Bet The “Under”

            Here’s a lesson in human nature that could make you some extra money…

Gambling is legal in Australia – in particular, sports betting is legal. (During the season I match my prediction ability with the oddsmakers at CrownBet, the leading licensed brokers for the land Down Under, just as I do with the Vegas lines on American sports.) And one of the standard betting parlays available before the season begins is the over-under on how many wins each team will accrue during the season. (Usually, this target number has a “half” on it, like 8 ½, so that there’s no “pushed” results – although in the NFL, there are already four teams with ties on their records, so that’s not a foolproof system.)

            I’ve been looking at the lines for the Aussie footy league for 2017 – GWS, being the favorite this year, has an over/under of 15.5 (they play 22 games, so that means a record of 15-7 is under their projection, and 16-6 is over). Similarly, the Brisbane Lions are the ‘favorite’ for the wooden spoon, a moniker for the last place finisher, and as such their over/under target is only 4 ½. (They won just three games last year.)

            Here’s the thing: the bettors there are doing the exact same thing EVERY league and EVERY broker and EVERY set of fans do. If you add up the over/under betting lines? There are more wins than there are games. It’s only by 2.5 in the AFL, but that’s enough to skew the results.

            What that means is on the average, every fan is optimistic, even when betting.

            So, if you want to make some easy money, here’s what I’d suggest: bet the under for EVERY team, all eighteen. I have no idea which ones will win and which won’t (alright, I have some hunches – bet the under for Brisbane), but it seems like it should be almost impossible for more teams to come in OVER versus the number that come in UNDER. The only way that happens, mathematically, is if four or five teams all come in way under, leaving the rest of the wins to be spread evenly among the other teams. It might happen – but then again it’s just as likely to work in your favor, too, where a few big winners hit the over and leave a dozen or so teams under their mark.

And all of this is true regardless of what league it is – NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL; it doesn’t matter. In the CFL season just concluded, the nine team league had a similar 2.5 game optimism from its bettors, which for the mathematically inclined means it was twice as severe with only half the teams to spread that difference among. Not surprisingly, six teams were UNDER their projections, and only three teams were OVER. You would have made a 33% profit on your investment. I went back and ran the same simulation on last year's AFL predictions: three pushes (teams won exactly what was expected) and the rest broke 8-7 in our favor. So, a 5.6% return on investment. Better than nothing!

(I’d double check before I bet to be sure, and here’s how you do that – add up all the projected win totals, and divide the total by the number of teams in the league. This should be exactly HALF of the number of games each team plays – because for every win, there’s also a loss. If it’s HIGHER than that ‘half’ number, you’ve got yourself an optimistic bunch of bettors – go with the UNDER across the board. Theoretically, it could be LOWER instead, in which case you could bet the OVER across the board for the same results.)

            But regardless, as Suzanne Collins might write, “the odds would be ever in your favor”!