Topic: 0.001 BTC to 1 BTC Challenge [sports betting] - page 2. (Read 2312 times)

This is the start of my research on deciding what to bet. My aim is to share my  thoughts and strategy. I want to be as transparent as possible, and it would be  cool to get feedback to check if my thoughts make sense.

Starting with such a small amount (0.001 BTC) means I have little room for error.  What should I start to examine first? Immediately what comes to mind is to bet on  good teams, and bet against bad teams. This seems simple enough, but what defines a  good team? What makes a team bad? What makes one side better than another?

Most sports have a table that show their teams standings for the current season. In  these standings teams that are having a successful season will be above teams that  are not successful. It appears that good teams may be at the top of the table, and  bad teams may be at the bottom of the table.

So if a team is at the top of the standings should you bet them automatically? No.  While the standings reflect the combined results of a team's season, they do not  take in other factors:

1. How has the team been performing recently? Teams can go on winning or losing  streaks. A team could be near the top of the table, but have lost their last five  games. It must be investigated why a team has won/lost their last five games, and  an interpretation must be made about what a team's recent form says about them.

2. Has the team played this opponent before? Who has won more head to head? How  long ago were these games played? I believe more weight should be put on games  played during the current season, and the more recent the games the better. Over  time teams and players are changing, and that team years ago, maybe even  months/weeks/days ago, is different. If the record is very lopsided, or very close,  this seems to be valuable information. An interpretation must be made about what a  team's head to head record reveals about their match up.

3. What is the margin of victory (or defeat) typically for the team? Are they  blowing out the teams they have played, or are they barely scraping out wins by a  few points? Recently what is the margin over the last few games compared to the  season as a whole? What is their average game margin against teams ranked above  them, similarly to them, and below them? Do they under perform or over perform  against certain teams on a consistent basis? When they gain a lead how often do  they maintain it, and how often do they give it up? I'm not sure that I totally  believe "the better the team the more they should win by", but having a  consistently positive margin is an expression of skill, and it also seems to be a  measure of consistency. An interpretation must be made about what a teams margin of  victory says about their potential skill and consistency.

4. Are there any notable players included/excluded, or injuries that are important to  a team? Certain players can be more important than others, and have a greater  impact upon a team. Who are these key players, and how can we identify them? Are  certain players playing while injured while not being 100% healthy? Teams and news  sites publish lineups and injury information before a game starts. A judgement must  be made on whether or not a team is better or worse with the current starting  player lineup, and whether or not the players are healthy,  and what effect this will have on the team's performance.

5. Where is the game being played, and what other various lesser important  conditions/intangibles surround it? (Warning, here I seem to go down a rabbit  hole):

The coach. How long has he been coaching? What is his track record? What is his  philosophy on the game versus how the team is actually playing right now under him?  Does the team appear to respect and listen to him? The man who prepares and manages  his team must be accountable for their performance. An interpretation must be made  about the impact of the coach on the performance of the team.

Is it being played at home? Away? At a neutral location? Maybe a team has played  better at home, or worse away. An interpretation must be made about whether the  location has an impact on the performance of a team.

What will the weather be like? whether it's pouring rain, extremely hot/cold, or an  absolute perfect day, surely this will affect performance. I'm unsure how to  quantify the effect of weather though, and I need to think about this question  more, but an interpretation must be made on the impact of weather on a team's  match.

Will there be a biased crowd? Maybe the crowd could affect officiating decisions.  Who are the officials/referees for the match, and do they have a history showing  their style of officiating, and what effect will this style possibly have? Maybe an  official is reluctant to call certain fouls and this will affect how the game is  played. An interpretation must be made on the effect officials may have on a team's  match.

How long ago did the team travel and was it far? Maybe a short turnaround between  games and traveling could have an effect. People get tired. Jet lag is a real  thing, crossing time zones, and just travel in general can take a lot out of you.  An interpretation must be made on the effect of a team's travel/match turnaround  time on their performance.

When was the last time the teams played? Is it the first week of the season, or are  teams coming off of a holiday/break/bye week? How do breaks affect teams? Do teams  become more refreshed, or do they become rusty needing time to adjust? I'm unsure  to the answer, but an interpretation  must be made examining the effect of time  between matches played on a teams performance.

What is the financial status of the team, and are there any concerns with the  organization? Is the team as a business being run by competent people, or are there  concerns? Is attendance good or poor? These may be distracting issues to  players/coaches affecting performance. Or to go further, if the team's backbone,  the owner and general organization, are doing a poor job hiring and managing  staff/talent then maybe it has a lingering negative effect on a team. An interpretation must be made on whether the business operations of a team has an  effect on the teams performance.

In any case these are only some of the factors to consider that I thought of. Can  you think of others? There seems to be an absurdly large amount of things that can  have an effect on any event, and it seems impossible to consider them all. This has to be a game of having an imperfect set of information, and drawing conclusions from it. Better yet, this is all before we look at the available odds to bet on from the sportsbooks, which is what I will look at next...