Why are people so against buying points

@PepeFrog

Yes, the one exception in my mind.  

Another perspective if I may.  These lines are sharp and IT IS OK TO LOSE, in fact learn to embrace it.

No greater pleasure than losing more than half my bets but still pulling money out.  

Draw a line in the sand with your price and accept that you likely might lose.  But don't settle to feed your ego.

Buying points is not worth it like a lot of others already said, and if books were losing money by letting people buy points they would'nt let you buy them sometimes they don't.

This is a great post.

People forget there is a PRICE with every line.  Typically, they only look at line and forget the price.  Big mistake.

What unpluckedgem is saying here is.....  If you go 40% and make money, that is way better than going 60% an losing money.  It is all about the profit.  It is NOT all about winning TODAYS wager.

Think about your next 1000 wagers, not your next 1 wager.

Great effort gentlemen....definitely making me rethink some betting strategies....thanks for all of the great contributions in this thread.~!

@unplucked_gem

 Terrific post....eyeopening in fact.

@njsupreme1

@vanzack

@ThirdEye4747

 Yo num nuts if you do it 10 times and win 8 what you call that another loser chiming in that don't know how to bet

Buying points is another betting tool you have to use it wisely. Most people don't know how to use it...or when 

OK, so tell us when to use it and when.

There are really good reasons mentioned in this thread as to why not to buy points. I agree with them all. But imo, the #1 reason why you don’t buy them is because you don’t need to. 

Does anybody know how many times the spread has come into play this season? I’m not telling you but I will tell, it’s not a significant number.  It’s DEFINITELY not enough to warrant buying points. The math says you should be selling points. And math always wins.  

like the above poster mentioned, it’s a pretty great feeling losing 60 percent of your bets yet making a profit. 

Gambling changes, like everything does. Most gamblers don’t take the time to break down how, why or even when those changes are happening. And if the game changes and you don’t know it, how do you expect to win? 

just my .02 tho 

@vanzack

 As long as you been betting and you don't know when sorry I can't help you 

Translation:

I have no idea what I am talking about and no idea when to buy points or not so I am not going to try and explain as I will embarrass myself.

I get it.  Keep at it champ.

Key numbers ARE CHANGING.  2 and 6 are very key numbers now.  3 and 7 less important than before.

I don’t have this updated after last year.

But from 2015-2020 the key numbers are 3 (15%), 7 (10%), 6 (7%), 14 (6%), and 10 (5%). 

So, obviously 3 and 7 are the numbers that should be considered the most.

For example:

“This matters when considering point spread wagers. When looking at weekly betting lines, dial in on point spreads of minus-2.5, knowing that a three-point differential will get you the win if you bet on a victorious favorite. Conversely, an underdog with a plus 7½ point spread is more desirable than one getting 6½ points.”

This is true.  However, the guy is NOT advocating buying points.  He is simply pointing out the key numbers.   The cost would be too expensive, to me, to buy 1/2 off 7 or 1 off 7.5.  The numbers 7 and 6 combined are going to land around 17% of the time.  So, a game that is set at 7.5 or 7 could very likely land on 6.  So, in the long run it could be very expensive to buy 1/2 point off 7 to 6.5 when the game landing on 6 would still beat you.  Etc.

All of that being said, I could see 3 being different for a very, very few teams, in very few situations.  Because 3 hits at such a large percentage of the time.

If you were to couple that with the advent of the 2 point conversion and the onslaught of analytics in the last few seasons — you MIGHT be able to find some select situations to buy off of 3.

For example, I wrote about this somewhere else.   Some teams should be going for 2 more often that they are.  It would be positive EV for them longterm.  However, there are a few teams that should be almost always kicking the PAT because it would be positive EV for them longterm.

The most obvious example of this would be Baltimore.  They should nearly always be kicking the PAT and almost never going for 2.  This is because they have the best kicker in the league.   But if BOTH teams were to be playing with perfect analytics in mind — which they do not — then a case could be made for buying off the 3 in Baltimore’s favor IF they were matched up with a team that would have the most negative EV by kicking the PAT and rarely go for 2 when they should be going for 2.  Etc.

I have not really looked into finding situations like these.

I NEVER buy points because of all the reasons that have been mentioned above.

But I would be INTERESTED if there were an analysis done on situations like this to see if there is any edge at all.

I will add to this by saying that the analytics in NFL is having a much harder time catching on because of the limited amount of games and situations to apply them.  The risk/reward for coaches and their job security is not good enough.

For example, in MLB there are 10x as many games and a lot more situations to apply analytics to get the longterm EV to work out for you.

In the MLB if the analytic decisions do not work out the first 2 or 3 times and you lose the games it is not as big of a problem.  Because you have many more games for it to work out in your favor.

In the NFL, if you make these decisions and they go wrong 2 or 3 times you could be fired.  Coaches know this.

They are not dumb guys.  They know the math and know they should be going for 2 more often or going for it more on 4th and 3, etc.  But it is too risky for their jobs.  It might even out over a career — but will it over a short season where ONE game is crucial to making the playoffs and/or getting you fired?  So, they more often make the old-school decisions.

With that being said, I am still very unsure that using analytics as a way of finding situations to buy points would present positive EV.

But I am always interested in more studies or praxis of this.

Margin of victory, Times it happened in that season, percentage of that margin vs all games played that season

               2010                                                                   2021
1.           3, 47, 16.5%                                             3, 43, 15.1%
2.           7, 18, 6.3%                                               6, 20, 7.0%
3.           4, 16, 5.6%                                               7, 19, 6.7%
4.           10, 15, 5.3%                                             2, 16, 5.6%
5.           14, 13, 4.6%                                             10, 16, 5.6%
6.           6, 12, 4.2%                                               4, 11, 3.9%
7.           8, 10, 3.5%                                               8, 11, 3.9%
8.           18, 10, 3.5%                                             15, 10, 3.5%
9.           5, 10, 3.5%                                               12, 9, 3.2%
10.         2, 9, 3.2%                                                 14, 9, 3.2%

THREAD ON KEY NUMBERS IN NFL AND HOW THEY ARE CHANGING

@vanzack

 Thanks for the table. So you could derive that buying the "2" could be a profitable exception of when to buy points as the betting markets do not seem to have caught up on it- as far as I can remember, Pinnacle did always price the 2 at about 4-5 tics ( near evens) from 1.5 or 2.5 and they still do.

The growing influence of analytics in the sport should benefit those numbers in theory ( not only evidently)- I am a bit surprised that 5 is not on the rise consequently, and 8 just slightly.

So: wrong pricing should make buying/selling points profitable. Before seeing that table I was just under the assumption that if one alternative line is priced wrong, then all other lines are accordingly and you should always take the main line ( less juice).

These address some of those rule changes and the moved PAT, 2-pt conversion, and analytics and how they affect numbers like 4,5, and 10.  

Not sure how updated everything is.  But maybe you can find something useful in there or it will lead you somewhere else that will:

https://www.boydsbets.com/nfl-key-numbers/

Addresses buying points profitability

https://www.actionnetwork.com/how-to-bet-on-sports/nfl/nfl-betting-tips-odds-rule-changes-margin-victory-spread

Shows how it affected the numbers 4 and 10

https://www.covers.com/nfl/key-numbers

Addresses the number 5

As for this year..

7   7 times

6   3 times

4   9 times

3   16   times

2   6   times

1   7   times

Even if you flat bet, buying points will suck away your profit over time. Why do you think books allow it? To help out the bettors? Yeah, right.

Yes.  I think buying -3.5 to -3 was the only profitable one all the way through the 25 cents line.  At least out of the common key numbers that have a large amount of games to choose from.  That was from 1989-2015.  But I am sure it is still the only outright profitable one that you could blindly bet.  

 Agreed 100% and for some reason my Local hasnt caught up.  +2/-1.5 are shrewd plays to buy around imo.