Like games concept

It’s been a while since I last posted. Reality set in, health problems and a 3-week hospital stay intervened. I’m ready to resume and will start with a system I call my “like game” system. It’s a system that generates a batch of likely scores for a game. It’s based on the concept that the sports book’s markets are efficient. That implies that all available information about a game is baked in the lines. Thus, if the spread on a football home team is -6, then it is likely that half the games will result in that team covering and the other half not. Likewise, a total of 42 would imply half will finish over 42 and half under (with some pushed).

Using these two numbers, we can determine the expected score for each team. Divide the total by 2. Then subtract half the spread from the total to get the dogs expected score. And add half to get the favorites expected score. In this case, the expected scores are 18 and 24 (totaling 42 with a 6-point spread). These could be plotted on a X-Y graph, with the visit score on the y-axis and the home score on the x-axis. If I had another score set, I would have another point on the graph and could compute the distance between these points by using a simple algebraic formula.

I have data files going back 11 years (for both NFL and CFB) with the lines and the final scores. These files are used to build an internal past like games table. Each table entry contains expected scores of the 2 teams (computed from the spread and total lines), and the resulting final scores.  Today’s game spreads are then compared to each of the past games to find the set of past games that are most “like” today’s game. Then the scores of these like games make up the set of likely scores that can be used to evaluate potential wagers.

My next post will deal with the matching process used to select the set of like games.  I’ll tweet on Twitter, @ole44bill, when I do. Meanwhile, I’ve started a thread in the “Handicapper Think Tank” forum of www.sportsbookreview.com for comments, criticisms, questions, and suggestions. Its title is “Like game system”.