What style of betting do you use?

[Kyle Stephens]

Kelvin Gastelum shouldn't be as much of a dog

I agree. But just because we don't know what negative effects to his health these 2 Romero fights could have on him. If he was coming out of these fights relatively unscathed I say the odds are correct, he is that much better than Kelvin. If Kelvin was more of a kicker I would be worried tho, Natal of all people had Rob in big trouble with legkicks.

 

[GrantSorenson]

Holloway had brain issues and looked like he was mentally retarded in an interview which got his fight scrapped last time and medical tests. Should someone with that kind of problem be a favourite over Ortega? Who is going to back Holloway? For me Ortega should be favoured there

I'd be real surprised if Gastelum, Iaquinta, Lawler and Ortega all lose.

 

[MMAOracle]

Hmmm.. alotta qualitative examinations here. Quant analysis anyone?

Please tell me about your decision making processes as well as you br management.

 

[MMAOracle]

That is absolutely retarded.
You talk like someone who understands finance, maybe I am wrong. But if I am right then you will absolutely agree that the Sharpe ratio on that 8% payout is a piece of shit.


On such a high variance event like an MMA fight I don't have my mind made up yet but I would venture that anything below - 500 is a piss poor bet. I wouldn't bet -1200 on Jon Jones vs Renan Barao. Ok I would, but just to illustrate.

I am not a finance guy at all lol. I really wish I knew more about finance. (took a semester or two of finance many many years ago)
Sadly, I am a generalist, not a specialist. So if you could teach me a thing or two, I'd be grateful.
You said something intriguing that really piqued my interest. Can you explain to me more about the Sharpe ratio. This resembles the CAPM. I looked it up but I am not sure how you would come up with a hard number for these variables.

As far as I know the sharpe ratio formula is SR= (asset return - risk free rate)/ standard deviation of asset return correct?
So the duration of the asset return should MATCH the risk free rate? Am I wrong? How did you calculate the standard deviation of the asset return?
What is the SR on Khabib vs Horcher bet given that the money line is -1200 and the DAILY interest rate was 8%.

 

[Cockadoodle]

You said something intriguing that really piqued my interest. Can you explain to me more about the Sharpe ratio. This resembles the CAPM. I looked it up but I am not sure how you would come up with a hard number for these variables.

I agree getting numbers on these variables would be nigh on impossible. Mainly because people are very complicated with many intangible facets that are hard to put a value on.
Valuing a company requires similar kinds of inputs- historical profits, asset base, quality of management etc but a company isn't human. How much weight do you put on pre fight nerves or the niggling injury or the ability to exceed your body's limitations? We can see these with our eyes and form an opinion on what we think but to put these things into a formula is very hard.
To make it more complicated there are 2 people in a fight and they are fighting each other. I have seen a very impressive computer program for horse racing that requires hundreds of staff and number crunches a mountain of variables from humidity to time of day to the colour of the jockeys shit but that is just one animal going from point a to point b. And even that model only wins statistically through a large volume of bets

I guess what I'm saying is in searching for a magic formula to pick fight outcomes will tend to be less accurate than a human decision

 

[KBE6EKCTAH_CCP]

I am not a finance guy at all lol. I really wish I knew more about finance. (took a semester or two of finance many many years ago)
Sadly, I am a generalist, not a specialist. So if you could teach me a thing or two, I'd be grateful.
You said something intriguing that really piqued my interest. Can you explain to me more about the Sharpe ratio. This resembles the CAPM. I looked it up but I am not sure how you would come up with a hard number for these variables.

As far as I know the sharpe ratio formula is SR= (asset return - risk free rate)/ standard deviation of asset return correct?
So the duration of the asset return should MATCH the risk free rate? Am I wrong? How did you calculate the standard deviation of the asset return?
What is the SR on Khabib vs Horcher bet given that the money line is -1200 and the DAILY interest rate was 8%.

I am afraid that I don't have any knowledge worth a crap to transmit in this context. And I just mentioned a financial notion because you talk like a finance guy without knowing it ;-)

The analogy I made with the Sharpe ratio is that you always need to think in terms of risk-weighted-returns and the Sharpe Ratio does that. It devides the excess return by the standard deviation of the asset bringing that return.

Of course it is just an analogy, since there is no risk-free rate in the MMA odds market, so in this case, the numerator would simply be the return of 8% that you computed. The denominator is the standard deviation, which you also cannot calculate since you would need a time-series for that. An MMA fight is usually a single event.

But it is freaking obvious that the variance is extremely high on MMA events. Have the same guys fight 10 times and I would venture that on average, one guy beats the other only 7 times out of 10, not more. That's an extremely high standard deviation.

Now understand that we are usually talking about fights that never happened, on top of that.

My point is, 8% is a shitty return for something as unpredictable as an MMA fight.

Kind of like paying more than -100 to flip a coin.

Take my words with a grain of salt because I am not even a gambler.

 

[MMAOracle]

I am afraid that I don't have any knowledge worth a crap to transmit in this context. And I just mentioned a financial notion because you talk like a finance guy without knowing it ;-)

The analogy I made with the Sharpe ratio is that you always need to think in terms of risk-weighted-returns and the Sharpe Ratio does that. It devides the excess return by the standard deviation of the asset bringing that return.

Of course it is just an analogy, since there is no risk-free rate in the MMA odds market, so in this case, the numerator would simply be the return of 8% that you computed. The denominator is the standard deviation, which you also cannot calculate since you would need a time-series for that. An MMA fight is usually a single event.

But it is freaking obvious that the variance is extremely high on MMA events. Have the same guys fight 10 times and I would venture that on average, one guy beats the other only 7 times out of 10, not more. That's an extremely high standard deviation.

Now understand that we are usually talking about fights that never happened, on top of that.

My point is, 8% is a shitty return for something as unpredictable as an MMA fight.

Kind of like paying more than -100 to flip a coin.

Take my words with a grain of salt because I am not even a gambler.

no problem bro. I am right now in the process of devising some shitty excel spreadsheet based on past predictions of mma fans and notable gamblers. BTW, I have very poor excel skills. I took a free online course from PWC just for kicks couple years ago. I was also thinking about diversifying my bets to reduce my risk and emulate Efficient market frontier.(kinda mixing up equities and bonds, in this case, I would be mixing up safe bets with crappy returns and high risk ones) I have alotta data organing to do and it seems a bit interesting.

My first question is this, how accurate does the money line predict the outcome? So theoretically, if we took all the -1200 money line, then the outcome should be at 92% winning rate. Is this true?
I also want to know how often does a line of +200 or whatever win? I want to do a statistical study of all the recent UFC outcomes and see if it actually makes sense.

Now, here is a word of warning. While I do sound like some dude who may know a thing or two about stats and finance, I am a complete noob. However, I am willing to work with anyone who wants to lend me a hand. While browsing through the forum, I see some smart guys who are talented. If we can amalgamate all our skills, I am sure we can come up with something.

What I do know for sure is, if we continue to discuss only based on subjective qualitative factors of a fight, we may be missing the larger picture.

 

[KBE6EKCTAH_CCP]

no problem bro. I am right now in the process of devising some shitty excel spreadsheet based on past predictions of mma fans and notable gamblers. BTW, I have very poor excel skills. I took a free online course from PWC just for kicks couple years ago. I was also thinking about diversifying my bets to reduce my risk and emulate Efficient market frontier.(kinda mixing up equities and bonds, in this case, I would be mixing up safe bets with crappy returns and high risk ones) I have alotta data organing to do and it seems a bit interesting.

My first question is this, how accurate does the money line predict the outcome? So theoretically, if we took all the -1200 money line, then the outcome should be at 92% winning rate. Is this true?
I also want to know how often does a line of +200 or whatever win? I want to do a statistical study of all the recent UFC outcomes and see if it actually makes sense.

Now, here is a word of warning. While I do sound like some dude who may know a thing or two about stats and finance, I am a complete noob. However, I am willing to work with anyone who wants to lend me a hand. While browsing through the forum, I see some smart guys who are talented. If we can amalgamate all our skills, I am sure we can come up with something.

What I do know for sure is, if we continue to discuss only based on subjective qualitative factors of a fight, we may be missing the larger picture.

Yes, I think that such an analysis would be the first step to gain a quantitative understanding of the market.
I am pretty sure that it is possible to identify "pockets" where the market is more efficient than its average and vice-versa.

 

[MMAOracle]

Yes, I think that such an analysis would be the first step to gain a quantitative understanding of the market.
I am pretty sure that it is possible to identify "pockets" where the market is more efficient than its average and vice-versa.

ditto

 

[MMAOracle]

these are the pockets.
+136~+209 (3~4% edge than theoretical)
-400~-900 (~7% edge than theoretical)
enjoy

 

[Kyle Stephens]

In short, what is "the underdog veteran fighter"? This is betting on a fighter who is much more experienced, technical, smart, and so on, from his opponent, but the bookmakers put him as an underdog because he is in a losing streak, for example, or the opponent has advantages such as athleticism, age or just is hyped up by media and fans, or other reasons that are not real or sufficient for win, but the audience and/or the bookmaker thinks so.

Like Joe B this weekend and Mauricio Shogun... I missed them somehow. I tought for sure (for Mauricio especially) they gonna lose. Didn't bet against them, tho, had other bets with better odds.
On the other hand, if you gonna fade an old vet, you obviously can't take any chances, pick against them only when they fight similarly expirienced and proven capable fighter, not some hypejob.

 

[MMAOracle]

call me captain hindsight but my statistical analysis was correct! the prediction of the mma fans on mmajunike was on fire for the last 6 events or so. Their average is around 60% every year but they were at averaging at ~75% accuracy for the last six or so events. So I knew their accuracy would normalize back to 60% this event by giving us a crappy prediction. Voila, I was right. accuracy rate was only 33% and I capitalized on this. Some people have commented that I am completely wrong with this analytical approach but numbers don't lie. My sample is large enough. Although they are independent chances, I see specific patterns of normalizing.

 

[Kyle Stephens]

numbers don't li

I like that

@ MMAOracle I think it's good idea for the future to make a poll here in the mmabetting threads and ask users to pick between 1 and 3 most confident winners out of each card (no juiced favourites).

Because the other way, where people pick winners in 4 fights from the main card, first you don't have the choice to pick winner in some other fight from the prelims for example where you have good confidence, a second a lot of people are picking nonchalantly and this messes with the results.

 

[MMAOracle]

I like that

@ MMAOracle I think it's good idea for the future to make a poll here in the mmabetting threads and ask users to pick between 1 and 3 most confident winners out of each card (no juiced favourites).

Because the other way, where people pick winners in 4 fights from the main card, first you don't have the choice to pick winner in some other fight from the prelims for example where you have good confidence, a second a lot of people are picking nonchalantly and this messes with the results.

that is not a bad idea but there are some problems with your proposed approach
1) there are too many fighters for each events so recording them is going to be a bitch
2) we need to start from ground zero so this database will be useless until next year

 

[Kyle Stephens]

1) there are too many fighters for each events so recording them is going to be a bitch

Yeah...

 

[grappler4200]

As someone who is at the pre-noob stage of his betting career, I am thankful for this post.
Maybe the following will not interest you because I don't have experience, but when I start betting I will look for the few fights where I think that the market is irrational. And when I mean irrational, I mean a fight where there is obviously a lot of hype coming into the odds and where the odds represent alot of speculation and disregard facts.

When I look at the upcoming lines, one where I think that the market is out of its mind is Askren vs Lawler, with fuckin Askren a -300 favourite? Market, seriously? Okay, maybe Askren will win but you guys are going to pay that -300 ????

In my opinion, and I find some overlap with what you described about the veteran underdog, I think that there is no existing fight in which Lawler should be a +265 underdog. Now, against a guy like Askren, I see this a free lunch, if there is such a thing in MMA betting.

So all in all in my opinion this is one play where I have the feeling that I know with certainty that I am better than the market at pricing those odds.

As someone who is at the pre-noob stage of his betting career, I am thankful for this post.

Maybe the following will not interest you because I don't have experience, but when I start betting I will look for the few fights where I think that the market is irrational. And when I mean irrational, I mean a fight where there is obviously a lot of hype coming into the odds and where the odds represent alot of speculation and disregard facts.

When I look at the upcoming lines, one where I think that the market is out of its mind is Askren vs Lawler, with fuckin Askren a -300 favourite? Market, seriously? Okay, maybe Askren will win but you guys are going to pay that -300 ????

In my opinion, and I find some overlap with what you described about the veteran underdog, I think that there is no existing fight in which Lawler should be a +265 underdog. Now, against a guy like Askren, I see this a free lunch, if there is such a thing in MMA betting.

So all in all in my opinion this is one play where I have the feeling that I know with certainty that I am better than the market at pricing those odds.

Man my initial thoughts seeing the Robbie Askren line were the same. I'm looking for an opportunity to fade Askren, as I agree his resume is just really not impressive. However, I don't see it here, bad stylistic match up for Lawler. I punted a feeler on rda vs Usman last night for the same reason, and really think this iis a similar spot. Won't be betting that one either side.

 

[Gugabe]

Random punting on hot takes.

 

[grappler4200]

Seems someone brought up Floyd and we are talking about strategy, I found this one to be extremely profitable.

Step 1- Wait for public to bet money may down to -450

Step 2- .......

Step 3- Profit

 

[MMAOracle]

does anyone use Kelly calculator here?