Baseball Betting: Dealing With the Odds
By Loot, MLB Handicapper, Lootmesiter.com
One feature of Major League Baseball wagering is the ability to pick outright winners. Having no spreads to deal with is a big perk. When betting baseball, you are betting on the very thing that the team is out to accomplish. When betting on the Packers -11, you don’t get that built-in luxury. The Packers are trying to win the game, not win the game by 12 points. But there is a trade-off. In football and basketball betting, you are always betting -110 (or -105 in some cases). In baseball, the money line style of betting gives us a lot to consider.
I’ve had friends who would bet one game every two weeks. They bet major favorites and look for “sure things.” Back in the day, that meant betting on Randy Johnson in his prime when he was facing a bad team on the road. He often won. At some point, however, it became clear that the winning percentage he needed to maintain to earn a profit over the long-haul was too much to overcome. He was betting big chalk--teams going off at -300 or worse. He needed to win 80% or so of his games just to break even! Not a good long term strategy.
That runs counter to everything we know about baseball. How often does a starting pitcher have an 80% winning percentage? It doesn’t happen very often. In Johnson’s best run from 2000-2002, he was 64-18 for a .780 winning percentage. That’s awesome, but betting him every time was still a dicey proposition.
We’re bound by the fact that baseball is a game of failure and unpredictability. We cannot count on anything in this game. The last time a batter got a hit over 40% of the time, FDR was the President. The best pitchers in the league might have a winning percentage in the 70’s. The best teams barely win 60% of the games, while the worst teams are still good for a win 40% of the time.
That means we don’t want to consistently wager an amount that exceeds what we stand to win. The good teams get the short end of the stick odds-wise. Even if a good team’s money line averages out to a modest -160, that team would have to win 100 games for you to break out even betting that team every game. And you can bet there will a lot of times that team’s line is a lot higher than -160.
This is not an indictment on betting favorites. Every successful bettor boosts his bankroll with some well-timed wagers on favorites all the time. But the very nature of the sport and how parody is far more in place than other sports nudges us to make underdog betting a big part of our portfolio.
A baseball team that is in last place will still win close to 40% of its games. In the event of a team losing on an almost-historical level, they will still win 35% of their games. If you find yourself able to bet on that team at an average money line of +180, that team could lose 104 games and you would still break even. The lines on a bad team are usually skewed a bit in their favor, being that the general betting public bets more on good teams. A lot of value can be found betting on underdog teams.
Again, betting favorites is part of any winner’s profile. Just try to focus more on moderate favorites. Laying -200 or more is dangerous in a sport where teams and star pitchers lose as often as they do. Losing a slew of -200 favorites in a row can really put you behind the 8-ball, as betting favorites requires you to bet more. You’ll be down a bunch of units and in a position to recoup when you should be making money.
Another important point here is to SHOP AROUND. Over the course of an entire season of betting, getting the best bang for your buck, even if it’s only a few notches on the money line, can make a lot of difference and be worth a few percent extra. Keep a few or several accounts active and you will be able to consistently get the best price for your wagering dollar. It’s a key, but sometimes overlooked part of baseball wagering. Not every book is the same.
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