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12/27/2011 - Columbus, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - See You At Peelers, the 2010 champion two- year-old filly pacer, has again been recognized by the U.S. Harness Writers Association (USHWA) as champion three-year-old filly pacer for 2011.
The USHWA announced on Tuesday the Dan Patch Award division winners. Winners of Pacer, Trotter and Horse of the Year will be announced February 12 at USHWA's annual Dan Patch Awards dinner, which will be held in Orlando.
Trained by Jimmy Takter, See You at Peelers won nine of 12 starts in 2011, going undefeated in the first nine races. The filly earned $916,611 for owners Christina Takter, John Fielding and Jim Fielding. In 25 career starts the filly has 22 victories for nearly $1.5 million. Marcus Johansson and Brian Sears served as See You At Peelers' drivers in 2011.
As expected San Pail is the champion older male trotter after finishing atop the final Hambletonian Society/Breeders Crown poll. The seven-year-old, trained by co-owner Rod Hughes, captured 14 of 16 starts with two seconds for $1,289,000. The gelding was driven by Randy Waples.
Hambletonian winner Broad Bahn is the Dan Patch recipient as champion three- year-old male trotter. Owned by Fam Alber Horse Racing, the colt was trained by Noel Daley and driven by champion reinsman George Brennan. Broad Bahn earned $1.32 million for the year with five wins in 19 starts.
Leading money winner Roll With Joe is the champion three-year-old male pacer. The Meadowlands Pace champ is owned by Winbak Farm and trained by Ed Hart. With Ron Pierce driving the colt won six of 14 starts for more than $1.6 million.
The 2011 Dan Patch Award winners are:
Horse of the Year: TBA
Pacer of the Year: TBA
Trotter of the Year: TBA
Two-year-old pacing colt: Sweet Lou
Two-year-old pacing filly: Economy Terror
Two-year-old trotting colt: Possess The Will
Two-year-old trotting filly: Check Me Out
Three-year-old pacing colt: Roll With Joe
Three-year-old pacing filly: See You At Peelers
Three-year-old trotting colt: Broad Bahn
Three-year-old trotting filly: Cedar Dove
Older male pacer: Foiled Again
Older female pacer: Anndrovette
Older male trotter: San Pail
Older female trotter: Action-Broadway
<< Step back likely to cost Rams' Spagnuolo
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - St. Louis is known as the Gateway to the
West, but for Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo it appears as if the city will
simply be a passage to the unemployment line.
Saturday's 27-0 loss in Pittsburgh handed
<< United's Evans out two weeks with calf injury
Manchester, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Manchester United defender Jonny Evans
will be sidelined two weeks with a calf injury, leaving the English Premier
League side without another option in central defense.
Evans, 23, was removed at h
<< Jets visit red-hot Avalanche
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Jets haven't played too many games away from the
friendly confines of Winnipeg, but their second road game of the month figures
to be a tough one.
The Jets travel to Denver, where they will face a Colorado Avalanche cl
<< Blues, Red Wings clash in Motown
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The last time the Blues visited Joe Louis Arena, they
notched their best offensive performance in 17 years.
With St. Louis rolling under new head coach Ken Hitchcock, the potential for
another offensive showcase is there.
4-time Stanley Cup winner Johnny Wilson passes away >>
Detroit, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Former Detroit Red Wing forward Johnny Wilson
has died. He was 82.
Wilson was a four-time Stanley Cup champion with Detroit in the 1950's. He had
161 goals and 171 assists in 688 NHL games with the Red Wi
Rangers' McCulloch available for Old Firm >>
Glasgow, Scotland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Rangers midfielder Lee McCulloch will be
eligible to play in Wednesday's Old Firm derby against Celtic, as his club has
appealed his red card received Saturday against St Mirren.
McCulloch and teammate
A look back at the year in MLB >>
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - With Prince Fielder no closer to finding a
home and no other news in sight, Major League Baseball appears to be
officially closed for business until 2012. So, of course, there is no better
time than now to re
Botafogo signs midfielder Andrezinho >>
Sao Paulo, Brazil (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Botafogo signed midfielder Andrezinho to
three-year contract Tuesday.
Andrezinho, 28, passed a medical Monday and completed the deal Tuesday, as he
was signed to help replace departed defender Bruno C
There is little doubt that the NFL is where the sportsbooks see the most action and also make the most loot. The NFL possesses betting friendly attributes that are unlike any of the other major sports. First off, there are relatively few teams to keep track of in comparison to college football betting or college basketball. And second, these teams play only once a week which makes staying on top of the results much easier than it is in the daily leagues such as the NBA, NHL, and MLB.
These dynamics, along with the sheer excitement of watching and wagering on football, brings more square action to the table than any of the other sports. Almost every Tom, Dick and Harry in America is an NFL expert in their own mind and that is precisely what the oddsmakers prey upon.
Understanding who bets the games is just as important as understanding which teams are playing the games. The market at times will dictate price, which in the betting world means the oddsmakers cater to the public rather than reality.
Knowing the market inside and out is the basis of our NFL handicapping model. That is, our approach to NFL handicapping is of the contrarian or value seeking variety. We will at times place a higher premium on public sentiment than on the fundamentals. This strategy dictates playing dogs and/or lesser competent teams, or teams the public wants nothing to do with. Or better yet, fading the teams the oddsmakers want you to bet on.
Along these same lines, we carry a similar notion that the first week of the NFL season presents one of the ripest opportunities for the astute gambler. This conflicts with conventional wisdom and/or handicapping lore, as most would say it is better to watch a few games and assess each team before jumping in with both feet. That’s all fine and dandy, but there are some interesting trends to exploit in Week 1 and we’d be remiss to ignore them. Let us quickly explain.
Gone are the days of dynasties, where the same core players stay intact and dominate the league year after year. Free agency and player movements can completely transform teams from one season to the next. In today’s parity-driven NFL, poor teams typically don’t stay poor for all that long and excellent teams must constantly reinvent themselves to stay on top.
The temptation might be to assume prior year results are the best indicator of who is going to cover in Week 1. To Joe Public, playoff teams from the prior season, home teams, favorites, and so one, look even more enticing than usual since there is no current season performance to judge them against. But the question begs: are the oddsmakers setting a trap?
To find the answer, we culled five years worth of Week 1 NFL data. As always, all of our analysis is done from an ATS perspective. The purpose here is to share the most important angles we unearthed and try to explain the logic behind them. So strap on your helmet, throw on your shoulder pads, and follow our lead as we expose some rare holes in the oddsmakers’ line of defense.
Home vs. Away Teams
Over the past five seasons, NFL home teams in Week 1 are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). This of course implies that roadies are a 58 percent winning proposition during this time. The public at large has a tendency to overvalue home teams and this is especially true in Week 1 when there is no current season data to make predictions from. Consequently, the oddsmakers almost surely shade the home teams, by and large making road teams the choice for the value player.
Conclusion: Look long and hard at road teams first when handicapping the opening week.
Price ranges
Favorites are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent) in the opening week over the past five NFL seasons (Coincidentally, home teams hold the same ATS record as noted above). This means that underdogs bark at a 58 percent clip. Mid-range favorites performed the worst among our specified price ranges. In particular, favorites priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 are only 8-15 ATS (35 percent) during this time.
The same basic pattern holds true when looking at home favorites (road favorites gravitate towards a 50 percent mean). Home favorites indeed are just 21-32-3 ATS (40 percent) in the first week of NFL action since 1999. Again, mid-range favorites are similarly the poorest performers when we look at home teams. Consider that home teams priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 have stumbled to a 6-13 ATS (32 percent) mark in Week 1 games the past five seasons.
Conclusion: Like home teams, favorites and particularly mid-range favorites are generally overvalued in Week 1.
Playoff teams
It might surprise you to learn that playoff teams from the prior year versus non-playoff teams from the prior year are a mere 16-23-3 (41 percent) ATS in NFL Week 1 games over the past five seasons. Home teams which made the playoffs versus teams which did not make the playoffs from the prior season drop to a meager 7-14-1 ATS (33 percent) during this time.
Why are playoff teams, and in particular those at home, such bad bets the past five openers? Just as the case with home teams and with favorites, oddsmakers intentionally overprice playoff teams in the opening week to compensate for the public’s propensity to over bet them.
This theory holds true just looking at straight-up records from the past season as well. That is, home teams with winning records from the prior season vs. road teams with losing records from the prior season are just 8-13 ATS in Week 1 NFL games since 1999.
Conclusion: Playoff teams from the prior year and in particular, home playoff teams, are overvalued in Week 1 NFL games.
Scoring defense and scoring offense
Do good defenses and for that matter good offenses from the prior season fare better against the number the following year in Week 1 games? Well, sort of. Generally speaking, teams with a solid offense or defense from the prior season tend to do well in the opening week so long as they are on the road. As a host, however, the best offenses and best defenses from the prior year tend to be overvalued in Week 1.
Consider that the top five scoring defenses (i.e. points allowed) from the prior season are a nice 8-4 ATS (66 percent) on the road in NFL openers the past five seasons. Meanwhile, the top five scoring defenses from the prior season are just 3-8-2 ATS (27 percent) as a host in Week 1 during the same time period.
There is no discernable advantage or disadvantage for teams with a top five scoring offense (i.e. points scored) in Week 1 games. However, when we look at scoring offenses from the bottom up (isolating the five worst offenses from the prior season), the results are rather interesting. In particular, teams ranked in the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are 9-4-1 ATS (69 percent) when on the road in Week 1.
The logic is simply that the public perception is a poor scoring offensive unit from the year prior will have little chance of winning on the road in Week 1. In turn, the oddsmakers compensate for this perception and these poor offensive teams from the year prior carry extra line value on the Week 1 trail.
Conclusion: Teams with top-ranked defenses from the previous season are good bets when playing on the road, but poor bets when playing at home. Also, teams ranked among the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are generally a good value in their Week 1 openers, provided they are playing on the road.
Scoring margin
An exceedingly straightforward way of measuring scoring offense and scoring defense together as a whole is to look at a team's “margin." Margin is simply scoring offense minus scoring defense, which is a fairly clear-cut measure of how a team does on both sides of the ball. Typically, the higher the margin, the better the team.
In this regard, it might seem counterintuitive that teams carrying the higher margin from the prior season in week one matchups are merely 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). Furthermore, road teams with the higher margin are 14-20-6 ATS (41 percent), while home teams with the higher margin are 17-22-1 ATS (44 percent). Once again, these results line up with the theory that better teams from the prior year are overvalued come opening day of the following season.
Conclusion: “Better” teams, which often boast a higher margin than their opponent, are overvalued the following season in NFL openers.
In sum
Oddsmakers cater NFL betting lines to match public perception and also to bait the public into poor bets. The temptation to use the prior year’s success as a buy sign for how a team will perform against the spread in Week 1 of the following season is an enormous trap.
The fact is, isolating road teams, road dogs, non-playoff teams vs. playoff teams, teams with a losing record or low margin vs. playoff teams or ones with a high margin from the previous year is where the line value resides. Quite simply, taking the road less traveled is your surest path to NFL betting profits.
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