System Betting: Colorado Rockies Home Games

System Bet: Colorado Rockies home games

For several years, the lure of the high altitude at Coors Field in Colorado has attracted sports bettors.  If you like offense, these are the games for you.  Colorado has long built its team around offense to take advantage of the elements of their home games, often times sacrificing on top quality pitching.  This has led to Rockies home games typically having the highest total available for sports bettors.

How does this translate, historically, for over/under records in these games?  The answer may surprise you.

We know that the book makers will have the totals for the Rockies home games at a higher number than other games.  It is common to see 10 -12 on the board, depending on pitching and opponent.  Most sports bettors will tell you that betting the Rockies home game overs is profitable.  Let’s look at some statistics.

Since 2010, Rockies home games have gone over 416 times, under 371 times, and landed right on the number 24 times.  That is an over percentage of 52.9%.  If you bet every one of these games since 2010, you would basically be break even after considering standard juice.

But, since 2017, Rockies home games have gone over 106 times, under 132 times, and landed right on the number 6 times.  The UNDER percentage here is 55.5%.  

It appears the book makers have sensed the public sentiment on Rockies home game overs.  As it turns out, the UNDER is the new bet for these games.  Hitting 55.5% will land you a nice profit on this system bet.

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What the Futures Hold

People still play scratch off lottery tickets, buy raffle tickets, and try to guess how many items are in a jar.  With the odds seemingly so stacked against them, people still believe they have a chance.  While sports betting futures don’t have nearly the same long shot odds, they can still be fairly long, depending on the team and the road to take.

Futures can be very profitable.  Especially when your ticket was purchased early or when the odds looked insurmountable.  Just a few examples that have hit:

2016 Leicester City: 5000/1

1980 USA Hockey Gold: 1000/1

2011 St. Louis Cardinals: 999/1 (15 games left in regular season)

1987 Minnesota Twins: 500/1

1999 St. Louis Rams: 300/1

2019 St. Louis Blues 250/1

2009 Kentucky Derby - Mine That Bird: 50/1

2014 Ohio State Football: 50/1 

1990 Buster Douglas vs Mike Tyson: 42/1

There must be something in the water in St. Louis.  

The key to buying futures is to look for identifying when there is real value vs. perceived value.  For example, as to championships, look at the 2014 Ohio State team.  After their starting QB went down for the year, and they lost in week 2 to Virginia Tech, you could get them for 50/1 at books.  But with their entire conference schedule to play, and several teams ahead of them playing each other, it wasn’t that much of a stretch to imagine them at least making the playoff.  There was real value in 50/1.

On the flip side, the key to selling futures is when a marginal team shows a level of success.  This could be a big win early in the season for football.  It could be a baseball team starting off the year strong.  Scheduling comes into play here, especially early in the seasons.  Compare those early season opportunities to the futures prices preseason.

In either case, buying or selling, it is about maximizing value.  The plan with these futures tickets shouldn’t be buy/hold.  It should be buy/sell as to maximize value.  Prop Swap is a great website for buying and selling these “lottery tickets”.  

Having a plan in place when you see a market opportunity can be a boost to your bankroll.  Timing will be paramount.  But the nice part about getting in/out is that you don’t have to worry if your ticket is actually good.  You will have already made your money reselling on the secondary market.

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The Importance of Returning Lettermen in CFB

System betting is often times used throughout the course of a season to pick specific games or matchups.  But this type of betting, which is where you have a proven theory/model and apply it to specific situations, can be just as useful picking win totals for teams in the preseason.

Most books will hang season win totals for football in the summer, often with limit bets.  These are more opportunities to take advantage of all the research you have done, especially as these lines can move a half game or more fairly quickly.  The juice can/does move even faster.

We’ve discussed how to evaluate season win totals in a previous article.  We’ve even written about the impact that a previous year’s turnovers can have on a team for the following season.  One seldom used, but very effective, betting system is to look at returning or lost lettermen.

From 2001 - 2015, teams that had at least 79% of their lettermen returning, and at least 16 starters returning totaled 74 teams.  Of those 74 teams in that time period, 56 of them (75.7%) had the same or better record the following year.  Additionally, the occurrence of teams that had less than 60.5% of their lettermen returning, 11 or less starters returning, and lost their previous year’s starting QB happened 57 times.  Only 8 (14%) improved their record the following year.

System betting can be very profitable.  And statistically speaking, these two systems are.

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Turnovers = Turnaround

One of the best metrics we have seen to determine future performance of a college football or NFL team is the turnover metric.  Simply put, turnovers can equal turnaround.  Both more wins, and more losses.

As Phil Steele says “Turnovers can have a huge impact on games and on a team’s season.  They can also lead to many misleading final scores and make or break a season”.  

Let’s look at some stats:  From 1991 - 2015, there were 346 teams in college football that finished a season +11 or more in the turnover category for the year.  Of those 346 teams, 77% of them finished with a worse/same record than the year before.  Conversely, during the same time period, 285 teams finished the year -10 or more in the turnover category.  The following year, 227 of those teams, or 80%, finished with a better/same record.

As the turnover differential increases, so does the change in percentages the next year.  For example, from 2011 - 2015, there were 39 teams that were +14 or more in turnovers.  Of those, 34 of them were weaker/same in wins the following season (87%).

From a sports betting standpoint, finding the teams that finished the previous year plus or minus double digits in turnovers can be extremely valuable when looking at season win totals.  After pulling this data, compare the previous year record to the preseason over/under win total.  There will likely be several opportunities.  Something to consider when the cash percentage is at least 77%.

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College Football Weekly Power Ratings

In a previous article we discussed creating a college football preseason power rating.  We set forth the criteria that has served us well after years of efforts.  It is extremely important to review that post because this post builds from it.  The preseason power ranking is only a starting point for the season. The grind doesn’t stop.  These rankings will change each week depending on a wide variety of factors.  Each bettor has their own criteria the follow closely.  

After the first week of college football is played, it is time to update the rankings.  This will need done after every week, leading into bowl season (which all bets are off, so to speak...check out our bowl season post).  Having said this, below are the primary variables we look at to update our weekly power ratings.

• Offensive efficiency
• Defensive efficiency
• 3rd down offense
• 3rd down defense
• Special Teams
• Game Review vs. Opponent
• Health Factor/Injuries
• Turnover Margin

These variables get included along with others used to determine the initial power rankings.  Those other variables are: Head Coach and Conference Rankings.

Most of these variables are self-explanatory based upon statistical research.  Again, how you assign quantitive analysis is up to you. Just be consistent.  A couple of notes on the others: 

Game Review vs. Opponent:  This is rating a team based upon how they compare to their opponent’s averages.  Did they gain significantly more yards, get more 3rd down stops, etc.  There are resources that can do this analysis for you.  

Health Factor:  This is perhaps the most difficult to analyze.  It isn’t truly quantitative.  Just because a “key player” is out, or injured, doesn’t mean a backup can’t have a level of success.  We have traditionally only made significant shifts to this at specific positions.  Those being QB, top RB, top WR, and K.  

For those who have been producing their own power ratings, they know how much of a grind it is.  That said, if done right, it can make the season substantially more profitable.  Power ratings can stop you from making a bad bet, or show you a soft line to jump on. 

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College Football Win Totals

One of the most exciting times of the sports betting year is the day that college football win totals are released.  It signifies getting serious about power rankings, and provides are renewed interest from professionals and recreational bettors alike.  

Some books release the most popular/biggest programs first, with the smaller schools weeks later.  Other books will release over 100+ teams at the same time.  It can be easy to be overwhelmed by all the opportunity.  Keep in mind with numbers for regular season wins usually ranging from 3-11, there can often be substantial juice (ie -140+) or substantial plus money (+160+) on these bets.

So how do we get started identifying tickets we like? After years of reviewing, and trial and error, we have identified some criteria that has proven very useful when identifying if the books may be overvaluing or undervaluing a particular team.  Those criteria are below:

1. Head Coach: a good head coach knows how to maximize talent and mask deficiencies in his team.
2. Previous year turnover margin: if the team had excessive turnovers, it likely led to losses that could have been wins and may not be accurately depicted in a new win total.  Likewise, if a team had excessive takeaways, that may have helped them win a couple more games they might not have.  In a single season this can have an enormous impact if skewed one direction or the other.
3. How did the team finish the last 4-6 games in the previous year? Sometimes it takes a team time to gel.  Especially when new coaches and schemes come into play.  The last 6 games are more important to look at than the first 6 games of a previous year when thinking about a new season win total.

The first thing to do is to look at the schedule.  There should be some easy wins and easy losses to identify.  Second, for the games that could go either way, look at the three criteria above to see if any of those factors stand out to help make a decision.  Third, for those hard-to-call games, is the team you are looking at on the road, or at home?  Finally, some games are too close to call for these purposes. We have found that assigning 1/2 credit is helpful.  If you give the team you are looking at two 1/2 credits, that counts as one win and one loss.  Keep in mind, the books immediately start hedging based upon how they feel sports bettors will react at certain numbers.  That doesn’t mean -185 or +210 is good or bad, just the book’s interpretation of how they think bettors will respond to the lines.  One more note, these win totals, and the juice, adjust leading up to week one.  You may pay more on your win or get more on your win by waiting.

In other articles on this blog, we will be posting about the impact and statistical playable options for both previous year turnovers and returning lettermen/starters.  Both of these variables can be very telling, statistically and historically, as to how a team will perform the next year.

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Preseason College Football Power Rankings

Every August/September brings a renewed level of excitement for sports bettors.  We’re talking about football season.  With so many ways to watch (ie cable, satellite, streaming, TV, iPad, laptop, phone, etc) and so many games being covered, it is no wonder that so much money is bet on these games.

In order for a professional sports bettor to get ready for the season, a power ranking is needed. Professional sports bettors keep a power ranking spreadsheet, and compare it to lines released by the books.  They also update the list weekly based upon how teams are playing, who they played, injuries, etc.

While some sports bettors buy power rankings, the true professionals make their own list based on experiences they have had, what information is actually valuable as well as quantitative, etc.  It is a constant grind.  For college football, after the games end late Saturday, many pros are updating their power rankings with stats, etc in an effort to be ready when the early lines come out for the following week’s games, which is usually less than 24 hours later.

So what goes into an initial power ranking?  If you asked 20 different sports bettors what their variables are, you would get 20 different answers.  Some have 5 categories, some have 15.  Some have stats that others don’t have.  Should you include turnover margin?  What about net punting yards?  One thing is consistent, though.  Make sure you can somehow quantify it.  Otherwise, bias sets in.  As long as you are consistent in your numerical values assigned.

The fields that we think make the most sense for the INITIAL power ranking is below (please note that once week one is over, there will be other categories added, this will be the subject of another post in the future).  Also, not every category needs to carry the same weight.  For example, Conference Power Ranking should probably carry a lot of weight because playing in the SEC means a team is likely stronger than a team playing in the MAC.  Let’s say Alabama is your highest rated team in the SEC and Akron is your highest rated team in the MAC.  Their statistics vs conference opponents might look similar, but what would happen if Alabama played Akron?  Alabama’s stats would dramatically improve and Akron’s would dramatically deteriorate.  This is why there should be heavy weight given to Conference Rankings.

• Last season final power ranking
• + Recruiting class
• - Graduations, transfers, and early Draft entries
• Head Coach 
• Conference Power Ranking (top to bottom)

With there being well over 100 college FBS teams, it doesn’t seem feasible to keep up with this on a weekly basis unless you truly are a professional sports bettor.  For the rest of sports bettors, we recommend starting with the Top 25 from last year, and adding in another 10 that are likely to move into the Top 25 at some point.  This will allow for 35 teams to follow and keep track of for comparison purposes.  Finally, if time allows, we recommend ranking a small conference, such as the Sun Belt or MAC.  The reasoning behind this is that the games typically don’t attract as much public money, which means if there are big line movements, it is likely the pros hammering one side.  Having a power ranking for this will help solidify your logic to fire at these games.

Thanks for reading. Please follow us on this blog and also stay up to date with our current posts on Twitter @scccllc and @moneylineshow. Shirts now available in our eBay store at ...  https://www.ebay.com/str/steelcityclothingcompanyllcKeep checking back! 

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