Are we ever going to see reasonably intelligent coverage of sports betting in the media?  When a smart guy like the National Football Post’s Michael Lombardi tosses out something this flawed, I begin to give up hope.

Lombardi analyzes the direction of the NFL Super Bowl futures market by comparing early odds to more recent odds, but he keeps on referring to “odds” without answering the question “odds on what?”.  Apparently, he is talking about odds against winning the Super Bowl.   But it never actually says that, which could confuse a lot of readers.

Lombardi also doesn’t specify what his source is for the data.    I assume it’s Las Vegas Sports Consultants, but a better way to do this would have been to survey five different major books in Vegas and get an average of their odds, or maybe list the best available price.  After all, you can’t actually make a bet through LVSC, and you won’t find any odds board completely mimicking their prices.  The sports book directors have to take a 20-1 shot and make it 18-1 to make themselves appear necessary.

But the most obvious flaw, as pointed out by readers commenting on the article, is to judge the marketplace on “points” of his own creation.  Incredibly, New England’s being bet down from 6-1 to 4-1 is “2 points” while Seattle being bet down from 60-1 to 40-1 is “20 points”.    The decrease in return on risk is obviously identical , with early bettors enjoy a 50% higher return than current bettors in both instances.   But because Seattle is more of a longshot they get the “20 points” in moving from 60-1 to 40-1 while the Patriots get only “2 points” for being bet down from 6-1 to 4-1.

In fact, the Patriots move is significantly more substantial from the perspective of money wagered.  It doesn’t take a ton of cash to make a skittish sports book drop a 60-1 shot down to 40-1 but there’s clearly stacks of greenbacks backing the Pats at 6-1, 5-1, and 9-2 to get them down to 4-1.

A better way to do this would have been to analyze the season wins over/under market, as there is a lot less bookmaker profit built into those (any futures board with the Chiefs 40-1 to win the Super Bowl and the Browns 50-1 has a hell of a lot of juice built into it).  Season wins bettors have the opportunity to bet “yes, I like this team” or “no, they’re going to disappoint”, which means that the moves up and down are meaningful.   In a futures market sometimes the oddsmaker will move someone lower and then balance it off by moving someone higher on little more than a whim.   For instance, one of the more confident moves in the season win totals market is the suggestion that the Bengals are going to have a big year.  Yet in this survey Cincy is 75-1 early and 75-1 late. 

The ordinarily savvy Lombardi’s piece on the way the money is flowing in the NFL futures market is a good concept, but is poorly implemented.  As Lombardi admits, he has little gambling knowledge, and clearly (like most folks) he is mathematically challenged as well.  Lombardi is well worth checking out on non-betting issues, like his Sunday notes columns, but he needs to put a little more effort into any future wagering related columns.