VegasWiseguyPlays.com was born on January 29th, 2010. Hello everyone, my name is Bob Francis and I am the Founder & Lead Professional Handicapper here at VegasWiseguyPlays and it is my pleasure to welcome you to my website. In this section, I not only want to introduce you to myself, but also want to introduce you to some of my handicapping models.
My passion for sports is very deep and even deeper for the sports handicapping industry as a whole. I have spent years gathering data, stats...you name it...I have it. One of the very first things I did was learn Microsoft Excel. Luckily, for me, I picked it up very fast. Here I was with all this data and all these statistics, but I didn’t know what to do with them. Once I got comfortable with Excel, I began organizing all these statistics. I first started with the NBA, since this was where the syndicates made all their money. Their second best sport was Major League Baseball. But I wanted to take baby steps and do one sport at a time.
As time went on, I started testing and backtesting all the NBA data I had against the opening and closing lines that were sent out by the sportsbooks. I started to find models that I believed would give me an advantage. As far as the stats I had? You name it, I had them. I had play by play data from every single NBA game that was played as far back as 1990. The problem with Excel, as powerful as it is, it lacked the ability to forecast or recommend probabability scenarios. It was now September of 2005 and I was at the Las Vegas Hilton sportsbook. I then met the one single person who is probably responsible for the success I have had. We began talking about probability and statistics…as a matter of fact, I think we talked for almost 5 hours. He invited me to his home the next day to show me his statistical database. It was amazing! However, he didn’t have all the stats I had. It wasn’t even close. The software he had was called Stata. I was so amazed by this software, I went out and immediately purchased it.
It was very difficult learning how to use Stata, but like Excel and Access, I started to pick things up pretty quickly. I had already developed formulas for my statistics in Excel, but now I had to find out ways to incorporate Stata to give me probability outcomes. After about 3 months of trials and tribulations, I was about to put all my effort to work. It was right around the 2006 NBA All Star break and my database identified 3 selections. I bet a whopping 10 bucks on each selection and 2 of those ended up being winners. I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to download the stats and play by play data from each of those games and get ready for the next day of action. By the end of the NBA season, my record was 91-57. Each and every year, I always add little things to make all my data better.
Here are screenshots of what I call the “Game Gospel”. It is simply one worksheet in excel whereby I enter the date and home/away teams and it provides me all relevant stats from each team. It shows me “Efficiency Power Ratings” for each team based at various parts of the NBA season. I can type in an injured player and it will instantly show me how many points that player is worth to the line. And most importantly, it establishes a REAL line and total on the game. When the books make their lines on the games, they are taking into consideration what the public perception will be. I could care less about that. I want to know who the better team is and by how much and also how many points will each team score.
Game Gospel Screenshot #1
Game Gospel Screenshot #2
As you can see, I am presented with very detailed information on this worksheet. The Line Value of an injured player is critical because the sports books tend to over value players who are out especially the star players. In the screenshot above, you will notice that Dwyane Wade is worth 7 points to Miami. This number is added to the line and to the total.
The statistics of each team, both Overall and H/A, are extremely inportant. By viewing them side by side, you may be able to spot key areas of stats where one team is much superior to the other. In the lower left part of the worksheet, you will see ATS data. While I dont really base most of my selections on this data, it is fun to look at. The data itself means nothing to this particular game but is useful if you are leaning on a selection and looking for the final star to align itself.
The most important part if this worksheet without question is the Overall and H/A Power Ratings. These ratings are developed by a multitude of data and probability scenarios from the Stata program. Each team is rated accordingly by virtually every statistical category and result in the numbers you see above in the lower right hand portion of the screenshot. I break the NBA season down into 2 week periods. This helps me identify teams that may be in good or poor form.
Everything from these screenshots and statistics from as far back as 1990....every piece of data I have from a Microsoft Access program, Microsoft Excel and Probability scenarios from my Stata program are all incorporated thus giving me my final line and total on this particular game. Quite often, my lines will be the exact same as what the sports books send out. But there are others, where I believe they put too much emphasis on different factors like public perception or a player injury etc etc. This leads us to our selections.
In a perfect world, every time we disagree with the sportsbook, it would yield us winning ticket after winning ticket. However, there is one thing that noone in this world can handicap and that is the human element. Teams still have to play the games and every single game is different. You can have every stat in the world today but you have to weigh in what I call subjective factors. Factors like rest, injuries,recent form etc etc....You can try your best to assign numbers for what they mean to that particular game but it is never exact.
Then there is the Referee Factor. The NBA is unlike other sports because of their referees. The refs in the NBA are widely recognized by the fans and everyone associated with the NBA. A great percentage of these referees hold grudges or have biases for or against particular teams, organizations,and above all the players. I will NOT make an NBA selection until I know who the officials will be for that particular game. They mean way too much and not one of them calls a game based on the rules of basketball that were set years ago when the sport was discovered. They all call games totally different. To top that off, they have pregame meetings with league reps, telling them what to call or not to call. Now, to me, every NBA game is just as physical as the other. You can call a foul on every single possession in some way or another. Unfortunately this never happens. The refs are only going to blow the whistle whenever they want to.
A big part of my handicapping the NBA is trying to gauge how many fouls are going to be called in a particular game. To be honest, that is very sad to say. However, I now have data from every referee that I incorporate into my stata program. Since I have the ability to tape every NBA game, I am able to tell what referee is blowing the whistle on every call. We then enter that data into our program. But again, it is all subjective and it is extremely hard to assign numbers to this data. You just try the best you can and for the most part I believe we are fantastic in this area.
In summation, the NBA is easily the best sport we excel at and we will continue to excel at. I know this league up and down and if you join me you can turn a few dollars into alot of dollars.
Another profitable sport is without a doubt Major League Baseball. I use a series of systems that have been proven over the years to spot potential plays. Once a potential play is recognized, you basically use common sense and look for subjective factors that supports the play. A starting pitcher's NPERA(found in the Sagarin Ratings in USA Today) is extremely important and is usually the starting point when handicapping any baseball game. Also, recent performance by not only starting pitchers, but a team's bullpen and offensive production are also factors. Generally, we will not suggest any game where the money line is greater than minus 160 when picking a favorite or plus 160 when selecting an underdog. However, there are situations where we will lay down more chalk if we have to if all the stars are aligned. There are alot of sports services out there who recommend selections all the time on favorites of more than 160 but I assure you that 90% of the time, they are not making that bet themself. Practically all of the syndicates and wiseguys make 160 there minimum/maximum number. Anything more than that, they usually lay off in most situations.
The beauty of baseball is you only have to pick a winner. There is no spread involved. However, I have a money line evaluation model that I use which shows a REAL money line on a game. I then compare this line to the line sent out by the books and look for overlay value. Basically thruout the history of baseball, dogs have won 44% of the time. Yes, thats correct! Underdogs will win 4.4 games out of every ten played. The reason baseball comes easy is because there are certain elements you can look for which will eliminate bad underdog plays.
Baseball is very situational. In Baseball, you also have teams that streak. Therefore, we have a streak system model which identifies plays. There are "bet on" teams and "bet against" teams. When incorporating this system with the underdog system, you will have plenty of investment opportunities on a daily basis.
We also have a Totals system we use to spot UNDER plays. 95% of the totals we make will be UNDER plays.
All in all, baseball is a lot of common sense. I assure you that noone works harder on baseball than myself. We have made a profit every single year and we will continue to prosper. Bank on that!
