I have some EV buddies who are going out of their minds because suggested EV matchup plays apparently haven’t been profitable for some time now.
I’ve been with DG for a few years … and I dreaming this or long ago was it stated somewhere that T20 was the money spot in terms of betting for DG? I thought it literally said on the site somewhere the model was great for these spots. Consequently all I really play is T20 and some outrights, and I thought I did that because that was the suggestion.
Am I nuts? And how do I respond to the “if they’re good on T20, wouldnt that mean they are good at 2-ball, 3-ball and everything else?”
Matt, maybe I dreamt this, but T20 (and outrights) have been successful long term. A little drought at times this season, but overall without question really good.
Daniel Song (forum legend who went cold turkey a few months back) used to say that. I don’t know if it’s true. 2021 was a bad year for outrights and top 5s, at least at the books we bet at. But 2022 was very good. There is so much variance in golf betting it’s hard to say whether one bet type is truly higher EV than another (or more precisely, a bet type where actual ROI is closer to EV), because the quality of these markets can also change over time. T20s do kind of hit a sweet spot between variance and return, but at most books there aren’t many T20 bets to make these days.
But to your point, the most likely reason the model would be doing poorly on one bet type vs another would just be that the odds you are betting against are stronger/weaker. All of our probabilities are coming from the same model, so I don’t think it makes sense that our T20 prices could be “stronger” than our matchup prices.
I think a lot of people have had a bad run with matchups recently, but these +EV accounts seem to have gotten crushed particularly hard. A few of them have complained on Twitter and through email. I also had a bad month of May, but not catastrophic. Maybe they bet 25% of their bankroll against LIV guys at the first 2 majors? I do think it’s important to be able to second guess the model. There are going to be situations where the model is off and you shouldn’t keep betting on the same guy. Keeping up with golf and the model’s strengths/weaknesses is probably pretty important.
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Thank you! I guess I really did dream up the T20 thing haha (but the strategy has worked out well for me; sure tougher lately because books are keen to DG), but still been very good for me.
As always, appreciate the dialog!
What does “+EV accounts” mean? Must be something specific, because we’re all out for +EV of course,.
Fast growing legion of sports bettors who tout +EV betting (only making bets that are value compared to “sharp” numbers/other books). They scour lines/bonuses/promotions for value. No handicapping involved whatsoever.
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This is what I came here to say. Blindly betting the model will make it difficult to maximize ROI. With golf there is too much variance involved so the human aspect matters a lot on the margins.
Fundamentally the amount of “green” on top 20 and outrights has reduced dramatically over the last 3 months.
Top 20 on the European Tour in particular was once a very reliable stream of income, but that’s effectively dead now.
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so there’s the rabbit hole, right? If you start “handicapping,” you’re inserting or letting info (that people who make the lines would also be aware of) influence betting.
It’s tricky.
I would say known injuries/long layoffs/Ams can help narrow/eliminate EV situations, but under normal circumstances, following DG has been great for me (again, focusing on outright, T20 and getting as many bets as I can immediately.
You are absolutely right, it is tricky. Because DG and oddsmakers are mostly aligned, the biggest opportunities often won’t be just going to the tools, see bright green, and fire away.
Just one example, the Saturday before the Masters when Brooks was leading the LIV tournament by 4 shots and was 60-1 to win at Augusta and plus money T20. Sports betting is so hard, the big opportunities are the ones you can’t miss.
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I think there are times where you should know to bet less on guys (or not at all) than what blindly following the model would suggest. For example, at the Canadian Open a bunch of guys who were older and/or hadn’t been playing much and/or had been playing horribly managed to make the cut (Ted Potter Jr and Brian Gay come to mind as two of them) and the model was showing big value against them for Saturday and Sunday matchups. The model would have made a big update on their skill, but when your skill level starts at -3 for the week you can only update so much without manual adjustments. So those were cases where I was betting a lot less than I normally would with that edge / odds, just because I’m not sure the model is able to capture what’s going on with those players very well.
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Shout out to Daniel Song! Miss that guy. He was always the devil’s advocate.
If you read up on the other blog posts by Matt (which are all fantastic reads) you will see that a blend of DG and the bookmakers margin free odds are generally going to get you a more accurate prediction.
That being said I don’t think that most people here really understand how brutal variance can be. Like if you hit worst run for a long stretch you might have +$10,000 EV bucks and be down $10,000 over 1000 bets. It just is what it is and it’s why you should always be betting ‘defensively’, minimise your risk of going broke over getting rich.
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Daniel Song is a total legend!
I heard he has moved on to dominating the bulgarian water polo and handball markets…
You can only contain lightning in a bottle for so long.
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Did enjoy the posts where he’d proclaim some flavour of the month to be playing like an all-time great, only to change his mind within the month. Garrick Higgo comes to mind.
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