11/05/24
October 25, 2003
NFL Pick'em Contest After 7 weeks & 102 picks we have a tie at the top
posted by catfish to navel gazing at 07:08 AM - 7 comments
I dying this week. I hate picking against the Bills (my team) but the Chiefs look REALLY good. I'm hoping the Bills keep it close enough to beat the spread.
posted by grum@work at 12:31 PM on October 25, 2003
i am not a betting man so I don't know the ins and outs of bookie-dom (but did have an interesting look in via Vito's thread a couple of months ago). I do have a question though - these pushes - obviously you cannot score half points in the NFL so a spread that is listed at +6.5 (or whatever) will not have any pushes. But any spread that is listed at a whole number does leave the door open for pushes. Now. Why do bookies give spread lines with whole numbers? If they are going to give a winning margin in fictional half point increments then are they purposely introducing some proportion of possible push bets when they list a line in whole points? And in a conventional betting situation does money placed on a pushed bet carry over or go to the house? Is it like the 0 on a roulette wheel (which, never having actually player roulette, i understand to go to the house)? Not that this will help me will or anything, just curious.
posted by gspm at 12:41 PM on October 25, 2003
FWIW picking the favourites each week would have been worth: 9 + 10 + 10 + 6 + 4 + 9 + 7 = 55 which, as you can see, would be 5th place and shows that the bookies seem to set a good line in that picking the favourite every time would only see you winning half of your bets.
posted by gspm at 12:41 PM on October 25, 2003
gspm: They list the full point spreads because they really can't decide which team to give that .5 advantage to. A push is usually money returned to the bettor and nothing gained by either side. Side note: in roulette, you can bet on "0" or "00" as well as any value on the wheel. It pays out the same as any other number (36-1 or 35-1, I can't remember). The reason for those numbers to be on the wheel is to collect winnings from people who bet on red OR black. The 0/00 values are the real house edge in this case.
posted by grum@work at 03:41 PM on October 25, 2003
It'd be better if I hadn't missed two weeks. All things considered though, the weeks I have made selections haven't been too bad.
posted by Ufez Jones at 01:27 PM on October 26, 2003
i forgot to do my picks this week. grr!
posted by jerseygirl at 10:33 AM on November 03, 2003
1 37 Push Ups 59 1 Mr. Freakin KnowItAll 59 3 Crap City Crapaneers 58 4 This Isnt Football! 57 5 Broke leg no hope 53 6 vagabonds 51 6 Favrearinos 51 8 dano likes donuts 50 8 Trendelmaniacs 50 8 kloeprich 50 11 the boston beans 49 12 JasonSpaceman 48 13 mbd1s coin flips 44 14 darling fascist bully boys 34 15 bcb2k2 pix nfl2k3 19 The overall leader on yahoo has 81 correct picks for an unheard of 79%. Break even after the juice is at 54 so we have 4 playas in the $. There were also 3 or 4 pushes which count as losses so broke leg no hope can probably afford that 6 pack of Anchor Steam now.