Andddd conference play is officially off and running boys and girls. Below is a glance at the updated general trends seen in the college hoop betting market, as well as the performance of Green Magic, over the past week of action.
Per some feedback/questions via Twitter & Email, I will further explain some of the "Confidence" numbers being displayed in the daily GM plays. In my initial explanation of the GM system, I mentioned I was hesitant to apply units based on these confidence numbers. Now that I have had ~ 2+ weeks to assess the results, I will now begin providing multiple unit plays, based on how confident Green Magic is in a given matchup.
General Betting Trends (1/4/16 - 1/11/16)
There could not have been a more balanced (boring) week of college hoop ATS results, from a macro trends perspective. It just proves how good the fine folks of Las Vegas are at setting the lines. Shown below are the ATS results from the past week, as well as year-to-date (YTD):
Fading-the-public has proven to be a poor strategy in these early stages of tracking ATS results. Road teams have also struggled against the number in the first couple weeks of conference play. I'll be interested to see how "Away Non Public" teams fare throughout the remainder of the conference schedule. Sports Insights had identified a good system over a year ago that involved playing all "Away Non Public" teams for conference matchups only. It appears that this system is off to a poor start this year, or perhaps Vegas has just adjusted their lines accordingly.
Green Magic Results (1/4/16 - 1/11/16)
Green Magic officially disproved my initial "jinx" theory in its first week live for public consumption. After a tough Thursday (January 7th), GM bounced back strong, posting 3 straight winning days over the weekend. And if it wasn't for a scummy Western Carolina cover last night in OT, GM would be 4-0 heading in to this evening.
As I discussed before, I am continuing to treat the "Combined" system as the official system for all Green Magic plays. These refer to plays where the individual "Four" & "Style" systems both agree on a particular side (hence the fewer number of games than the individual systems). Below are the YTD results for each system & the day-by-day results for the "Combined" system:
The "1 Unit Return" is the total return assuming all Green Magic plays were bet at 1 unit each (or the same amount for each bet).
For those of you following the daily Green Magic batches on Twitter, the "Combined Confidence" numbers refer to the total value a specific "Combined" play contains. In other words, based on the results of the most similar 150 historical games, it is an aggregated score of how undervalued/overvalued a particular side is, relative to the baseline or "overall" spread that Green Magic determines. Please refer to the previous chapters of Data Dishin' for a more detailed explanation of this "overall" or baseline spread calculation (DJ Dimes main page).
Takeaway: Higher confidence plays are performing consistently better than the lower confidence plays. The "Combined Confidence Return" refers to the return generated if each play was played as a unit equivalent to its level of confidence. For example, if a Green Magic play indicated a Combined Confidence of "4" for the home team, the return would be 4 units if the home team covered, or a loss of 4.4 units (4*1.1) if the home team did not cover (factoring in the juice). Below shows the additional return generated if we incorporated different unit tiers in to the Green Magic system:
In the above table, "1 Unit" refers to all plays that have a "Combined Confidence" score of less than 1, but greater than 0 . "Mega" refers to plays that have a score greater than 5.
Green Magic plays with a Combined Confidence score of greater than 2 (Units 3, 4, 5 & Mega) are 70-52 thus far (not too shabby). To summarize the YTD results, if all "Combined" plays had been wagered on for 1-unit a piece, you would have generated a 17.4 unit return. If all "Combined" plays had been wagered with the number of units corresponding to the confidence scores, you would have generated a return of 73.8 units .
For those of you not buying these results, here's a snapshot of the monster Saturday (1/1/16) performance. Shown are the results for the top 10 highest confidence plays from that magical day:
I highly doubt Green Magic will continue to go 9-1 on its top 10 most confidence plays on a given day, but this sure is encouraging. For any specific questions or clarifications, Please DM us on Twitter at @_3MW_ or me personally at @matty_cox ...