It is best to say it is implausible, but not impossible. Same with picking 81 fair coin flips in a row.
What his win means to me is that he is a better picker than those that set the spread, so his per game chances are not just 50-50.
Need help calculating odds
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What his win means to me is that he is a better picker than those that set the spread, so his per game chances are not just 50-50.
You should realize that probability is about how likely something is, not whether it can happen. Obviously winning a lottery has low odds but someone wins it most weeks.Probability of 81 heads in a row is 1 / 2.482 * 10 to the exponent 24 ( or 1.0e+24)
which means
1 chance in 1 septillion * 2.482 which confirms my original calculation , which means it is impossible ...
I can also tell you the thing that your assumption is missing, the sample size. For one person to place bets and win against that type of odds is extremely unlikely. Billions of bets being placed makes the possibility far more likely.
trillions and trillions of bettors would be the needed sample sizeYou should realize that probability is about how likely something is, not whether it can happen. Obviously winning a lottery has low odds but someone wins it most weeks.
I can also tell you the thing that your assumption is missing, the sample size. For one person to place bets and win against that type of odds is extremely unlikely. Billions of bets being placed makes the possibility far more likely.
Probably a scam to advertise site
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They are notIf the odds are fifty/fifty for one game then
That is the entire purpose of the spread
The point is there is no such thing as a catch upAssuming a fair coin is 50/50. Always. You don't bet that it will catch up.
Ever
Each toss is an individual toss (even the lottery here try to explain that but people never understand it)
If you did (by some fluke) throw ten heads
The odd of the eleventh toss is STILL 50/50
It would be even more bizarre to then throw ten tails
I understand that a coin flip done right now is a 50/50 regardless of what happened in the past. Yeah, I remember my math teacher saying the same thing.
But how does that explain batting avgs?
Most batters have a career batting avg of let's say about .270
At the beginning of the year, any batter can start hot or cold in their first 50 or 100 at bats (a batter will have about 600 ABs in a full season). One batter can be batting .150, while another is some reason red hot at .400.
Both batters have career .270 avgs. By year end, what will likely happen is the guy batting .150 will bat better and get back up to .270-ish, by batting .300 rest of the year. While the guy who got lucky hitting .400 in the first month will likely crash and burn and end up at .270, which means the rest of the season he bat maybe .240
But how does that explain batting avgs?
Most batters have a career batting avg of let's say about .270
At the beginning of the year, any batter can start hot or cold in their first 50 or 100 at bats (a batter will have about 600 ABs in a full season). One batter can be batting .150, while another is some reason red hot at .400.
Both batters have career .270 avgs. By year end, what will likely happen is the guy batting .150 will bat better and get back up to .270-ish, by batting .300 rest of the year. While the guy who got lucky hitting .400 in the first month will likely crash and burn and end up at .270, which means the rest of the season he bat maybe .240
If you are slightly mathematically inclined and you want to read something that will infuriate you:
"Consider an equilateral triangle inscribed in a circle. Suppose a chord of the circle is chosen at random. What is the probability that the chord is longer than a side of the triangle?"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_paradox_(probability)
"Consider an equilateral triangle inscribed in a circle. Suppose a chord of the circle is chosen at random. What is the probability that the chord is longer than a side of the triangle?"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_paradox_(probability)
This is a reasonably decent article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_averagesI understand that a coin flip done right now is a 50/50 regardless of what happened in the past. Yeah, I remember my math teacher saying the same thing.
But how does that explain batting avgs?
Just think of it this way. If the good batter had a bad start and bats .150, that was an unlikely event given his past performance. What do you think is more likely to happen for the remainder of the season, if his performance really is unchanged? That he would continue with a .150 or lower? Or he will perform .270 on average for the remainder of the season and bring his sesson average closer to .270? From a pure statistical sense, he will bat on average better than .150, and his average will improve.
That's all that regressing to the mean means, that an extreme outcome is not likely to be followed with a more extreme outcome.
It is further complicated by the fact that his average may truly change if he is seen as underperforming, so it is not a .270 performance anymore. He will work on the why, if any, and correct. The coaches may tweak his stance, get better glasses, whatever.
Very very few batters have consistent hitting (at any avg)But how does that explain batting avgs?
Most batters have a career batting avg of let's say about .270
Most will hit 300 one year, 280 the next, then 220 when getting close to retirement
The number of players who actually hit consistently you can probably count on one hand
Tony Gwynn and Rod Carew are the only 2 that I can think of off top of my head
This is not even getting into the fact that baseball is never same situation (eg if you have a good hitter on a good team he sees more pitches, whereas that same great hitter on a crap team gets no pitches ref Ralph Kiner)
This.If you bet NE in every game to cover the spread your win % would 85
If you bet Cleveland to not cover the spread in every Game your win % would be 75.
He had to pick 4 games every week. Picking the 4 teams with the best % to either cover or fail to cover the spread would reduce your overall probability odds.
The outcome of the game on paper is 50/50, assuming that they are going to decide it by a coin toss. They aren't. If you do research, and choose the 4 games that week that are most likely to cover the spread, your odds are way higher than 50/50.
Yes, this is still a feat and it could well be a scam to advertise the site. But it isn't a 1 in 2 septillion feat. If you can cherry pick games to make it a 60/40 proposition instead of 50/50, the odds are 2.4157877732485223e+15 which (if I'm doing the math correctly) is about 2.4 quadrillion (or 2,415,787,773,248,522.3 more precisely). That knocks 9 zeros off your number.
Take it a step further and only pick clear favourites, and never get an upset. Up it to 70/30 and your odds are about 1 in 63 trillion (or 63,529,072,894,891.32 more precisely).
Take it a step further, manage 80/20 odds and your odds are 1 in 141 million (or 141,347,765.18227139)
How long would it take for 140 million bets to be made on 81 games in a single NFL season? My guess: not long at all. The difference is that in this day and age you'll hear about it when it happens that someone gets it right. Especially if it's good advertising and the company behinds it pushes the info out in a press release that gets picked up.
The spread makes each game a coin flip. Look at the experts in the paper who posts their season record against the spread and you will notice a collective 50/50 record. No one knew NE was going to cover spread 85% of time.This.
The outcome of the game on paper is 50/50, assuming that they are going to decide it by a coin toss. They aren't. If you do research, and choose the 4 games that week that are most likely to cover the spread, your odds are way higher than 50/50.
Yes, this is still a feat and it could well be a scam to advertise the site. But it isn't a 1 in 2 septillion feat. If you can cherry pick games to make it a 60/40 proposition instead of 50/50, the odds are 2.4157877732485223e+15 which (if I'm doing the math correctly) is about 2.4 quadrillion (or 2,415,787,773,248,522.3 more precisely). That knocks 9 zeros off your number.
Take it a step further and only pick clear favourites, and never get an upset. Up it to 70/30 and your odds are about 1 in 63 trillion (or 63,529,072,894,891.32 more precisely).
Take it a step further, manage 80/20 odds and your odds are 1 in 141 million (or 141,347,765.18227139)
How long would it take for 140 million bets to be made on 81 games in a single NFL season? My guess: not long at all. The difference is that in this day and age you'll hear about it when it happens that someone gets it right. Especially if it's good advertising and the company behinds it pushes the info out in a press release that gets picked up.
There is no favorite against the spread - that is the whole point of the spread
What stuns me totally is how multiplying a number by 2 can, so very quickly, make that number so outrageously huge it is beyond are ability to conceptualize it
... except there's no true "odds" in human behaviour.
The math around impartial mechanics can be stated. The math around sports is a fallacy.
Does math factor in when someone shaves during the play offs and throws off the team mojo? Does it factor in when a one eyed skunk pees on the bus tire and the key player who's grandma was a voodoo priestess in Cuba is now terrified and can't concentrate in his game? Or flu? Or that Lamar banged a pair of sisters the night before the big game and can't find his fight the next day?
Betting on the balls dropping in 649 is a mathematically predictable game, betting on the schweddy balls is not.
The math around impartial mechanics can be stated. The math around sports is a fallacy.
Does math factor in when someone shaves during the play offs and throws off the team mojo? Does it factor in when a one eyed skunk pees on the bus tire and the key player who's grandma was a voodoo priestess in Cuba is now terrified and can't concentrate in his game? Or flu? Or that Lamar banged a pair of sisters the night before the big game and can't find his fight the next day?
Betting on the balls dropping in 649 is a mathematically predictable game, betting on the schweddy balls is not.
'
Look at the experts in the paper who posts their season record against the spread and you will notice a collective 50/50 record. You would need inside info to know that "the key player who's grandma was a voodoo priestess in Cuba is now terrified and can't concentrate in his game"
... except there's no true "odds" in human behaviour.
The math around impartial mechanics can be stated. The math around sports is a fallacy.
Does math factor in when someone shaves during the play offs and throws off the team mojo? Does it factor in when a one eyed skunk pees on the bus tire and the key player who's grandma was a voodoo priestess in Cuba is now terrified and can't concentrate in his game? Or flu? Or that Lamar banged a pair of sisters the night before the big game and can't find his fight the next day?
Betting on the balls dropping in 649 is a mathematically predictable game, betting on the schweddy balls is not.
Look at the experts in the paper who posts their season record against the spread and you will notice a collective 50/50 record. You would need inside info to know that "the key player who's grandma was a voodoo priestess in Cuba is now terrified and can't concentrate in his game"
Could easily be false advertising but statistically speaking, odds of one in a million does not mean you only win after 1 million tries.trillions and trillions of bettors would be the needed sample size
Probably a scam to advertise site
Of course the other possibility is that the analysis done by them does take into account things missed by the vegas bookmakers and actually does have odds better than 50:50.
You posted this same comment twice'Look at the experts in the paper who posts their season record against the spread and you will notice a collective 50/50 record. You would need inside info to know that "the key player who's grandma was a voodoo priestess in Cuba is now terrified and can't concentrate in his game"
Repetition does not help it
Your comment is wrong
Most experts are so for a reason and tend to take the safe bets coupled with the dark horse they think will win them money
As well the idea that combining experts somehow levels out the field is absurd; most experts run lockstep to each other
It is rare to see one buck the trend
So if you have 5 experts, most likely they all have the exact same winning pct, which is not 50%
Heck even most of us at home would not be 50%
The reason sports gambling survives is most of us are correct 70-80% of the time giving us hope to place one more bet
If we all lost half the time there would be no betting
NOPE.The spread makes each game a coin flip.
That's not what the spread is for, at all. Take that thought out of your head. It's not to level the statistical playing field (pun intended). THE SPREAD IS ABOUT GAMBLING, NOT EQUALIZING OUTCOMES.
Don't believe me?
"The point spread isn't designed to be a true representation of how much better one team is than another, but is designed to attract an equal amount of money on both teams, so that the sportsbooks are guaranteed a profit." from http://sportsgambling.about.com/od/sportsgambling101/a/spreadmade.htm
The spread is to ensure that positions are covered. You can manipulate that in your favour. Since the spread is based solely on betting, and the outcome is based solely on performance you can then pick the 4 games that are most likely to cover the spread and increase your odds with the results I described in my earlier post.
I am sure you are not a sports gambler, 99.99% cannot beat the spread by 70-80%, you will be rich if you can win 60% of the game.Heck even most of us at home would not be 50%
The reason sports gambling survives is most of us are correct 70-80% of the time giving us hope to place one more bet
If we all lost half the time there would be no betting
BS unless you are a really poor gamblerI am sure you are not a sports gambler, 99.99% cannot beat the spread by 70-80%, you will be rich if you can win 60% of the game.
Noone is even getting any money back if they only get 60% right
(the odds would kill that extra 10%)
let assume the juice is 10% , but you can get 7% on most sites.BS unless you are a really poor gambler
Noone is even getting any money back if they only get 60% right
(the odds would kill that extra 10%)
you bet 10 games for $100 each.
6 win = +600
4 loss = -440
profit = +160
