Betting Big Dogs Collectively?

[allthethings]

Hi folks, I don't know if this is a good idea going forward, but I did this successfully Sunday and today in Italy Serie A, so it's worth considering. What I'm thinking is that the money lines taken league-wide are kind of absurd. There were six games today where they ML was roughly +400 or better, so I threw ten bucks on each one. The results: Soccer - Bologna - moneyline (+420) for the regulation time held on Jan 28 at 2:30pm [winner] Soccer - Genoa - moneyline (+740) for the regulation time held on Jan 28 at 2:30pm [loss] Soccer - Napoli - moneyline (+450) for the regulation time held on Jan 28 at 2:30pm [loss] Soccer - Palermo - moneyline (+640) for the regulation time held on Jan 28 at 2:30pm [loss] Soccer - Udinese - moneyline (+390) for the regulation time held on Jan 28 at 2:30pm [winner] Soccer - A Catania - moneyline (+435) for the regulation time held on Jan 28 at 2:30pm [loss] This was more games than I wanted to play, but upsets happen, right? Winning one of them would have lost me ten bucks...winning two put me plus 40. It was the same scenario on Sunday; I won one game at +435 and lost two, although in that case I conveniently didn't play a big home dog...still, winning one out of four still would have won me a few bucks. So anyway, I was watching some of the other premier leagues where MLs are offered...Netherlands seemed pretty good, too, and so did Spain, whereas England Premier it just hasn't happened the same way. It makes me wonder, though, whether these lines get out of whack because so many people play favorites as part of parlays...games where the favorites "can't lose," thus driving the ML from a reasonable number to something offering value collectively. I mean, you hear this all the time: "There are three big favorites, but one of them is bound to get upset." Getting better than 4 to 1 on the one you cash makes it a pretty reasonable bet...maybe. I guess the question is, do big upsets happen at least 25% of the time? And the answer is, it depends on what you think of as a big upset. Take one of today's upsets: 2nd-place Juventus loses at 14th-place Udinese. Juve away was 5-3-2 coming in (20% losses on the road) against a team winning 40% of its home games. The reason for the big line is the current form: Udinese had won 0, drawn 2 and lost 8 of its last ten games, while Juve came in 8-1-1 in its last 10. I've always thought current form is a poor gauge for prediction, since if teams always played to current form, there would be no upsets at all. My point is that if all these lines were 2 to 1 or 3 to 1, it would be a terrible wager, but at 4 to 1 up to 7 to 1, it seems a little skewed. Food for thought. I'm gonna keep watching, see if it holds over time.

[Cogge]

Re: Betting Big Dogs Collectively? Bookmakers often put their overround (margin) more heavily on the underdogs, as their liability is higher in those cases. I'd say you just got lucky this weekend. But if you believe in it, continue and keep this thread with bets and see where it ends up in a month or two. You might be on to something.