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Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

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Alfa1234
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Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Wed Dec 20, 2017 12:50 pm

Hey guys,

I made my target for the year so I'm exploring some new ways to find value.

Was looking at the spread/moneyline in basketball today and I noticed some large discrepancies...so I'm trying to find a way to extract the value from it.

If you look at a Basketball game in Pinnacle and compare the spread to the ML odds, these usually have a fairly decent correlation.

Say if the spread is around 5.5, the odds of the underdog are between 2.8 and 3.2.  If the spread is around 8.5 the dog is priced between 4 and 4.4.

What I noticed though is, there is sometimes a discrepancy between the Pinnacle odds and the Betfair odds here IF Pinnacle has not yet posted a ML odd.

Right now e.g. the game of Jurmala VS Vytautas has a spread of 9.5 points on Pinnacle.  That means the ML odd of the dog should be between 4.8 and 5.2..meaning the favourite should be priced around 1.21 to 1.24. 

However, you can get that same favourite at Betfair for a price of 1.3 right now with decent liquidity.  Are we leaving value on the table here by not betting that odd?  Would you say Betfair is off in this case condidering the Pinnacle volume on Basketball is much higher than on Betfair?

Discuss.  :)
barbero
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Wed Dec 20, 2017 11:59 pm

Hey Alfa,

That's interesting. I've not a lot to contribute so I'll digress a bit :)

One key point to ask ourselves here would be, do ML odds always necessarily correlate to spread odds in the manner you described? Or put another way, is there any reason why points (spreads) should not distribute normally? I'd say no, I wouldn't expect this 'strange behavior' to happen, unless we're talking about a fixed match which is a whole different story for obvious reasons. But apart from that, might we be missing something, some reason why the conversion from spread to ML might be wrong? ???

Also I would be very careful about liquidity and the match not being one of those matches were odds move like crazy pretty much until the beginning of the game, where there's no stability at all. But this you already know, of course; I take it that you've already observed that it is not the case. So if the odds are somewhat stable in pinnacle, and the liquidity is good enough and much bigger than the one in BF, I'd consider there is indeed value in BF.

Finally, I would also look for sbobet's price and liquidity, just as a double check. Pretty obvious too.
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Thu Dec 21, 2017 9:04 am

Obstacles:

1, Limits at pin for such league as in your example are max 200-300€ with lower maximum up to 100€ until the match doesn't load some turnover. You mentioning decent liquidity. How much is that? Personally I have never saw decent liquidity at betfair for mid-small basket league at BF(at decent odds). I haven't checked this particular league but I believe liquidity at bf won't be higher more than few euros. That means odds at BF should't cointan any value as gap between back and lay is huge.

2. You said when odds for dog are 4.8 to 5.2 than odds for fav should be 1.21 to 1.24 - well I think you must calculate the 100% book. so with 4.8 it comes somewhere at 1.265 and within 5.2 at 1.25.

3. Within such minor league it is not necessary that odds for ML and handicap collaborate 100%. You may see this on low leagues at football in asia that after you hit handicap even for max limit in some cases odds for 1x2 stay untouched.

If this can be done with big leagues - try it. Within low such as Latvia, Lithuania after pin opens I think there are no money (turnover wise). Guys at BF won't let you match any reasonable odds for reasonable money. It is very dangerous (% profit wise) to bet small value within big margin&low limits market. Because when limits raise and smart money comes, all can go down the south...
Malteser
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Thu Dec 21, 2017 10:57 am

There's no reason why spreads and moneylines would be exactly correlated. Thinking that a particular spread must always correlate to a particular moneyline is not a good way to think.

It can be the case that there are two games, both of which have odds 1.25 and 5, but with spreads -5.5 and -9.5, and these can all be correct.
Alfa1234
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Thu Dec 21, 2017 12:27 pm

Betfair had about 3k available at 1.3 at the time, Pinnacle limits for the game were around 650€.  Considering the spread went only up slightly and closed only 1 point higher (10.5 points) and Betfair closed at 1.19...there was value at the 1.3 odd if you take the closing odds/spread into account.

I don't see how spread and ML odds should not be correlated.  Obviously if there is a consensus that if there's a 50% chance a team will win with a spread of 9.5 points or more, it has a higher probability of winning the game outright than if that spread was only 5.5 points.
barbero
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:08 pm

This is interesting. Why wouldn't they correlate? Malteser, what would you suggest is the distribution of expected points (or spreads) for a basketball match? Don't you agree that it does follow a certain distribution?

Take if you want a smaller sample, say games from only one league (because OK, you could argue that variance is different in different leagues? strange, but OK). I understand that all those games from that league should distribute the same way, both point and point difference (spread) wise.
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Thu Dec 21, 2017 2:24 pm

We can make a small thought experiment to test the line of thinking.

Would the spread be the same for two matches with markedly different total points expected in the match? E.g. A match with bookies expecting around 175 points vs a match with 230.

I would expect the latter example to have a higher spread for the same money line odds. I haven't checked though.
Alfa1234
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Sat Dec 23, 2017 11:04 am

Good point about the totals, I didn't take that into account. 

Strangely enough, there seems to be very little correlation between those high/low totals and the spread/ML.  ML only seems to take the spread into account for the most part, which implies there's still value to be found in some ML odds.

The ML odds on Pinnacle are roughly the same for any game where the spread is the same, despite there being a 30% difference in the total number sometimes.
barbero
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Sun Dec 24, 2017 1:41 am

I looked into this some time ago. My analysis was not at all deep, just some quick checks, and was solely based on Pinnacle's odds. My conclusion was there is no correlation: similar spreads for different expected total points. Probably it's just pretty much the same you've just observed, Alfa, only I did it some 6 months ago. So if you checked it right now, even better, updated conclusions :)

If someone had some more, deeper observations, it would be fantastic to hear them.
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Sun Dec 24, 2017 7:36 pm

Money line odds shoudnt be dependant/related with spread i cant speak 100% for nba it is very sharp and interesting market but general rule is that ML,O/U and spreads should be all viewed as separate things which they are.

Hawks have worst record in league but keep most games fairly close..suns/magic are getting blown a lot.Does that mean that mean Hawks should have been shorter this season,well def no according to their record
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Mon Dec 25, 2017 12:16 am

They will correlate, but not necessarily exactly in every scenario, and it will be different depending on the league. I don't think it will be fruitful to use a betting strategy that depends on strict correlations between moneylines and spreads.
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Mon Dec 25, 2017 6:15 am

Alfa1234 wrote: What I noticed though is, there is sometimes a discrepancy between the Pinnacle odds and the Betfair odds here IF Pinnacle has not yet posted a ML odd.
No ML odds from pinnacle means that we are talking about an early market, probably 2+ days in advance before the game. Even though 1.30 odds in betfair indicates immense value compared to 1.24 in pinnacle, there are 2 factors that should make you worry. 1st, it is an early market and you never know where it balances, 2nd as previously correctly said, there is a possibility of match fixing especially in minor markets.
The 1.30 to 1.24 difference is big and must be exploited. I would suggest that you base on observation. Find a decent number of games like this, separate it to markets (say Lithuanian basketball, Latvian basketball, Serbian Volley etc) and then find a norm based in IFs. When all (or most) IFs are disciplined then go for it.
I can't see any other way, especially when we are talking about value betting where observation is an important factor and when early markets are not profitable enough. I m also noticing that many value bettors using time filters select games starting in less than 24h, or even closer than that.
Alfa1234
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Mon Dec 25, 2017 9:31 am

I'm attempting to do just that.

Pinnacle only posts basketball odds max 24h and usually only 10 to 12 hours before the start of the game though.  Although there can be large swings in some very small markets (Bulgarian and Phillipino league are notorious), the larger and mid-range league remain fairly stable after the inital market swings settle and stabilise.
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Mon Dec 25, 2017 12:29 pm

Samael wrote: Money line odds shoudnt be dependant/related with spread i cant speak 100% for nba it is very sharp and interesting market but general rule is that ML,O/U and spreads should be all viewed as separate things which they are.

Hawks have worst record in league but keep most games fairly close..suns/magic are getting blown a lot.Does that mean that mean Hawks should have been shorter this season,well def no according to their record
This is not correct. It is correlated.

An extreme example:
Team A will score 3 points every time Team B scores 2 points in the long run. If we are expecting 20 points total in this match, then variance will play a bigger factor, than if we are expecting 200 points. The spread will be much wider when we are expecting more points, and the odds on the fave will be much smaller.

Also you are taking a really small sample size from Hawks as an argument to your point.
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Re: Finding value in Pinnacle and Exchanges

Mon Dec 25, 2017 2:51 pm

hi members,
i deposited a fund into my pinnacle account for an arb but i didnt wager.

a few days later i withdrew my fund but am told the fund has to roll over 3 times or 3% fee shall be levied on deposit on top of withdrwal  & processing fees.

for example, if deposit were $50 i had to roll over 3x50=150

wouldnt that inconvenient to do arbing?

thanks & rgds

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