NFL Network to broadcast new arena league?s games

By JOHN LOMBARDO & JOHN OURAND
Staff writers
Published February 08, 2010 : Page 03
The upstart AF1 has signed a television deal with the NFL Network, giving the nascent indoor football league an instant dose of credibility.

The deal is a one-year agreement, with another one-year option. Terms call for AF1 to sell the advertising inventory, with the indoor league and the NFL Network evenly splitting all revenue.

The NFL Network will provide the on-air talent. The league?s games will be aired live on Friday... More...

De ja vu. I'm attempting to explain how to create team-stat based WNBA model I'm going through my old program, and explaining various assumptions. One that someone else gave me after reviewing my model output was "If you increase the spread on your favorite by 2 points in all games, your model becomes more accurate". It kind of makes sense - we all know about the foul-fest at the end of all games, so I accepted it.

Today, I was going to show the incremental improvement of this adjustment. But I already had it, and the model tested at 55-40 (57.8%) with it. So I took it out to see how much worse the model was without it (and I could write about how much money this great idea made me last year, and sound really smart). Without it, the model tested at 95-65, or 59.4% (with more plays!).

If I get around to writing about all the topics I bet on, I'm likely to save 100's of thousands of dollars from removing tiny bad things like that.

You would let me play unhindered. When I used to play at your site daily, I watched your management improvements closely. I could see improvements in CS, risk management, and other areas.

Sadly, I have had the "sharp axe" drop on my neck. Lower limits, -110 pricing, delays. I understand the need to do this from a profitability point of view. The secondary consequence though is that I no longer shop at BP. It's not worth my time to probe for weaknesses, and identify improvements or shortcomings.

BP's business model is a mixed bag. It allows high limits for new players... More...

After the massive cluster**** that happened with my deposit, I asked them to credit me with the $100 fee I incurred from Bookmaker to send them money when the BP thing failed. "Mike" said no way, but he could meet me half-way. He agreed to give me a $50 credit.

Only he didn't. He gave me a $50 freeplay. I looked on the website, and the T&C say they agree to pay for deposit fees. Is a transfer fee a deposit fee? Regardless, why are you jerking me around on $50 + some small loss of equity on the freeplay when I just sent you $6k, and bent over backwards when you and BP couldn't sort things out?

On a more positive note, I have finished my chapter on NFL modeling. I'm now starting a chapter on my successful WNBA model. Some of you ask, "why the hell would you publish your model in WNBA that hits 60% for the last 4 years, including live testing?" I'm always working on new stuff. I find new EV every time I look out there. If I completely destroy the WNBA market, it might cost me 50-100k a year. Information is priceless though. My "share freely of anything I create" attitude has caused many small fortunes to drop in my lap. 3 months ago, an acquaintance says "Here's a database that shows you can make a goo-gob of money doing THIS". I looked at his database, and agreed. But he could make a lot more if he did it slightly more conservatively - perhaps 25% more a year.

Once again, someone gives me information. I make a quick (well, not so quick) large chunk off it. He makes more from his own idea.

Btw, I do *not* share other peoples' proprietary ideas unless the agree very clearly. They may value their profitable ideas more, and networking less than me. I resepect that.

I was writing my chapter on modeling NFL. I had developed an NFL model earlier this year that failed to produce any good results. I was going to use it as a generic example of a model. Knowing that the results would be useless, it would be a good starting point. After hurs and hours of coding and explaining, I caught a few minor mistakes in the programming. It's funny how when you have to write out an explanation of what you're doing, you can't cut corners. You can't cheat. So I fixed the minor mistakes, and BAM! Suddenly, the model became useful.

I was going to do a different chapter on how easily a model can blow apart - I had a great example all lined up for MLB showing how one bad assumption cost me $100k. But this is just as good. One unchecked error in strength of scheduling analysis, and a valid model looks like crap.

Outs are good. I like outs. So when I saw lay104 was offering -104 pricing, I thought I would give them a try (I was feeling a little "outless", having been just tossed by BetPhoenix).

The first thing I noticed when reading their terms and talking to customer service is that its CS was clueless. The T&C said they would reimburse me for the cost of sending them money; the live chat clerk denied this until I pointed it out in the T&C.

I asked BetPhoenix to transfer 3k to my lay104 account around January 6, 2010. Richard at BP didn't realize that lay104 was a sister book of BetFirstClass, but he offered to see if he could transfer money there. When he confirmed that he could, he agreed to send them money.

On January 14th, I received a call from Lay104. They had credited my account, but their recon was off $3000 with BP. BP hadn't credited them for the transfer (BP allegedly owed them $101,000 and the reported figure was only $98000).

On January 15th, the sportsbooks still hadn't cleared things up. I received a frustrated call from Lay104, asking that I call BP and ask for Mike Mitchell or Richard. They agreed to honor any wagers I would place, even if they hadn't received the money. I complied with Lay104's request to call BP, and neither person was available, although Fred Davis (head of CS) tried to help me.

Lay104 was understandably was stressed. What happens if I blew my balance of $3000, and later did not authorize the transfer? If I were a crook, I had a free-roll chance. Fortunately for Lay104, I'm not a crook.

Armed with $3k, I looked at the lines and saw all sorts of mistakes. New Orleans Saints -7 +106 for the divisional round of the playoffs. I could scalp it off playing Arizona +7 EV, but I went with a naked position. Additionally, Lay104 let my buy off the "7" for 10 cents. These are pretty serious mistakes when dealing with an 8-cent line.

CS originally told me during live chat that limits were high - at least 3k on all major sports. My first bet - on the Saints playoff game - was limited to $1000. Once I took that, they promptly moved the game to +7 -104. I also took San Diego Chargers -6.5 -101 (buying down from -7 +109, which was scalpable with NYJ +7 -103) and Illi Chicago -1.5 -104 (which was clearly a good number, but not easily scalpable when it later moved against me.) Having plenty of lines that are giving away scalps... I'll try again the next day, and see if it was a fluke, or systematic mismanagement.

and its name is the Washington Redskins. That has to be the worst trick play I've seen. Move a bunch of linemen, but have them do nothing. Abandon a high-odds FG attempt. Fortunately, when you're down 24, forgetting to kick a FG might cost you perhaps 2% of a game-win.

On the "idiotic coaching" topic, what about Tennessee not taking timeouts at the end of the game? 56 seconds left, game tied. Miami has the ball on its 4 yard line.

Miami runs, picks up 4. 2d and 6 from its own 8 yard line. Titans don't call a timeout, and Miami... More...

First prize: AN SBR hoodie sweatshirt
Last place booby prize: 50 points

Each question is worth 1 point. Tiebreaker question at end breaks ties. If two people have the same tiebreaker answer, who ever posted first wins the tiebreaker. If I can't clearly understand your answers, you lose,

1. Which team will hit the first home run?
2. Will A-rod have at least 4 total bases?
3. Will Rivera throw the last pitch?
4. Will any Yankee or Phillie get thrown out of the game (includes management)?
5. Will there be MORE home runs than errors?
6. Will "the fix be on"? This is 100% subjective by me, but requires a major blown call not involving a ball or strike call.
7. Will the team that scores first win the game?
8. Will both teams have a stolen base?
9. Will any batter advance to first base due to being "hit by pitch"?
10. Will there be at least 1 run scored in the first inning?
Tiebreaker: How many total pitches will the Yankees starting pitcher throw?

At 2:40 pm EST on Saturday (after a lot of games have kicked off), I'm giving away 100 points to one person replying in this thread.

Assume the following:
1. The person redeeming points resides in South Bend
2. The redeemer has exactly as many points as necessary to maximize redemption values
3. Any item worth more than $100 will be resold at only 66% of its face value; non-edible items worth less than $100 will be resold at 80% of full value.
4. Any edible pizza will only be half eaten, making its fair value half of its retail value.
5. In valuing items, retail... More...

How are the opening lines set in NFL? Why do they move, and what does it mean? This video answers these questions, and is geared towards relatively new sports bettors. Intermediate bettors will know most of this already.