NFL Playoff Picks ATS 2024-5: Semi-finals

For the semi-finals aka conference championships, my picks against the spread (ATS) are:

trump owns this town +4.5 over PHILLY

buffalo +1.5 over KC swifties 

I am glad to be 7-2-1 ATS in playoffs so far = 5-1 wild card round + 2-1-1 divisional round = 1-1-1 road underdogs, 3-0 home underdogs and 3-1 home overdogs. I never pick overdogs except in the playoffs when I back teams coming off the bye week or if they rested their starters in the final regular season match. Teams coming off the bye before the divisional round win almost 3/4 of matches straight-up  vs. 2/3 straight-up winners for regular season overdogs.

I kept track of the all-underdogs record for the entire National Football League (NFL) 2024-5 season including playoffs. Underdogs finished 121-147-4 against the spread (ATS) or 45% = 75-90-2 road underdogs and 46-57-2 homie doggies. As a result, I finished dead last in the one ATS season-long pool I swim in.  

Over many decades, NFL home underdogs were the best bet in sports -- but not this year or last. Home underdogs went 9-21 ATS over weeks 5-9. Home underdogs went 47-51-5 in 2023-2024 including playoffs. 

 A simple all-underdogs strategy has recorded 25 winning NFL regular seasons over the past 33 against the spread (ATS), a track record significant to statheads (to borrow one of toy boy Archibald's catch-phrases). 

Underdogs lost the NFL regular season ATS for the 2nd consecutive year. If anyone knows when is the last time that happened, I would be glad to know. And, has there ever been a worse underdog ATS winning % than 45% this year?

Have bettors finally twigged to the fact that they overestimated overdog favorites for years through 2022-23? It's possible. I expect underdogs to win a bit more than 1/3 of all matches straight-up and a bit more than 1/6 of all matches on points. Over the past two years, underdogs have won a bit less than 1/6 of all matches on points and bit less than 1/3  of all matches straight-up. Are the unusual results of the past 2 years just a short-term random walk around the long-term average? Or has the underdog-tilt identified by Stephen Leavitt vanished? We will need a few more seasons to reach a conclusion. In the meantime, I will stick with regular-season underdogs next year. I will not abandon my all-underdogs regular season strategy just because of two consecutive bad years.

I should say that the all-underdog long-term winning % ATS is not high enough to make a living against the small commissions implicity built into odds offered by gambling houses. 

Sports betting is the House of the Rising Sun of the 3rd millenium: "the ruin of many a poor boy". Dare I say that the 19th century House of the Rising Sun was more fun for customers, but not workers.

CFL Picks 2024

I was wrong picking WINterpeg -10.5 over toronto against the spread (ATS) in Grey Cup CXI. 

The east has now won the past 3 Grey Cups after the west won 6 of the previous 8 and 11 of the previous 15. I am proud, albeit insignificantly statistically proud, to be 10-5 ATS picking the past 15 Grey Cups, although I admit to losing the past 3. 

Sorry, I have been so caught up helping Godiva toy boy and permanent fiance Arch with his substacking that I haven't had time to update my CFL picking record for the entire season.   

After 10 weeks, I was 22-17-1 = 8-2 home underdogs, 10-7-1 road underdogs, 3-3 home overdogs, and 1-5 road overdogs. In the play-offs, I finished 1-4 = 1-1 home overdogs and 0-2 road underdogs and 0-1 Grey Cup.

I am 51% over 13 years picking Canadian Football League (CFL) winners against the spread (ATS) from 2009 on. (Recall that the  CFL cancelled their 2020 season, so there have been only 15 seasons from 2009 through 2024.) I have had 5 losing CFL years out of 15. I do not do well enough to make a profit betting CFL games with real money, but every now and then my picks should be good enough to win a small, just-for-fun CFL season-long pool. I trail behind a simple all-underdogs strategy at 52% from 2009-2023. 2023 was the first year since 2014 for CFL underdogs to record a losing year ATS. 

Last year 2023 was my worst year ever by far and my 2nd consecutive losing year. 

Godiva toy boy and fiance-in-perpetuity Archibald points out that western teams are 263-179-4 or almost 60% straight-up against eastern teams from 2012 through 2024. But, in 2024 east best west 22-16-2 after winning in 2023 as well. 

I am starting to accept that the years of western dominance are over. 

Arch is too busy with his new hobby to maintain his CFL ATS pool, so my picks this year were just for fun. 

Nate Silver is the Bill James of political analysts

 "Just as James did for baseball, Silver taught us how to look at presidential campaigns analytically."

from

https://economystupid.substack.com/

No surprise. Nate Silver wrote for and owned a share of Baseball Prospectus before he turned his talents to analyzing elections.

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/  

MLB inter-league 2024 Recap: NL rules

In the 2024 chapter of Major League Baseball's (MLB's) inter-league rivalry, National League (NL) teams defeated their American League (AL) rivals 373 wins to 323 (53.6%-46.4%) after including the World Series (WS) and All-Star matches. 

2024 was the NL's 5th best year in 27 years of regular season inter-league play starting in 1997. 

The NL defeated even the once-dominant AL East 124-111 (52.8%). AL East teams had won 56.6% of inter-league games from 2020 through 2023. 

The AL had won 16 of the previous 20 inter-league seasons with All-Star and World Series matches included in the counts. After 14 consecutive AL triumphs from 2004 through 2017, the NL has now won the inter-league contest for 5 of 7 seasons starting with 2018.

The "brain gap" between AL and NL team managements shrank over the years thanks to the brain drain of smarty-pants and smarty-skirt executives who started with AL squads before crossing over to manage NL teams. 

The AL's only remaining claim to superiority is winning 10 of the past 11 All-Star contests, 22 of the last 26 to reach a decision and 28 of 35.

The NL representative Dodgers were rightly favoured to take the World Series.   

None of this information is useful for betting purposes. Gambling odds are almost never fair for gamblers. For the vast majority, it's not possible to earn a long-term profit gambling.