Using win percentage to find +EV
situations in the NFL
Let’s use today’s
game with Carolina traveling to Green Bay to illustrate how to find expected
value positive situations.
This game is
GB -8 at most places and opened -9.5. There are reasons that people are betting
the Panthers, but we are looking at a simplified process to gauge the strength
of the line. First, we need to get a Win Percentage in this game. How many
times out of a 100 will GB beat CAR? There are many ways to calculate this
depending on your models, algorithms, or handicapping; but I use Team Ranking’s
model as everyone has access and it is rather good. I am using the Similar
Games Analysis section so we can get historical input that resembles this
matchup.
The picture
will show a Green Bay win percentage of 91.1%! The result surprised me. It is
very high!
This result
indicates that CAR has little chance of winning the game. However, getting 8 points are good right? We need to convert the winning percentage into a money
line, then convert that into a spread to find out. Let’s start with the money
line conversion.
You will
need a Spread Converter for this. I use this one from Sportsbookreview.com. The
graphic shows 90% (89.97%) win percentage on the money line is -1641.9 and that
converts to -13.5 -110 on a spread line.
The math
shows that GB in this spot should be -13.5-point favorite against CAR today! This
creates an expected value positive situation of 5.5 points to the line. The
variance is a HUGE edge to GB side. If you make +EV bets, you should expect to
WIN many of them. The real question is how do you know if you are making one? When
risking your money, make smart choices! Using a methodology like this or at least
one similar, you can calculate your edge and define it. There are very few
handicappers that can define their edge and prove the +EV situation exists. Now
you can too!
