Buying Points

JohnnyMags · Jan 15, 2018

Yesterday people took exception to me commenting on buying the hook and I heard how never buying points is the way to go. I commented I've had more than a few nice wins this year after buying.
Now I want to relate what happened to me today. I was late getting my action in before 1:00 and in my haste I mistakenly placed a dime on N.O. They were +5.5 so I bought it to 6. When I was writing down my wagers I saw my mistake and since I only wanted 500 on N.O. I placed 500 on Minn (buying back 1/2 of the dime) where I again bought a 1/2 giving me Minn -5.
Result I win $1000 thanks to the 1/2 point making Minn a push. If they had actually kicked the point after I still would have won as the Minn bet would win and the N.O. bet would have pushed. These kind of results makes me a point buyer whenever I see opportunities at 3, 7 or 10.

Acebb · Jan 15, 2018

Buying points is stupid and there is no math that supports doing so.

MLB · Jan 15, 2018

I actually kept track of buying points in one year of wagering. Now, it may have been a fluke but it actually saved me 2500 for the year, and I was betting 500 a game. I'm not saying it's a sound philosophy but I think it all hinges on how you wager. When I looked over my spreadsheet I noticed that it saved me from 3 losses on 1 day of CFB! So.......the debate rages on I guess

brendanjack · Jan 15, 2018

I personally have never been a big believer in point buying don't get me wrong when it works out in your favor your thinking I'm a genius but how often statistically does it come into play . Someone a year ago posted all past Superbowl points matter thread and it was a low percentage of when they come into play

TheComputerGroup · Jan 15, 2018

Its not a bad philosophy to buy the 1/2 on two key numbers, 3 & 7, especially in key prime time games.

mhk · Jan 15, 2018

Buy ON to 3 or 7, not OFF, imo..

rolltide · Jan 15, 2018

brendanjack said:
I personally have never been a big believer in point buying don't get me wrong when it works out in your favor your thinking I'm a genius but how often statistically does it come into play . Someone a year ago posted all past Superbowl points matter thread and it was a low percentage of when they come into play

yep, worked out for me yesterday but only because bovada was sitting with a -4 -115/-120 all day and suckered me in, or so i thought

there is no statistical justification for buying points and the only thing dumber is teasing through "0" ... anyone that posts something like a 3-teamer with one of them ending as +2.5 has no idea what they're doing. when you look at the # of nfl games that land on 1 or 2 or end as a tie it is statistically bizarre that anyone would use these teaser points to win on -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 ... saw someone do it yesterday with pittsburgh +2.5 and just shook my head. fn stupidity

i got lucky yesterday because bovada hung out a sucker line otherwise would have lost -5.5 elsewhere

3pointdog · Jan 15, 2018

i will buy off/on key numbers... but off of 5.5... probably not...but good for you Johnnymags... glad you cashed...

Serbone · Jan 15, 2018

2.5 and 3.5 you can buy but other than that I do not think the math supports it at all. Maybe 6.5 and 7.5.

chonce · Jan 15, 2018

It is still an anecdote. Buying points always makes sense short-term. Over the course of a seasn, if you add up juice you lost because of it, most of the time you find it is a losing strategy long-term.

All that said, I still buy points. But I do it, knowing I probably should not. I got NO + 5. Buying off a 5 is rarely going to help you. Yesterday is an outlier.

RussellPeters · Jan 15, 2018

Acebb said:
Buying points is stupid and there is no math that supports doing so.

Correct! The OP still doesn't understand that in the long run buying points will lose you money. You won this time, congrats. But if you kept a track of all your plays where you bought the points and lost and compared it to the pushes you would be down money, no question about it. Way more times you would lose than push. Wins don't matter as it's a moot point because it would have won regardless of the buy. And if you are buying off of numbers such as 5.5 then you will lose even more often. With PAT now being pushed back and kickers missing more PATs we have seen some crooked scores but still no justification in buying a number let alone at 5.5. I know you will continue to buy points, some people just don't like that hook on any number, if you are buying off of 5.5 that tells me you buy off of all hooks. Not a very good idea, you won't see the long run results so there is no immediate impact. Paying -110 or -120 on non-key numbers is not a big deal to you, but but when you are paying -130 to -140 on key numbers of 3 or 7 that will hurt you. Good luck, but look or read more into it and you will see how buying points is a losing proposition.

JohnnyMags · Jan 15, 2018

I don't keep track of the long run on these buys and I'm guessing you guys who do know what your talking about.
I have to interject my circumstance is a little different. I do some small time booking so when I have a game at or near 3 or 7 that I need to lay off and that's when I really like to buy. Ordinarily a layoff is zero risk zero gain but when I get a 1/2 point on a layoff I can win while my client loses. For a $30 investment on a $300 game I can win $330 but my max loss is $30. If the game wins for my client I lose nothing because the juice goes away. I'd say I cashed at least 12 of these this past season. I had a nice one just last week when Alabama won by 3 (which I bought up from 2.5) and of course yesterday was another.

brendanjack · Jan 15, 2018

rolltide said:
yep, worked out for me yesterday but only because bovada was sitting with a -4 -115/-120 all day and suckered me in, or so i thought

there is no statistical justification for buying points and the only thing dumber is teasing through "0" ... anyone that posts something like a 3-teamer with one of them ending as +2.5 has no idea what they're doing. when you look at the # of nfl games that land on 1 or 2 or end as a tie it is statistically bizarre that anyone would use these teaser points to win on -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 ... saw someone do it yesterday with pittsburgh +2.5 and just shook my head. fn stupidity

i got lucky yesterday because bovada hung out a sucker line otherwise would have lost -5.5 elsewhere

Ironically this past weekend with 10 point and above any combination of sides not totals would have cashed

razorbackpicks · Jan 15, 2018

Buying points is always a winner if you are the right side...

I find it that when I buy points if I lose they wouldn't have helped, duh. I actually buy across key numbers a lot. Big games, important games, div rivalry that type of stuff. Did it in Bama NC game, did it in Panthers/Saints game, did it again yesterday in the saint game. To give a loser, I bought to 14.5 in tenner/pats game and lost. I absolutely hate sitting on 3 and 7 because I hate to watch an entire game and fall on a push, it aggravates the hell out of me.

Lets get real, very few people actually win over the long haul. I'd guess somewhere around 1/3 of this forum doesn't win in the "long" haul.

BlueRiot · Jan 15, 2018

The spread in theory represents a coinflip, 50 percent chance of team a covering and 50 percent chance of team b covering. So right off the bat the house has the edge with having (-110) juice on what is supposed to be an even proposition. Now add 10, 20 or 30 cents on top of that and you have to ask yourself does the cost match with the amount those points have increased the chance of your outcome happening. Impossible to quantify exactly bc its subjective, but your basically giving the house a bigger edge and thus making it harder to overcome in the long run.

PatsFan1283 · Jan 15, 2018

You should never buy pts ever, if it was +EV they wouldn't let you do it.

Ubuksi · Jan 15, 2018

I had a book once that let me sell points. I use to often sell off to key numbers (i.e. +3.5 -110 to +3 +100) and I loved it. Needless to say that book’s not around anymore.

NorthernStar · Jan 15, 2018

JohnnyMags said:
Yesterday people took exception to me commenting on buying the hook and I heard how never buying points is the way to go. I commented I've had more than a few nice wins this year after buying.
Now I want to relate what happened to me today. I was late getting my action in before 1:00 and in my haste I mistakenly placed a dime on N.O. They were +5.5 so I bought it to 6. When I was writing down my wagers I saw my mistake and since I only wanted 500 on N.O. I placed 500 on Minn (buying back 1/2 of the dime) where I again bought a 1/2 giving me Minn -5.
Result I win $1000 thanks to the 1/2 point making Minn a push. If they had actually kicked the point after I still would have won as the Minn bet would win and the N.O. bet would have pushed. These kind of results makes me a point buyer whenever I see opportunities at 3, 7 or 10.

So it worked out because of an admitted mistake. Assuming you didnt make a mistake you layed $600 to win $500 instead of not buying a half where you would have won $550 for the same $600.

I will say this again and again buying points makes no sense.

The reason is the win percentage. If you play 100 games and do a great job and hit 55%. You didnt win as much on those 55 winners. You now have to flip some of those losers into winners to make up for that. If your win percentage is lower it is even worse.

Forget about your break yesterday and dont do it anymore and you will be ahead.

To make matter worse I heard an idiot on the forum buying a 1/2 on a total. Even more idiotic. SMH

JohnnyMags · Jan 16, 2018

I explained how I like to buy a 1/2 point on wagers I am laying off. Since I don't bother to track those results because I only care about plus/minus here's a scenario:
Say I layoff apx 100 games at $300 with a 1/2 point buy That has me risking $3000 ($30 per game) now a portion of those layoffs will win so lets say 35% win with the regular line, that makes my cost drop to $1950. Now say I hit just 10 out of those 100 games (10 is not hard at all) that gives me +$3300 which is a tidy profit. Even if I only hit 6 I'd make money. These games with lines of 3 and 7 that fall on the number occur a lot more than 6% of the time and that's what 6 wins out of 100 is.

lostinamerica · Jan 16, 2018

I read an article way back around 2005 that was based on a comprehensive analysis of NFL games only for around 12 or 15 years. (I tried doing a google search but I haven’t come across it again.) It looked at buying ½ point on several key numbers (definitely 3 and 7, maybe 1, 6, 10 and 14 as well). The purpose of the analysis was to determine how many games with those closing spreads actually had final scores that would have been impacted by buying ½ point.

With each key number, I believe they made no distinction between closing lines of 2', 3 and 3', or 9', 10 and 10', etc. But I definitely remember the conclusion that buys on the key number of 3 were worth slightly more than 10 cents (maybe .12 or .13), but all other key numbers were worth significantly less than .10 (maybe .08, at the most), and by common sense interpolation, buying at any “non-key” numbers would be worth even less . . . I will note that in this thread I read a suggestion that buying in selected spots like prime time games could make a difference, and there probably are variables that could be looked at to refine the numbers.

So not surprisingly, the books typically charge .20 or .25 to buy on or off the key number of 3, and at least .10 on or off the key number of 7, while frequently only .05 on “random” numbers like 5, 9, 12, 16, etc. . . . So although I am referencing a pretty dated analysis, I doubt whether any changes on a more recent data set of 15 years would be hugely different, and I think it’s safe to say that “buying points as a long term proposition is a losing proposition.”

Nevertheless, in my low stakes wagering I will almost always pay a steep price to buy ½ point as a "defensive" measure to salvage a push when I am on a dog at +2' or a favorite at -3' (including college games, which I suspect offer even less value than the extremely competitive NFL), but really never buy ½ point as an "offensive" strategy, and I know from my experience it has come into play enough times where I continue to employ the strategy; and even if I get involved in games that play out right at that key number of 3 more often than a random universe of games would suggest (i.e. prime time games, as previously referenced, or some other subsets of games), I’m pretty confident I am still overpaying something for the privilege on a long term basis. On almost every other key number (including 7) I bite the bullet and really never buy ½ point, and I’m pretty sure it benefits my long term results . . . But it surely pays long term to have multiple outlets and frequently save .03 or .05 on any number you end up with.

GL

Buying Points

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