Question about betting golf as an American

[Ensemble Method]

As a new poster to this board, first let me say how impressive the cappers on this board are. If handicapping skill is measured by consistent and profitable results, this is the best job of capping I've ever seen on a public board, anywhere.

I have a question for the American golf bettors on outright plays. Many of the prices that the English posters use are unavailable to Americans, due to several good golf books being off-limits.

But it's likely that these bets are still profitable, even at slightly reduced odds. I've been using a fudge factor of 20% -- if I can get odds within 20% of the original price, I'll take the bet; otherwise I won't.

My question is how have other Americans dealt with this? Does anybody have a systematic way of handling this? Do people just wing it and use case-by-case judgement ? Do they stay away from these situations entirely?

 

[Stanley]

I have been asked this many times because most people are not as fortunate as we are in the UK where golf betting is big business and we have a wide variety of outs and easy means of transferring money. I have given the following rule of thumb ...

Don't take my outright plays if your odds are more than 1/3 lower than the ones that I quote. For example, if I say 50/1 and you can only get 33/1 then it is still viable IMO, but not at 25/1.

Don't take my matchup plays if your lines are more than 20 cents from the ones that I quote. For example, if I suggest a play at -120 then take it up to -140. For lines than are more than 20 cents and less than 50 cents from the ones that I quote, only play it at one unit less - if it is a 2-unit play at -120, then it would be a 1-unit play at -150.

I don't know if this is helpful or not or what other posters think, but it is a rule of thumb that I have given in the past.

To be fair, you only need accounts at Five Dimes and Bet365 to be able to get odds (though they may not be the best ones) for all the outright plays that are suggested in this forum. It is for the matchups that you need the greatest number of outs and there is only myself that provides a large selection of these plays at a wide selection of outs.

 

[Trampled Underfoot]

There are still plenty of books that offer Golf. Check out Stanley's site and the sportsbook list. I can usually find odds very close. Every once in awhile I cant find good odds on the place but instead I will just put the whole stake on the outright win. Sometimes it works out for the best.

 

[sports student]

Ensemble another important thing about finding the best odds is getting them in as early in the week as possible. Seems to me the books get hit somewhat from the plays on this board and as the hours go on the worse the odds get. I am kind of a beginner here but in the year or so since I have been playing I do not believe I have ever gotten a recommended play that I have used from any of the experts here that I have received better odds that were stated- either they were the same or most times worse. Of course you can do like me and play some of your own. I have found that if you are incompetent some times you can get some pretty good odds

 

[Ensemble Method]

Thanks for the replies, especially Stanley's -- that's exactly the answer I was looking for.

I already have accounts at pretty much all the golf books that take Americans, and I understand the value of getting plays in early.

The situation I'm most concerned about is when Stanley picks Serge McPuttsalot at 33/1 e.w. at, say, Skybet, and I can only get him for 25/1 at SIA. Is that still a good bet? I have been too lazy to figure out just how superhuman Stanley's picks are, so I was fishing around for a rule of thumb -- which Stanley kindly provided

Of course, one of these days, I should do the proper thing -- which is to write some perl scripts to harvest Stanley's full record on outrights, and then estimate the probability of a given outright pick winning given the odds that Stanley quotes.

Once you know that, it's easy to figure out what the expected return for any given bet is, and you can set your odds threshold appropriately, with whatever minimum expected ROI you are comfortable with.

The first analysis should probably use linear regression, and then maybe locally weighted regression or something similar if I suspected significant non-linearities across the odds range (i.e., if I suspected that the longshot picks were working better than the near-favorites).

Of course there are potential complications -- potential differing levels of accuracy across different tours, etc -- but nothing that would prevent a reasonable estimate.

 

[lostinamerica]

sports student: "I have found that if you are incompetent some times you can get some pretty good odds"

I'm still laughing over that one.

GL