Style

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

The Biff Group's #sportsbetting style, explained.

What’s the  point Biff in betting strictly on value if it’s ultimately not the right side? If you’ve got a shotgun 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. But 365, across 7 sections both pro & college, 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 and real. We refer to perceived value as “Relative Value.” Relative Value (RVAL) is when our handicap produces a number that is different than the actual betting number or number consensus, for a given matchup. There is nothing more important than the Actual Number, obviously. But we trust our own numbers, absolutely, every bit as much as we do the number that Vegas pumps out. But that’s not to say that we’re looking to get into a handicapping competition every day of the year with LVSC. Straight RVAL betting is not the reason why our good, independent handicap is important. 

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 (LTKFC).  

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 we get for a matchup and where we had that same matchup capped ourselves. If we capped a game 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.


The independent handicap gives every matchup its proper context. When there’s a gap between our number and the Actual Number—that’s the appropriate starting point to dig in. Now we have the working context and we can analyze the subjective and the HPD, make reads, begin trying to discern what the oddsmakers are telling us with their number. Identify the concepts and rationale that explain why the 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 also 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, 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 recent side selection and concepts. That is everything to us, per our style.

We could take over at the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook as the A1A oddsmakers and the returns that they would see under our direction would be identical or better than the returns they’re seeing now and historically. I say that at the risk of sounding like a douche—but anybody who doesn’t think they’d be up to that challenge shouldn’t be giving anybody a goddamn pick. We have 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.