WNBA Friday night pick
If you’re just here for the pick, feel free to skip the first section on markets. For those who want some insight into betting strategy, we hope it helps you expand your game.
A note on betting markets, with examples from Wednesday
Becoming familiar with market tendencies and the impact of player pool size is one of the quickest ways to become a more successful player. Soft markets arise where there’s less volume, and other players’ recency bias will enable you to find edges other markets don’t necessarily allow for.
Because sportsbooks allocate so few resources to the great game of women’s basketball, there are often poor opening lines that tend to mirror public sentiment. This isn’t to say poor lines don’t cover, or bad players never win, just that over a long enough sample these plays will have negative expected value (unlike most players, the books adjust based on time and volume).
Last night we saw two examples of this market dynamic. First, Los Angeles opened as 3 point favorites (-3) at Atlanta while our projection was LA -1. Because LA started the season 2-0, the bull market pushed them to -5.5 within hours (remember, low volume events like a weeknight game in the WNBA means it takes less money to move a line). This is crucial because instead of our projection getting 2 points of value against the opening line, we now get 4.5.
The second example was New York at Chicago. The Liberty were coming off a home-opening win against a title contender while the Sky lost a short-handed overtime affair. We made Chicago an 8 point favorite, but New York’s win was enough to keep that line hovering between 3 and 4. It’s useful to keep in mind that in any market, the majority of players use this type of small-sample transitive logic to place bets - Sky lost, Liberty won, clearly everybody had these teams all wrong! This is a very bad habit. Try your best to eliminate this from your game.
Lastly, if you think the size of the player pool is below average in a low volume market, waiting to buy numbers will generally result in more value. Again - that’s true over the long term, irrespective of the result of any given bet.
With all that fun minutia out of the way, let’s get to our pick!
Friday’s pick
Our model makes Las Vegas a whopping 13.5 point favorite in Atlanta. The line for this game opened at -7 and was quickly bet down by Dream believers to -6.5 at -120. We’re impressed by Atlanta’s start but aren’t going to ignore Vegas looking like world beaters before getting gassed on short rest and a long trip to DC. That means taking this game every which way: first quarter (presumably -2), first half (presumably -4) and full game (-6.5).
The only other line that our model has had a 6 point discrepancy this season was on opening night. Washington opened at -6.5 over Indiana while we had it at -15.5. That one ended 84-70 in favor of the Mystics.
Aces at Dream has all the makings of everything I’ve touched on in this piece. Bull market steam for an upstart Atlanta club. Bear market hesitancy after a poor showing from the Aces. We see very little in this line that reflects style of play, matchups or adjustments. There’s value to be had.
In summation, your goal as the player is to find the games that over a large enough sample give you the highest expected profitability. We think this game is one of those games.
Remember, this is absolutely NOT financial advice and if you do play, please play responsibly!
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