. I’ll be curious to see how these do.
Quick pick 5 for the week.
Cincy, Indy, Bucs, Carolina, Dallas
I don’t know much about the Chargers, but if they’re really as good as 1-2, the Pats shouldn’t have a problem with them. And if the Patriots play today like they did against the Steelers last week, it’s gonna be a slaughter. I’ll take Pats and under.
He he he.
Seriously, all of you. Please quit picking the Bucs to beat the spread and what not. I’m sure the football gods are conspiring against you, and it’s putting me on pins and needles.
Anybody notice the spread picker’s frighteningly accurate predictions?
My final comment perfectly sums up the reason we ended up taking spread picker picks very seriously.
It’s hard to argue against 9-2, especially when the best bets were the Cardinals against anybody and the pathetic Texans against the red-hot Bengals. And yet, both covered pretty easily.
Why don’t the starts used routinely include a half point as they do in Australia? There is never a drawn result. Even in the closest games one side or the other receives half a point.
I’m not sure what sport in australia you mean, but in american football, there are a lot of games where, say, if you made the 3 into 3.5, you’d get a lot of action on the underdog and if the spread was 2.5, you’d get a ton of action on the favorite.
3,4,7,10 are kind of the key numbers. A ‘3’ usually indicates that they think the teams are pretty evenly matched, but the home team os made the favorite. When you start moving off those numbers by a half point, you can really start changing the action putting the books are great risk.
1-3 against the number yesterday. I don’t have a side tonight.
Australian football of all types. I forgot how predictable the scoring is in American football. We have penalty goals and conversions (points after) are taken in line with the score, so are often kicked from the sidelines and therefore missed. Your scores 95% of the time would just be different permutations of 7 and 3.
Well, I got the winning ugly part right. But I’ll take it.
I would love to agree with you, but I had absolutely no fucking idea what you were describing in that post. In retrospect I should have asked you to elaborate.
I think what he’s saying is best described by an example. . .
The Texans are 0-2 against the spread (that’s a ‘2’). The Bengals were 3-0 (that’s a -3). Do Texans - Bengals = 2 - (-3) = +5
The cardinals are 0-3, (+3) the niners were 2-1 (-1). So, the difference is 4.
OTOH, the Saints and Bills were both 1-2, so that’s a no-play. The pack and the pantheres are both 1-2, so that’s a no play. Same with OAK-DALL.
Thare are a lot of angles out there that are kind of “anti-consensus” things. This one would say, for instance, “the money is going to be all over Cincinatti, so the line has to be artificially high to even it out”.
I believe that lines are set more with that in mind, than actually looking at personnel and match-ups on the field. They more closely represent perception of reality than reality.
Can I trouble you to please please please keep on thinking that all season long?
Well, at least i was right in that the game was a slaughter. Now i’m 0-2 for the season. At least i can’t do any worse.
Trunk nailed it, but here’s the bottom line:
All teams should end the season even against the spread. So a team one game below .500 against the spread should cover the next game to pull even. Conversely, a team one game above .500 against the spread should fail to cover the next game to pull even against the spread.
Each game away from .500 is one point. Add up the points of both teams combined, and you get your weighted pick. We call this system the Spread Picker. Of note is that the actual spreads themselves are moot. (This is a nice feature.) The thing to remember is that you must calculate the teams standings against the spreads that you play; we ended up getting the entire rundown of all spreads when we’d call the bets in just so we could use this strategy.
Due to my horrendously bad showing this week, it is highly likely that the spread picker will strongly influence my picks in the upcoming weeks. This is exactly how I remember it happening when we used to bet. The first few weeks we would sort of tread water, but then we would get killed, and so we’d switch to strategies other than our gut instinct.
Since I’m 1-3 on mortal locks, pretty much anything would be better than my gut at this point. The fact that a mortal lock of mine (Bengals) went against the spread picker best bet is no surprise at all to me. The fact that I was wrong and the spread picker was right is equally unsurprising.
IIRC, I never once enjoyed a winning season.
Early Games
17 **PATRIOTS…5…**41 **Chargers.**58 **47½…**Patriots will exploit the pass d more than Eli. Under.
.7 **JAGS…3½.**20 **Broncos…**27 **37…**Jags and the over.
16 **BENGALS…9½.**10 **Texans…**26 **42½…**Bengals are a mortal lock, and so is the over.
31 **Colts…7…**10 **TITANS…**41 **45…**Too many points; avoid the Colts for now.
17 **BUCS…6½.**13 **Lions…**30 **34…**Bucs and the over.
44 **GIANTS…3…**24 **Rams…**68 **46½…**Giants continue home winning streak. Way over.
19 **SAINTS…PK…**7 **Bills…**26 **39½…**Losman bounces back for the Billies; bet the under.
20 **REDSKINS…2…**17 **Seahawks.**37 **36½…**Honestly, I have no earthly idea.
Late Games
13 **RAVENS…7…**3 **Jets…**16 **31…**Jets easily. Vinny takes the helm by halftime.
30 **FALCONS…5½.**10 **Vikings…**40 **44½…**Eat the bullet. (Gun to your head, you would pick…?)
31 **CHIEFS…2…**37 **Eagles…**68 **45…**Chiefs and the over.
19 **RAIDERS…3…**13 **Cowboys…**32 **47…**Raiders and the over.
Night Games
31 *Cards…3…**14 **49ers…**45 **43…**49ers and the over.
32 **PANTHERS…7½.**29 **Packers…**61 **43…**Packers should keep it close enough to cover.
Early Games
Risk 55 for 120 on the Bengals & the Over
Risk 30 for 60 on the Giants & the Over
Woohoo, go Giants, cover that bet and win all my fantasy leagues. Up 5, despite the ocean of red in the early games. 3-9 is not so good, but at least I managed to combine 2 of those 3 winners in a parlay.
Late Games
Risk 55 for 50 on the Jets, and also
If up anything, risk 55 for 120 on the Overs: Chiefs / Eagles & Raiders / Cowboys
Hmmm, 2-3 in the late games, but I failed to connect any winners together. Now down 105. Ouch!
Sunday Night
If down 140, risk 30 for 60 on the 49ers & the Over, or else
Risk 55 for 120 on the 49ers & the Over
And it just gets worse. Now down 160, praying that the Monday Nighter wins back a little.
Monday Night
Risk 30 for 25 on the Packers
Almost not worth it, but I’ll take the win. Down a whopping 135 for the week. That’s, uh, not so good.
Standing
This week: 6-12, -135
Season: 19-34, -195
Not so hot. In the interests of avoiding another triple post, here’s the updated standings against the spread:
3-1 Bengals
3-1 Falcons
3-1 Giants
3-1 Jags
2-1 Bears
2-1-1 Broncos
2-1 Browns
2-1-1 Chargers
2-1 Dolphins
2-1 Lions
2-1 Redskins
2-1 Steelers
2-2 Bucs
2-2 Chiefs
2-2 Colts
2-2 Eagles
2-2 49ers
2-2 Packers
2-2 Patriots
2-2 Raiders
2-2 Saints
2-2 Seahawks
2-2 Titans
1-2 Ravens
1-2 Texans
1-3 Bills
1-3 Cards
1-3 Cowboys
1-3 Jets
1-3 Panthers
1-3 Rams
1-3 Vikings
Dirty, rotten g*ddamn sumbitch. I almost wish it was just a blowout. Might have been easier to handle. 
Your team have a bye this week, Omni?
His team is da Bears… are they on a bye? I’m sure you can’t start a new thread and he’ll post in there when he has a moment.
I’m interested to see how just-about-my-age Vinny Testaverde does against my Bucs in the Meadowlands this weekend. He’ll either embarass us or we’ll make him wish he’d never unretired. Peter King of SI has the Jets winning big, which is encouraging to me, as he is seldom correct. On the other hand we’re bound to lose to one of these bad teams at some point and I’m dreading facing real competition.
In last weeks picks pool I got all but one right (San Diego over NE – who saw that coming?)
Which means I’ll get 10 wrong this week. Regression to the mean is a bitch. Here are my picks: Lions, Jets, Bills, Titans, Browns, Pats, Pack, Rams, Colts, Broncos, Panthers, Eagles, Bengals, and Chargers.
Vikes on a bye week, so me and the cricetus woman are going to look at autumnal trees on Sunday. Saturday is the Gophers annual collapse against the Wolverines, so I’ll be watching that for sure. I have a good feeling about this years collapse. I think it’ll be a big one.