State space
With sports betting now legal in several US states, I might as well give away my number one piece of advice for amateurs looking to gamble:
Don’t bet.
It’s an easy recommendation. Numbers implied by betting markets are too good, too close to the truth that, when accounting for the vig, it’s nearly impossible to make a long term profit.
But just because your local statistician tells you not to bet doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check out betting market odds.
The best team in baseball during the 2013 season was the Detroit Tigers.
Detroit’s rotation featured the eventual Cy Young award winner (Max Scherzer), alongside both the 2011 and 2016 Cy winners (Justin Verlander and Rick Porcello, respectively). The Tigers line-up was spearheaded by Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera, the latter of whom would win his second consecutive MVP. Indeed, betting market rankings had the Tigers atop the sport for basically the entire season.
In the 2016-17 season, the Washington Capitals dominated the NHL like few teams in recent history, winning the Presidents’ Trophy with 118 points.
The Caps entered a 2nd-round playoff series with Pittsburgh as decent-sized favorites (58 percent), and sure enough, Washington outplayed its rivals. In each of seven consecutive games, the Capitals outshot the Penguins, finishing with 70 total more shots on goal.
Unfortunately for Washington, not enough shots turned into goals, and because hockey games are decided by goals, it was the Penguins that moved onto the Eastern Conference Finals.
One way in which professional sports are relatively fair is that, in each season, teams are almost always given an identical number of home games. This seems like an obvious way to run a sports organization, until you remember that postseason berths in NCAA hoops and football often hinge on incredibly unbalanced schedules.
Playing at home is a benefit, and while the reasons for the overall advantage are somewhat up for debate, there are obvious and unique advantages that make playing at home different each sport.