FROM THE LV SUN:
August 06, 2007
Jeff Haney offers recommended reading for intermediate-level sports bettors who are serious about learning how to play with an advantage
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Book report
Title: "Weighing the Odds in Sports Betting"
Author: King Yao
Published: 2007, Pi Yee Press, Las Vegas
Price: $19.95
Where to find it: In Las Vegas, the book is available at the Gambler's Book Shop, 630 South 11th St., 382-7555
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Every year in late January, amid the blizzard of Super Bowl betting propositions that blankets Las Vegas sports books, one odd-looking wagering opportunity always stands out to me.
It asks whether the shortest touchdown in the Super Bowl will be over or under 1.5 yards. Essentially, the question is whether there will be a 1-yard or "zero-yard" (such as a fumble recovery in the end zone) touchdown in the game.
You'll hear plenty of hocus-pocus analysis regarding the over/under 1.5 yards, as fans, media pundits and (lest we forget) "professional handicappers" make their predictions on how the Super Bowl will unfold.
Now you can safely ignore them.
Along with plenty of other detailed information, "Weighing the Odds in Sports Betting," the splendid and eagerly awaited new book by King Yao, contains the definitive and most elegant solution to the problem.
It explains how to create your own betting line on the prop and use it to determine whether the odds in the casino offer any value.
Elsewhere in the chapter on Super Bowl props, Yao suggests the same method can be applied to other common over/unders such as the shortest field goal, the longest kickoff return and the longest pass completion.
He leaves it to you, gentle reader, to do the work on those.
You see, like all the best gambling books, "Weighing the Odds" takes a teach-'em-to-fish approach rather than spoon-feeding ideas to its audience. Yao calls the book a "guideline" rather than a "blueprint" on how to make money betting sports.
The release of "Weighing the Odds," published by Pi Yee Press, is noteworthy because worthwhile books on sports betting show up with the approximate frequency of leap years. It's a stark contrast from, say, books on over-saturated subjects such as investing ("make a killing in options!") or poker-playing exploits ("I, too, went to the World Series of Poker, and here's what I saw! Vegas, the land of broken neon dreams and blah blah ...")
Heavy on football but also including valuable content on baseball, basketball, Triple Crown props and miscellaneous topics, "Weighing the Odds" is not aimed at "wise guys," or established professional sports gamblers. Rather, its audience is novice or intermediate-level sports bettors who are serious about studying the game and playing with an advantage. Aspiring pros, perhaps.
To wit, one chapter breaks down office bracket pools for the NCAA basketball tournament. The section on parlay cards includes the obvious advice to avoid the horrific odds found on cards issued by "local bookmakers" outside of Nevada. And here's a hint that's probably not giving too much away: With Las Vegas parlay cards, much of any edge for the bettor comes from hammering "stale" betting lines.
Yao's background as a financial trader with Susquehanna Partners comes through as he consistently emphasizes the technical aspects of sports betting. Many of the book's 24 chapters are fairly heavy on math, albeit the basic stuff.
In some ways, "Weighing the Odds" picks up where another Pi Yee book - Stanford Wong's 2001 "Sharp Sports Betting" - left off. Wong showed how to use the mathematical concept known as the Poisson distribution to analyze certain types of sports bets, a theory Yao picks up and runs with.
In a timely example, Yao's chapter on NFL regular-season victory over/unders does a fine job in explaining how to estimate the cost of a "half game." This is useful in solving problems such as which is more attractive: under 9 wins at a particular price, or under 9.5 wins at a heavier vigorish. I'm not sure "RSW," his suggested abbreviation for regular-season wins betting, will catch on in the popular lexicon, however.
Yao, a poker player and sports bettor based on the East Coast and known for his previous work, "Weighing the Odds in Hold 'em Poker" (2005), also touches on hedging bets and common mistakes in hedging; baseball totals and five-inning lines; NFL first-half betting; and future books in "Weighing the Odds in Sports Betting."
The book's final chapter consists of an entertaining and candid interview with an anonymous professional sports bettor.
Some of the mystery bettor's remarks reminded me of my favorite kind of angry e-mail missive: those that take me to task for writing a column that points out a good betting opportunity, thereby "waking up" sports book managers who are routinely asleep at the switch, according to the e-mail writers.
King Yao's book could be another wake-up call. We'll find out by Super Bowl week. Let's see what odds they post for over/under 1.5 yards on the shortest touchdown, and which way the betting line moves on the prop. That could serve as an indicator of who's paying attention, among bookies and bettors alike.
Jeff Haney can be reached at 259-4041 or at haney@lasvegassun.com.
August 06, 2007
Jeff Haney offers recommended reading for intermediate-level sports bettors who are serious about learning how to play with an advantage
<TABLE cellPadding=10 width=220 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR bgColor=#cccccc><TD bgColor=#cccccc>[FONT=arial, helvetica, san serif]
Book report
Title: "Weighing the Odds in Sports Betting"
Author: King Yao
Published: 2007, Pi Yee Press, Las Vegas
Price: $19.95
Where to find it: In Las Vegas, the book is available at the Gambler's Book Shop, 630 South 11th St., 382-7555
[/FONT]</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Every year in late January, amid the blizzard of Super Bowl betting propositions that blankets Las Vegas sports books, one odd-looking wagering opportunity always stands out to me.
It asks whether the shortest touchdown in the Super Bowl will be over or under 1.5 yards. Essentially, the question is whether there will be a 1-yard or "zero-yard" (such as a fumble recovery in the end zone) touchdown in the game.
You'll hear plenty of hocus-pocus analysis regarding the over/under 1.5 yards, as fans, media pundits and (lest we forget) "professional handicappers" make their predictions on how the Super Bowl will unfold.
Now you can safely ignore them.
Along with plenty of other detailed information, "Weighing the Odds in Sports Betting," the splendid and eagerly awaited new book by King Yao, contains the definitive and most elegant solution to the problem.
It explains how to create your own betting line on the prop and use it to determine whether the odds in the casino offer any value.
Elsewhere in the chapter on Super Bowl props, Yao suggests the same method can be applied to other common over/unders such as the shortest field goal, the longest kickoff return and the longest pass completion.
He leaves it to you, gentle reader, to do the work on those.
You see, like all the best gambling books, "Weighing the Odds" takes a teach-'em-to-fish approach rather than spoon-feeding ideas to its audience. Yao calls the book a "guideline" rather than a "blueprint" on how to make money betting sports.
The release of "Weighing the Odds," published by Pi Yee Press, is noteworthy because worthwhile books on sports betting show up with the approximate frequency of leap years. It's a stark contrast from, say, books on over-saturated subjects such as investing ("make a killing in options!") or poker-playing exploits ("I, too, went to the World Series of Poker, and here's what I saw! Vegas, the land of broken neon dreams and blah blah ...")
Heavy on football but also including valuable content on baseball, basketball, Triple Crown props and miscellaneous topics, "Weighing the Odds" is not aimed at "wise guys," or established professional sports gamblers. Rather, its audience is novice or intermediate-level sports bettors who are serious about studying the game and playing with an advantage. Aspiring pros, perhaps.
To wit, one chapter breaks down office bracket pools for the NCAA basketball tournament. The section on parlay cards includes the obvious advice to avoid the horrific odds found on cards issued by "local bookmakers" outside of Nevada. And here's a hint that's probably not giving too much away: With Las Vegas parlay cards, much of any edge for the bettor comes from hammering "stale" betting lines.
Yao's background as a financial trader with Susquehanna Partners comes through as he consistently emphasizes the technical aspects of sports betting. Many of the book's 24 chapters are fairly heavy on math, albeit the basic stuff.
In some ways, "Weighing the Odds" picks up where another Pi Yee book - Stanford Wong's 2001 "Sharp Sports Betting" - left off. Wong showed how to use the mathematical concept known as the Poisson distribution to analyze certain types of sports bets, a theory Yao picks up and runs with.
In a timely example, Yao's chapter on NFL regular-season victory over/unders does a fine job in explaining how to estimate the cost of a "half game." This is useful in solving problems such as which is more attractive: under 9 wins at a particular price, or under 9.5 wins at a heavier vigorish. I'm not sure "RSW," his suggested abbreviation for regular-season wins betting, will catch on in the popular lexicon, however.
Yao, a poker player and sports bettor based on the East Coast and known for his previous work, "Weighing the Odds in Hold 'em Poker" (2005), also touches on hedging bets and common mistakes in hedging; baseball totals and five-inning lines; NFL first-half betting; and future books in "Weighing the Odds in Sports Betting."
The book's final chapter consists of an entertaining and candid interview with an anonymous professional sports bettor.
Some of the mystery bettor's remarks reminded me of my favorite kind of angry e-mail missive: those that take me to task for writing a column that points out a good betting opportunity, thereby "waking up" sports book managers who are routinely asleep at the switch, according to the e-mail writers.
King Yao's book could be another wake-up call. We'll find out by Super Bowl week. Let's see what odds they post for over/under 1.5 yards on the shortest touchdown, and which way the betting line moves on the prop. That could serve as an indicator of who's paying attention, among bookies and bettors alike.
Jeff Haney can be reached at 259-4041 or at haney@lasvegassun.com.
