Will there be a safety?Six of maybe eight safeties this season involved these two teams? That is statistically unlikely. I know of a few folks (possibly with gambling problems) who often make this bet. Anyway, he has a whole slew of potential bets. I'm place my bets on whether Punxsutawney Phil or Buckeye Chuck see their shadows on Thursday.
Yes: +900
No: -1300
There are about seven or eight safeties each year in the NFL. My unofficial count this year is eight, but for some reason, six of them involved these two teams in one way or another. Is that meaningful when it comes to predicting the likelihood of a safety in the Super Bowl? Absolutely not. You're looking at about a 3 percent chance of a safety happening, which means that the odds for "Yes" should be something like +3233. Betting "No" here, even at -1300, is one of the best prop bets you can make this year. Of course, you will have to risk $100 to win $7.69 in the process.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Super Bowl Prop Bets
Bill Barnwell highlights a number of gambling options for the Super Bowl. One interesting tidbit:
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Not only is it statistically unlikely, it didn't happen. I don't know whose butt he pulled this from, but there were 21 safeties in the NFL regular season this year (plus one in the playoffs), not 8. Not only are not "about seven or eight safeties each year in the NFL," but the last time there were single-digit safeties (1969), the league only had 16 teams. This is a bad bet.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know how many safeties there were this season, but 8 did seem pretty low. Even with 21 safeties, there are what, 256 games in the regular season, so the odds are fairly close to reality. I know there was a Super Bowl safety a couple of years ago, so it does happen every so often. Maybe it'll be a number of years before it does again.
ReplyDeleteIf you think paying 16 to win 1 on a bet that you lose 16 once in twelve is fairly close, I don't know what to tell you, other than you shouldn't be gambling. It's not much different from covering 35 numbers on a single zero roulette wheel. 35 of 37 times you'll win a buck, but the other two times you'll lose 35. Sucker bet.
ReplyDeleteAin't it thirteen to one? Clearly, the house always wins, especially when you either bet 13:1 or 1:9. I don't think the sports books do anything where you SHOULD be gambling. What's worse, paying 13:1 when you lose 1 in 12, or paying 1:9 when you win 1 in 12?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the concept isn't much different than a highly leveraged Wall Street play. Works out almost all the time, but when it doesn't, you're wiped out.
ReplyDeleteThe lines that I'm actually seeing are 16:1, not the line barnwell quotes (surprise surprise). And it's not a 3 percent chance, it's an 8 percent chance. The point is, it's not a good bet. And yet barnwell has claimed it's a great bet. It's just really really bad media horsecrap, and an example of grantland's particularly bad fact checking. Are you related to him or something, because almost everything he writes in the safety blurb is factually incorrect. Why are you defending it? Perhaps you're embarrassed that you too failed to do the 30 second research required to debunk before quoting and linking.
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing up Barnwell's incorrect data. I am not defending Barnwell, nor am I advocating that this is a good bet. The only reason I highlighted this portion of the article is because of the (inaccurate) claim that 6 of the approximately 8 safeties in the league this year involved one of these two teams (and I do know some people who have made this bet, and I said they might be problem gamblers). I thought that was odd, even though 8 safeties seemed low for the whole season. Can you verify whether the 6 safeties is accurate? I don't really care, but even 6 of 21 seems somewhat high on the bell curve in my opinion (while not nearly as high as 6 of 8).
ReplyDeleteCan you indicate to me any casino bet of any kind in which the odds are in the favor of the gambler, excepting at certain points in a blackjack game when the participant is counting cards? My point earlier in these comments was that the deck is always stacked against the gambler. I assume this is the fact, and yet I'll still play a game once in a while just for a little fun. Heck, I've played the state lottery keno once in a while, and you are pretty much guaranteed to lose your money 75% of the time.
I've also made a few bets in which the odds were strongly with me. Those were actually the most fun, because they drug out over a period of time and were a good source of conversation. In one of those instances, I still lost. With 3 games left in the regular season in 2002, I made the bet that Ohio State wouldn't end up undefeated. They managed to squeak out 4 extremely close victories to cost me that bet.
As for whether or not I'm embarrassed that I posted this without fact checking it, not really. I'm doing this for fun, and if somebody points out that something I posted isn't accurate or true, I'll more than willingly accept that. That's what the comments are for. If I come across a story which corrects something I referenced before, I'll try to post it with a link to the previous story. I try to put up enough different stuff to be relatively interesting and worth reading, and it is somewhat difficult to do while working a pretty much full-time job.
All I said earlier is that 13:1 odds were close to reality (if the outcome actually occurs 1 time in 12). That was accepting the fact that the odds always favor the house. I wasn't advocating making that bet.
Thanks for commenting and stop in any time.
I hope nobody took Barnwell's advice.
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