Two filtering techniques for MLB run line system

This post will use 2 techniques to try to filter the wagers determined by the MLB run line system described previously. The first is to segment the wagers based on some identifiable filters. One of the potential filters involved location and plus or minus runs. I segmented the suggested wagers by location and run line and generated the following table.

Over $1.00 Exp Ret	Number	Bet	Net	Ret/$	Bets/Day
Home Team +1.5	1282	$175,482	$3,415	$1.02	1.8
Home Team -1.5	1491	$149,934	$9,419	$1.06	2.1
Visit Team +1.5	2489	$390,507	$1,314	$1.00	3.5
Visit Team -1.5	667	$66,880	$520	$1.01	0.9

In addition to providing a positive expected return, one would want increasing returns as the expected returns went higher. Of the 4 possibilities, only one showed this consistently. That one was the Home Team -1.5 segment. Also, the expected return of $1.06 was the highest. This filter would produce about 2.1 bets per day, a reasonable number.

The other technique is a graphical one. Here I was interested in looking at the odds to see what impact they might have. To do this I converted the odds to European format. Thus -140 became 1.71 and +114 became 2.14. I then sorted the selected wagers by these new odds and computed a cumulative net. Here the data used was the wagers in the selected group above.

 

Here you notice that the results starting at the lower odds meander around zero net for about the first 25% of the bets, then move dramatically up word. This point corresponds to +140 odds and higher. Combining the two filters provides the following historical results.

Selected	Number	Bet	Net	Ret/$	Bets/Day
Hom-1.5 Odds >+139	1074	$107,400	$10,273	$1.10	1.5

This is a pretty solid return with a low, but decent number of bets per day. So, I’ll be using this criteria for a while and hopefully generate some solid returns.

I’ve opened a topic on Sports Book Review in the Handicappers Think Tank forum (“Run Line Wager Analysis”) to deal with some of these questions. You are welcome to make comments, raise questions, or criticisms there. Follow me on Twitter, @ole44bill, to know when I post further analysis.