The Degenerates Thread

[Grit]

@Grit This is a good writeup:

https://t.co/tKaaFOl67f

He puts it at about +36% EV if you follow the strategy of road team underdogs with high totals and that aren’t way out of line with market price.

I also found this on CNO discord about the NHL variety: "yeah my guess is its going to be a dog. But could use an SGP that has race to 2 and moneylines, do the 4way to see the likelihood of a team going up 2 and still losing, use that liklihood, multiply by FBC, and thats your value for ;n=0.XXx"

Personally not bothering with that but figured I'd share if anyone else is interested.

Edit to add: that would arguably be an underestimate? not sure but too complicated for me, may as well just learn something valuable to society than spend time on this.

 

[Grit]

Most people should probably hedge these promos for guaranteed profit. It’s not the highest expected value approach, but taking a 100-1 longshot naked with an opening $3,000 risk-free bet (this is the highest EV approach) is not going to be acceptable to most people psychologically.

So realistically you’ll find a +350 longshot for your $3,000 risk-free first bet on FanDuel, for example, and match it with -400 odds on the other side on a book where you’ve already gotten the first bet promo out of the way or that doesn’t have a first bet promo. You could find something like +500 and -500 or even an arbitrage like +500 and -450, but that’s not common and will take more effort to find.

You’ll need to use some math, which isn’t going to be simple, to figure out what dollar amount to bet on the -400 side. Basically, you’re going to work this out so that you’re guaranteed to make roughly the same amount in profit regardless of which side of the bet wins on your initial risk-free bet and, if needed, the subsequent bet you make with the $3,000 free bet you get for losing the risk-free bet. It’s going to involve multiple steps in a spreadsheet, but this isn’t rocket science.

You should end up “converting” the $3,000 risk-free bet promo into around $1,800 guaranteed profit if you do a minimally decent job of this. Make sure your math is right, read some articles online about this, use an online calculation tool for this, etc. Of course, you could just bet it all on UNC to win the national title at +1500 and come out with $45,000 profit essentially guaranteed, since this is happening.

The other promos besides giant risk-free bets will be much simpler. I think FanDuel and DraftKings will offer a choice of something like taking $250 in free bets for doing nothing vs. the giant risk-free bet. Don’t take the smaller offer unless you don’t have the initial capital to pull off the hedging. It’s incredibly wasteful.

Other books might only offer the $100-250 in free bets. That’s fine, just take it. Then if you want to hedge those free bets, it’s similar math to what I wrote above, but much simpler. Risk-free promos and free bets should always be placed on longshots +300 or higher to maximize the conversion or naked EV. You can Google articles about why risk-free promos and free bets being used on favorites is mathematically unsound. For smaller amounts, I’d recommend just letting it ride unhedged.

BUMP.

Everyone in NC should really get on this. I had a reminder to Google the promos today before they all go live and holy shit, they really give out a lot of free money.

What have people found in the category of the big money risk-free bet options though? I’ve only found $1,000 each at Draftkings and Underdog Sports, and another $1,000 in $100 daily bets for the first ten days at Caesar’s.

I also think I may have fucked up the Draftkings option by signing up for their advertised promo of $300 in bonus bets before checking this thread, but I guess I'm only losing a couple hundred bucks if they won't adjust it.

Thanks to you and @SeanMayTriedToEatMe for pushing awareness of this. I think I've pretty much exhausted the best promos I'll get, and it's been fun taking thousands of dollars from companies that make their money bankrupting people.