Reflections on SGPs & 50K Cash
WHAT A WILDCARD WEEKEND.
Not only because of the exciting intra-game volatility, historic comebacks, and all-around competitive play, but because I had the good fortune of cashing a season-defining moonshot SGP for over $50,000 (coincidently less than 24 hours after missing a $30,000 cash in heartbreaking fashion; more on that below). After giving it all a few days to settle in, I feel it is in the spirit of Throwthedamball to reflect and offer some brief insights into my SGP construction process. (For those new, I started Throwthedamball to offer weekly reflections on what I call my football profit process which is just essentially my (s)portfolio of bets, props, DFS etc.)
A brief catchup:
On Sunday, I was on the verge of a $30,000 SGP winner in the Giants/Vikings game. For a time, I had already successfully eclipsed the necessary thresholds to cover all four legs of the bet. Daniel Jones had 81 yards rushing, and I only needed 80. “END THE GAME!” Alas, the curse of the victory formation. Three consecutive Daniel Jones kneel downs and POOF. The biggest win of my life devolved into just another run-of-the-mill ‘near-miss’ sob story all of us sports bettors have accumulated over the years. I was understandably on tilt, but most importantly, not deterred. (The psychology of “losing”: this is fascinating and maybe I’ll write something separate soon on that).
But as if it were a Shakespearean drama, the next night (!!) I I cashed an even bigger parlay in the Bucs/Cowboys MNF showdown for a cool $50,000. That in the spur of the moment as I watched Dak take his kneels to end the game, I just yelled a (nonsensical): “there is justice, there is poetry” is all one needs to know about how I felt in the moment.
Now let’s get to the fun part: the process.
Process:
When I’m right, I want to be really, really right - and if I’m wrong, so be it. This is something I’ve talked about many times in the past and is my #1 betting principle: capitalizing on the beauty of asymmetric risk and return. If I can really hone in on one particular game script (of which I have high-conviction and, hopefully, compelling evidence to support), then I build out that story across a bundle of props - putting myself in a position to get paid handsomely if my core views materialize. If the hypothesis doesn’t play out, I’ll lose the bet, take the small ding to my bankroll and be no worse off as if I expressed the same conviction in a more conservative, traditional way through spreads, totals, or single one-off props.
Before this weekend, I had never placed an SGP with more than 100:1 odds. I do try to keep my SGP’s tightly constructed where only a few outcomes need to go right for a decent cash, but I think it was a lack of creativity in building out more expansive stories that I didn’t previously cross the 100:1 mark. It also felt like a barrier that was too far out of reach: “oh, you can’t realistically expect to hit a 100-1 bet”. But I think that’s the critical point. The limit was psychological, rather than rooted in math. If you have an off market view, why shouldn’t you try to scale that view and maximize upside? That’s how you really generate tails returns, which is afterall my stated core objective in sports betting. Once I realized it was psychological (literally came to this realization Sunday morning), I started building out some expansive 100:1 and beyond SGPs. Let’s go through the process for the two SGPs discussed from this weekend specifically, which will offer a good window into my process for building SGPs generally.
First off, it's important to understand the place of the SGP in the broader (s)portfolio. Most of my exposure for this game, as I wrote about earlier, was on Dak 250 Yards Passing & DAL-5.5 +400. This was a high conviction view and the construction of this two-pronged bet encompassed many different game angles, which is why it served as the core holding in my betting portfolio for the game. But I also wanted to layer in more granular views to really key in on this projected game story and put myself in position to capitalize on the thesis to its fullest extent.
As always, I start with a central thesis (or two) and then ask: if that thesis plays out, what will be the second order effects—how will the game play out if the thesis comes to fruition? Or put differently, what is the game script or game environment necessary for the thesis to occur?
In the DAL parlay, I started from my central thesis above. For further clarity, here is what I wrote for PFF about the game: “Over the second half of the season, Tampa Bay was among the biggest pass funnels on defense, meaning that they are far better at defending the run than they are the pass. The Buccaneers' defense has the seventh-worst EPA per dropback (0.066), and the eighth-best rush EPA (-0.158). This is likely why teams pass over expected against Tampa Bay at the eighth-highest rate in the NFL, and Prescott and the Cowboys will likely be no exception. And against a poor pass defense, they should have no trouble moving the ball through the air.” Further, while the efficacy and firepower of DAL’s offense was met with increasing skepticism from betting markets after a woeful performance in the finale vs. WAS, our Drive Quality metric (more coming on this soon with SportfolioKings) had ranked DAL sneakily as the #1 offense since Week 7 (aka when Dak returned from injury). I was buying the long term thesis over the short term results.
But how did I translate this into the SGP you see?
If DAL is going to run less than usual and have success passing, then there is value on Dak passing for 300 yards. Now we can start to fill in the rest:
If Dak is going to throw for 300 yards, who will he throw to? Do we have confidence in one pass-catcher over another?
A1: TB plays zone 80% of the time, Dalton Schultz leads DAL in target share against zone.
A2: Looking at my and PFF’s coverage metrics, TB is weakest in coverage over the middle of the field—props to Schultz again who should have volume (A1) and efficiency (A2) on his side. He was my biggest alt leg at +800, but it was also the area I saw the most value.
A3: 300 yards is likely going to require a deep ball or two and TY Hilton has occupied that role since joining the offense. And if not a deep ball, with the defense keying in on Ceedee Lamb, DAL would likely need ancillary WR’s in addition to Schultz playing above expectation.
If DAL is going to run a bunch of pass plays, and do so more than usual/expected, that means more dropbacks and more opportunities for Dak scrambles. Over Dak rushing yards is a decent leg to add.
If DAL is going to be facing a good run defense that tilts them to the pass, then I want to fade Zeke. Whereas Pollard is explosive enough to cover his over on only a few runs, Zeke at this stage needs volume and I didn’t think he’d get volume nor would he have the efficiency to exceed expectations.
Now was all of this likely to happen? I’m under no winner’s illusion. Of course not. But was there a better chance of it happening than I projected the market was giving credit for? Absolutely. And do I want to take these shots where I see value, even if priced at 100:1 or more odds? All the more so!
The Giants SGP was far less complex. The thesis, as I wrote about, was that the Giants would rely on Jones’s legs and run a bunch of plays (with success) against a MIN team allowing the most plays per game. I didn’t know who Jones would throw to, so I didn’t want to guess and include any WRs (PS: this temptation to layer on without proper justification is where many SGP bettors go bust), and if Jones was going to accumulate both rushing & passing volume then it would likely come at the cost of Barkley yards—there is only so much play volume to go around. I didn’t think that anyone on the Vikings would need to play so far above or below expectations that would tilt the Giants to this gameplan, so I left those out.
To summarize with a few high level reflections:
Asymmetric returns are king: swallow small losses to bathe in the glory of exponentially greater victories.
Risk: As I see it, value is value and even if, especially if (math article for another time), the odds are 100-1 or 300-1 or 75-1, it’s worth taking advantage. Especially as we get deeper into odds and we’re placing bets that aren’t explicitly correlated, I don’t think markets have a great way to quantify extreme tails distributions. So long as you have liquidity and a long term mindset (i.e., are financially and psychologically prepared to absorb small but frequent losses), I don’t think it is at all risky to allocate a certain subset of your bankroll to SGPs just because the odds are super long. Value is value.
Betting is both a way to make money and a way to have some fun! I think we can’t lose sight of the fact that betting on the game of football is, and is supposed to be, fun. That I can turn $150 into $50K on an idea about how a football game will play out is just bonkers. We are truly blessed to be able to bet on football.
Onto the Divisional round! I’ll be back in the inbox tomorrow with the usual gameplan for attacking the slate. Let’s get it!