Betting Trends are Tricky Business

By William Foote - Covers Experts

The use of trends is an important part of the handicapping process. Identifying trends can help the astute capper isolate patterns associated with particular teams. This in turn makes predicting the outcome of a game easier. And that is what we are all striving for… isn’t it?

But trends are a tricky business and need to be fully understood. In certain instances, glaring trends can actually be a trap. Rest assured; as soon as John Q. Public has identified a conspicuous trend, the oddsmakers will already be in the correction period. In other words, well-known or obvious trends are subject to reversing themselves.

This reversal is not by accident. It is a simple matter of oddsmakers adjusting and/or regression kicking back in to the mean. From a bookmaker’s perspective, the optimal mean winning percentage is 50%. If everyone hits at a 50% clip, the book assumes no risks and walks away with their standard commission. Imagine what would happen if the oddsmakers simply did not adjust lines to correct for glaring trends. Assume for the moment that obvious trends continued to hold up. If the books were generous enough to maintain the status quo, the public would win and the betting world as we know it would vanish!

The implication is that oddsmakers will adjust, and adjust and adjust again their number when a tendency becomes pronounced and results stray away from the 50% mean. They will keep correcting the number until the trend reverses course. If Team A has dominated Team B for X years, the oddsmakers will continue to inflate the price of Team A in subsequent meetings until Team B reverses the trend.

A perfect example is this past weekend's playoff results. Since 1990, when the playoff format was altered and just four teams received a bye, the home team had won 82.7 percent of their second round playoff games straight up. More recently, and as it pertains to the number, the host in round two of the playoffs was a solid 13-6-1 ATS heading into this season. And this trend made some sense.

After a grueling 16 game regular season schedule, the host has the luxury of a week off to heal their bumps and bruises while the road team is in off an emotion-filled playoff win the week prior. This sets up the home team with several strong edges. The host had already proven during the regular season they were good enough to earn the bye in the first place. In addition, the host is playing with what is likely to be a very strong home field advantage.

The visiting team, on the other hand, is at an enormous situational disadvantage since they must travel and have only one week to prepare. Mind you, they are matched up vs. a team with two weeks worth of rest, two weeks worth of prep time and that finished the season with a better record in the first place.

Playing home favorites in round two of the playoffs is a trend that won at a terrific 68.5% ATS clip between 1999 and 2003. Playing this angle in 2004, however, would have rendered many trend players with a perfect 0% win rate. In other words, the away dog was a perfect 4-0 ATS last weekend, with the Titans, Colts, Panthers and Packers all grabbing the green. We are by no means blind trend players; but our record was a less than stellar 1-3 ATS last week. And indeed, part of our rational for playing the games we did hinged on the historical success of the host in round two of the playoffs.

Again, blind trends matter little to us. But trends that have logical and reasonable explanations behind them are appealing. The caveat, however, is pinpointing when the odds makers have caught up and the trend no longer applies. This is much easier to do in basketball, baseball and hockey since these sports have a vastly larger sample size of games to analyze. In these three sports, there are so many games that the astute capper can identify and play a subtle trend before the oddsmakers and betting public have caught on. In football, and particularly the NFL, the precise opposite is true. With so few games relatively speaking, the oddsmakers are on top of most recent trends and angles.

Our advice about using trends is simple: identify them early and abandon them fast. And make sure they are based on logic! If we flip a coin ten times and heads comes up seven times and tails comes up three times; that does not mean heads is a good bet going forward. There is no logic in that. Lastly, do not concern yourself with being torched a bit at the end of a trend cycle. Even with last week's 0-4 ATS mark, playing every home team in round two of the playoffs over the past six years has been a 56.5% play. That is a great percentage. Just understand that this trend may now be obsolete.

As it pertains to this weekend; underdogs are 9-3 ATS the past twelve AFC/NFC Championship Games and 7-1 ATS the past eight AFC/NFC Championship Games. We would say that these recent conference championship trends are less publicized than the round two trends. And for various reasons, they are also based in logic.

Our final word of advice is this. Take note of the recent trends and then try to identify whether or not they are being priced into the line. Similarly important; use the trend to supplement your other handicapping strategies. In other words, do not blindly play trends simply because they have been successful in the past. To do so is playing right into the bookmakers' hand.

Good luck this weekend with your NFL wagers!