Style

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Biff's eBook, The Elements of Stye (FTCP). 

The Biff Group's #sportsbetting style, explained.

Hey Biff what’s the  point in betting strictly on value if it’s ultimately not the right side? 

If you’ve got a gun to your head and one winner saves your life, then in that scenario—I wouldn’t worry so much about making sure you’re on the "value" side. In that predicament—I'd advise making your side selection something you can live with win or lose, literally. 

But to do this thing 365, across 7 sections both pro & college, and playing an OPBC/volume concept within the #sportsbetting market—it matters a great deal that you’re consistently identifying and playing the value side of a particular matchup.

2 main types of value—perceived (RVAL) and real (SVAL). We refer to perceived value as “Relative Value.” Relative Value (RVAL) is when your own handicap produces a number that is different than the actual betting number or number consensus, for a given matchup. But that’s not to say that we’re looking to get into a handicapping competition every day of the year with Vegas oddsmakers. But your own number may have value too (mileage and usefulness varies by acumen, experience, talent, etc.). RVAL betting is not the reason why the good, independent handicap is important. 

The independent handicap gives every matchup at least some proper and/or beginning context. When there’s a gulf, or if there is no gulf, from there—that’s an appropriate starting point to dig in. That's a good working context and now you can analyze the subjective stuff and the historical performance data, make reads—begin trying to discern what the oddsmakers are portraying with their number. And always in concert with the betting data. If you don't know the betting data, both micro and macro—then you're doing an entirely different thing (recreational betting). Work to identify the concepts and rationale that may help to explain why oddsmakers have set the matchup where they did. You should not make a wager until you’ve at least endeavored to understand all you can about a side’s number.

The independent handicap is the job. And that’s where you start, always. There is no context, or your context is all fucked up—unless you’re starting with the independent handicap. Do that, do the job—and now you have the proper context to work on a given day’s slate of betting opps. Congrats. Now it's talent + experience. Now you can look at the written information that has value and is insightful. Log & analyze the betting data. And if at the end of that, you still feel good about your number—then that’s a spot where you’ve identified RVAL. But every move we ultimately make is centered around the betting data and line movement—and where a side positions us within the market, where we’re at on the OPBC continuum and how it relates to our recent side selection and concepts. That is everything to us, per our style.

Straight Value (SVAL) is movement in relation to a side’s Opening Number. Usually SVAL occurs because the original number failed to produce something close enough to a 50/50 split amongst the betting public. The betting number for a game is often times way more a function of Public Perception than it is a product of Historical Performance Data (HPD). This fact runs contrary to the assumption that a vast majority of the General Public is operating under. The betting number is not a prediction of the eventual final score. It’s shocking how many people, even some within the industry—they don’t understand this fundamental concept.  

If the books open Oregon-13 and 9 of every 10 tickets sold are on Oregon ATS—that number is likely heading north because the books are sided. The number 1 job of the betting number is to achieve an equal side split—let the vig eat up the public’s money, over time. With that being said, the books installed Oregon initially as 13 point Favorites for good reasons (Damn Good Reasons, sometimes). And when that game closes at -14.5—that is more or less 1.5 points of Straight Value (SVAL) around a key number—for the bettor that’s grabbing Oregon State+14.5.


SVAL: Straight Value. Points or payout odds gained from movement as a result of betting trends, in relation to a given matchup’s Opening Number (ON).


RVAL: Relative Value, or “perceived value.” Value based on the difference between the Actual Number available for a matchup and where we had that same matchup handicapped ourselves. If we handicapped a game as Detroit-6.5 and the books have Detroit-9.5, if we feel great about our cap—we might let ‘er rip on the Dog +9.5. That’s 3 points of RVAL.


Biff We could take over at the Westgate as the A1A oddsmaker and the returns that they would see under Biff's direction would be identical or better than the returns they’re seeing now and historically. Anybody who doesn’t think they’d be up to that challenge shouldn’t be giving anybody a goddamn pick. TBG has 50+ years combined experience analyzing the number and the betting data. We would absolutely get the Westgate their 50/50 ATS splits.

CVC: ML & RL Correlation & Value Chart. A side’s ML number and RL number are married—but goddamn if they don’t run wild with some of them. You’ll see a “10/20 straddle” on up to a “10/40” or more and just about everything in between. You’ll have High End numbers, Low End numbers, Home Dogs matter, the Total number effects the split (games that are more likely to be low scoring are less likely to see a final margin greater than 1.5 runs either way). You need to have historical instances of Moneyline and Run-line correlations, charted. We’ve entered thousands of ML & RL correlations into our database so we know instantly what story the numbers are telling us and can spot what we call CVC Value. You need a ML & RL Correlation & Value Chart if you’re betting baseball. A Biff original and one of the many tools we’ve developed and have implemented for our summer MLB grinds.


For Biff's eBook The Elements of Style *FTCP, email to info@biffsalgorithm.com.