Swain Scheps has written extensively on gambling topics and is a veteran sports bettor and industry expert. He has provided gaming advice and instruction in the Fodor's Las Vegas travel series and has contributed to Casino Gambling For Dummies. He is a data and analytics professional in Oregon and author of Business Intelligence For Dummies. Follow him on Twitter: [...]

Foreword xv

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Before You Go Any Further 3

Foolish Assumptions 4

Icons Used in This Book 5

Beyond the Book 5

Where to Go from Here 5

Part 1: Sports Betting Basics 7

Chapter 1: Betting Sports for Fun and Profit 9

Eight Days in October 10

A surprise win 10

Victory's revenge 10

Finding profit in the roller coaster 11

Do Sports Bettors Win? 12

The Wagers of Sin 14

Fans and Bettors: Better Fans 15

Sharps and squares 16

Advantage bettors 17

Why 50 Percent Doesn't Cut It 17

52.38 is the new 50 18

How sports bettors win 19

Comparative betting success 20

What Kind of Sports Bettor Are You? 20

Financially interested fan 21

Ace Rothstein-esque 21

Data guru 22

Spread shredder 22

A little of everything 23

The Legal Landscape of Sports Betting 23

I'm not a lawyer but 23

Federal laws 24

The Supreme Court to the rescue 25

State laws 25

Sports betting and organized crime 28

What Can't I Bet On? 29

Setting Some Goals (and Limits) 29

This Is Your Brain on Gambling 30

Chapter 2: The Basic Bets 33

The Betting Contract 34

The premises of the promise 34

Monetary policy 36

All's fair 36

Overloading the odds 37

Illuminating examples 37

An introduction to betting with odds 40

Betting against a Bookmaker 42

The moneyline 43

A quick look at vigorish (the vig) 50

Point Spreads: Thumb on the Scale 50

Losing team, winning bet 52

Half is enough 53

Point spread = 0 54

Betting on a point spread 54

Over/Under Betting 56

Multi-Bet Wagers 58

Parlays: Let it ride 58

Parlay odds 60

Teasers: A little help 61

Variations on a Theme 62

Exotic bets 63

Prop bets 63

Chapter 3: The House 65

The Sports Betting Business 66

Inventing the modern sports book 67

Today's business 67

In-Person Betting 67

The big board: Reading the betting menu 68

Step by step: How to place an in-person bet 74

And in the end, the odds you get are equal to the odds you give 75

The morning after 76

Online Betting 76

Domestic online sports books 78

Offshore sports books 78

Betting kiosks/casino apps 79

I Got a Guy: Private Bookmakers 79

State Lotteries 81

Part 2: Betting Smart 83

Chapter 4: Beating the - Odds 85

A Tale of Two Numbers 85

Great expectation 86

Breakin' even 2: Electric boogaloo 87

Positive EV, No Instructions Included 88

The missing piece: Win probability 89

Pennies on the dollar 89

Staying positive 90

Bookmakers and Odds 91

Holding onto the handle 92

Book balancing 93

Balancing the Books 97

Odds as a price 97

An odds life 99

Sharp objects 102

Bookmaking Business Models 107

Market makers: The odds stork 107

Market followers 107

The SuperMegaCup odds life cycle example 108

Early money/late money 109

World premier odds 109

The early bird gets the risk (and the reward) 110

Odds at odds 111

Chapter 5: The Best Bettor Habits 113

Winning Habits: A Quick Review 114

Betting Approaches 114

An idealized bet selection process 115

The goal of bet allocation 116

Financial diversity 117

The value of outs 120

Bet sizing 121

The Importance of Record-Keeping 125

Measures of success 126

Bet records 126

Bankrolling 127

The time dimension 127

Time as a flat circle 128

Where do you stand? 128

Establishing a fiscal period 129

How to think about a wealthroll 131

Rolling your own 132

Metric Superiority: Winning Percentage versus ROI versus Profit 134

ROI 134

Profit (and loss) 136

Win/loss records 139

Chapter 6: Full Frontal Nudity (and Some Statistics and Probability) 141

Thanks for Nothing, Ancestors 142

Narratives instead of numbers 143

Probabilities and Single-Outcome Events 144

Alternate universes would be nice 145

Statistical analysis as a process to find truth(iness) 146

Overdue: The Gambler's Fallacy 147

How Randomness Masquerades as Non-Randomness 148

The fundamental assumption of randomness 149

Inserting randomness into sports assertions 149

Descriptive versus predictive 151

Predictably random: The bell curve 152

The Matter of Sample Size 153

The Law of Large Numbers 154

Standard deviation: You can do this 156

The Wonderful, Life-Changing Beauty of the Amazing Gambler's Z-Score 160

Zee origin story 160

The Z-score and sports betting 161

Chapter 7: Handicapping the Fundamentals 165

The Challenges of Fundamental Analysis 166

Outside the Lines, between the Ears 167

The home-field advantage example 168

The benefits of fundamental analysis 168

The downside of fundamental analysis 169

Universal Fundamentals Concepts 171

Matchup 171

Rest and fatigue 175

Travel 176

Recent performance 177

Strength of competition 178

Motivation 178

Team Sports Factors 180

Overall talent and speed 180

Game plan 181

Coaching 181

Schedule/spot analysis 182

External Factors 182

Weather 183

Rules changes 183

Officiating 183

Venue and crowd 184

Measuring Performance Variance 184

Chapter 8: Technical Analysis and Modeling 187

Like Math, but Fancier 188

Analytics 188

Modeling 189

De-randomizing historical data 191

Systems and Angles 192

Betting systems 193

Betting angles 194

The Benefits of Data-Driven Analysis 195

What Gets Lost in the Numbers 197

Systems, like all handicapping, require patience 197

Games change over time 197

Teams change over time 197

There is no such thing as a single spread or total 198

The betting market assimilates winning systems into the odds 198

Complexity and the Scourge of P-Hacking 199

Characteristics of a Good System or Angle 201

Statistically significant 201

Predictive 201

Bettable 201

Timely 202

Frequent (enough) 202

A First Look at Trend-Spotting Tools 202

How it works 203

Querying previous games 204

Today's games 205

Chapter 9: Power Ratings 207

Ranking, Rating? What's the Difference? 208

Totally rated 208

Power rating strengths 210

Power rating weaknesses 210

Developing a Power Rating of Your Own 211

Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery 212

Your first power rating 212

P.E class 214

Game-by-game data 215

What to do in early season 217

Putting it all together in Excel 220

Part 3: Winning One Sport at a Time 225

Chapter 10: Betting to Win on the NFL 27

Today's NFL Game 228

The Evolution of NFL Spreads and Totals 230

Common NFL Bets 231

Notation 231

Derivative betting and props 231

Futures betting 232

Betting sides 233

Total bets 237

Betting the NFL Preseason 239

Preseason lines and limits 240

Preseason as predictor 241

Betting on head coaches 241

BET on week 2 losers 243

Other preseason betting factors 243

NFL Fundamentals 244

Schedule spot (travel, bye week) 244

Injuries 247

Weather 248

NFL Systems and Angles 250

BET Belichick's slow starts 250

BET a case of the Mondays 251

BET restless on the road 251

BET growing totals 251

Chapter 11: Betting to Win on College Football 253

The College Football Schedule 254

Scoring Overview 255

College Football Bets 257

College football sides 257

Margin of victory 257

College football totals 259

Using push frequency to select the best odds 260

Multiples: Parlays and teasers in college football 264

Thinking about teaser and parlay odds 265

Offseason Evaluation and Betting 267

That returning starters thing 267

Alternatives to returning starters 268

BET on hope as a strategy? 269

Summer betting 270

Why don't you just meet me in the middle? 270

Regular Season Betting 271

Essential statistics for betting 272

Rest 272

Running up the score 274

Quarter scoring trends 275

Runnin' and gunnin' 276

Turnovers 277

Betting the Post Season 279

Revenge is overrated 279

Postseason motivation 280

Saving yourself 280

More College Football Systems 281

BET under the home back to back 281

BET far to go 282

BET over the hype 282

BET kick 'em when they're down 283

BET with the hype just this once 283

BET over the early season mismatch 284

Chapter 12: Betting to Win on NBA Basketball 287

Betting the Offensive Explosion 288

One and a Half Curses 289

The NBA Betting Market 290

Preseason betting 291

Postseason betting 292

BET on #2 Live Crew 294

Common NBA Bets 294

Sides 294

The top of the key 296

NBA moneyline 296

Totals 298

Early season...