2023/24 Week 6 Betting Report

Week six of the NHL season has been logged into the history books and it’s one that I’m going to remember for my disappointing results betting over/under. Normally I’m proficient at OU wagers this time of the season, but my primary algorithm (nicknamed OU Prime) started shooting blanks this week. It was so bad that it required an emergency profitability diagnostic on Saturday and Sunday. Usually when it has a bad week, it’s because either overs or unders exceed expectation, but this was an equal loss on both sides. Digging deeper into the numbers offered a revealing perspective.
 
Before we go any further, it’s time for my obligatory *DISCLAIMER* it needs be noted that I’m not betting with real money. These are all fictional wagers in a spreadsheet. My mission is to engage in a mass betting campaign, picking a winner of every single game, every over/under, because it provides a complete dataset for macroeconomic analysis, which can be shared with you, shedding light on what worked and what failed. I’m also tracking the results of betting every outcome, to help me (and you) uncover previously unknown or newly emerging profit vectors. What started as a thought experiment has evolved into much more.
 
If you’d like to read more about the first 3 years of this thought experiment, I wrote a 330-page book outlining the results from every angle. What worked, what failed. Lessons learned, market trends, team-by-team analysis. To read more, visit the Amazon store. My blog has been moved to Substack this season and I’ll be repeatedly encouraging everyone to sign-up for a free subscription to alleviate my dependence on Twitter for traffic. I’m concerned that Elon will follow through on his threat to charge everyone for Twitter and ostensibly destroy his own company. Subscribers receive an email notification each time a new post is published, and even if Twitter stays free, the algorithm likes to hide Tweets with links so you don’t leave.

 
I’m now working with a team of 4 different models and don’t have plans to build any new ones because my portfolio worksheet is getting crowded. Friday afternoon I sent a picks email to subscribers and mostly refrained from sharing over/under picks because of my aforementioned bad few days. OU Prime needed to be called before a tribunal to answer for this abomination. This isn’t just because of a few bad days. I’m running a large full season deficit on these picks, which never happened last year. I had a decent week picking winners, it was totals that threw the curveball.
 
Past posts and previews have referenced my advisory team of OU algorithms. Half take average goals per game, and half count how many went over or under the total and picks the winner. They look back either 5, 8, or 10 games. There is a full season set in my Game Summary worksheet but I haven’t been tracking those week-to-week. My Tailing History and Betting Venues models each record a pick and have seats on the OU Council. “Tails” is doing the best out of all of us full season but did a bad job this week. B.V had a good week but a bad season thus far.
 
Tails might be the best performing at OU, but it can’t take the mantle of Prime because it’s mostly just playing percentages and betting under 6.5 and over 6 in most cases. That’s not going to put me onto hot/cold teams and the margins are small. Instead of replacing my primary, I decided to add some new algorithms to the advisory team, then start tracking their weekly performance. Most of the previous advisors voted the same way too often, and diversity of opinion needed expanding. My previous primary (5-game average) is not generating better returns than Prime, but still has a valuable voice alerting to possible emerging trends. It’s the fastest to react, but also most likely to overreact.
 
The very first algorithm I ever conceived back in the day was based on line value. What’s the probability of going over or under, and what’s the line? That did have some initial success, but was eventually replaced by the 5-gamer which crushed the Omicron scoring boom (goalies in Covid protocol). Once that took off and sustained deep into the season, the line value-based model was abandoned. Well now it’s making a comeback, count the number of times these teams went over or under that total in the last 10 games, compare that to the line, and bet the value.
 
We’ll see if “the Fallen” gets revenge. It’s a pretty simple concept. For example: let’s say both teams are 5-5 over and under that total in the last 10 games, then the over and the under should both be +100 (if we lived in a world with non-profit sportsbooks). If the over is -120 but should be +100, bet the under. Another algorithm was added that uses the data that feeds OU Prime to estimate what the line should be, compares that to the actual line, then bets the value. That one has better results than Prime, but disproportionately picks unders, which might be because there tends to be more value on unders in general due to public preference towards overs.
 
The goal of all this is to get better accuracy on majority agreement, or at least be able to give better context when there is disagreement. By tracking the weekly results of all the different contributors, I’ll be able to see which combinations produce the best results when they are in agreement, and who should take the top job if Prime continues struggling. A closer investigation revealed that Prime’s biggest mistake this week was when it decided to bet double, where the modified average is greater than 0.75 or less than -0.75 goals. Those went 2-5 and resulted in more than a -$600 loss. In terms of just picking the right side, it wasn’t all that bad. I might be turning off the “bet double” feature in the near future.
 
 
My Team of the Week: Colorado Avalanche, +$849
 
The Colorado Avalanche have cost me a few large wagers this season, but getting back on the horse every time they buck me off has yielded some big wins. In 16 games this season, my money has been on Colorado 13 times. They went 3-0 this week and coincidently I went 3-0 on my Avs picks, and even made a nice little profit on their over/under (which was free-falling elsewhere). That doesn’t necessarily mean that my confidence has been restored to 100%, as Alexandar Georgiev will need to find his groove before that happens.
 
I’m excited to announce that my second-best team of the week was the Buffalo Sabres, a team that languished in the basement of my profitability rankings for a fair chunk of the last 5 weeks. This brought me great sorrow because Buffalo was among my best teams last season. I had them figured out, then suddenly my magic touch turned to shit. It was demoralizing, so hopefully that curse has busted. I bet the correct outcomes of all 3 games, 2 of which were on Buffalo opponents to win. So, this turnaround isn’t because they turned around, but rather my acceptance in their diminished quality (mostly because Tage Thompson is out).
 
 
My Worst Team of the Week: Vegas Golden Knights, -$796
 
The Vegas Golden Knights were no lower than 4th in my profitability rankings for the first 5 weeks, but they have dropped to #9 in the last 7 days. They played 4 games and I bet them to win all 4 moneyline (avoiding pucklines entirely), but they only managed a single victory against Montreal (barely), losing to Philly, Pittsburgh, and Washington. This has been a disastrous east coast road trip, at least from my perspective (going 1-3 on their over/unders didn’t help). Now it’s time for some soul searching whether it’s time to downgrade my opinion of this team, or if it’s just random noise.
 
My second worst team of the week was the St. Louis Blues, with a majority of the damage inflicted in their loss to San Jose (5-1 no less). Anyone who bet Sharks -3.5 goals at +50000 surely had an amazing night, but not me. This is a team that recently outscored 2 of the last 3 Stanley Cup champs 13-2, then lays a giant turd against the league’s worst team, losing to one of the best teams 2 nights later by the same score. Then they beat Anaheim, and if you read these reports every week, you know that’s my team (though my Duck confidence is starting to waver).
 
 

My Week 6 Results

*Note* “Overall Market Bets” based on betting exactly $100 on every outcome.
 

 
My strategy for the week was mostly small wagers looking for value on underdogs, after getting stung by some stunning favorite upsets lately. Yet as it turned out, this was not a good week to shun favorites and start sniffing dogs. Dogs ML was my worst category, but for the upcoming week I’m going to lean on road teams because that has worked out well in previous week sevens, and investigating the upcoming schedule revealed that teams on the road this week have done well as visitors in the current schedule. One area of success for me was favorites -1.5 goals, which was a bad category overall. Most of the credit for my gains goes to Boston and Colorado, where I was mostly tailing models.
 

As you can see, my best two teams to bet were Boston and Colorado, a fair chunk of that coming -1.5 goals. I’m not really venturing over into pucklines unless multiple models agree with the decision. Riding solo on those pucklines does not interest me, if anything I need to follow the models in that direction more often. Almost all of Betting Venues profits are coming from pucklines, whether that’s sustainable remains to be seen. One favorite that burned me was Vegas, who was actually the best team to bet against. I’m hoping that’s just a blip in the radar because they had been among my safe havens.
 
The over/under chart for the week is directly below, and it shows all my difficulty was picking over or under 6.5 goals. 67% of all the opening totals on Draft Kings were 6.5. Overs went 24-20-1, producing $186 profit if you bet them all. New Jersey was the leader, with their overs going 3-0. My worst team was Columbus, losing -$600. They played some low scoring teams that convinced Prime to bet the under, and they went over. Then when they did play another high scoring team and Prime bet double on the over, that was their one under.

 

Me vs Myself

 
The “Me vs Myself” section is where my performance is compared to my models and once again Betting Venues soundly defeated me. You may be wondering, if I know all the model picks before logging my own pick, how is it they are beating me? That’s a great question. The biggest reason is that it fearlessly lays large wagers on pucklines -1.5 goals, cleaning up on both favorites and dogs, accounting for a large majority of the profit. My level of risk aversion generally excludes me from that type of strategy. It’s amusing that I have any risk aversion playing with pretend money, but also illuminates why I’d be worse playing with real money. Everyone’s weekly results can be seen below.
 

What’s amazing about the Betting Venues results was nearly $4,000 profit on dogs and favorites -1.5 goals. But if you bet $100 on every dog and fave -1.5 goals, you would have lost -$1,500. It didn’t simply take advantage of a booming category, it knew exactly the right ones to target, and pulled a huge return from two of the worst performing cats. The reason my best category was favorites -1.5 when those had a bad week is from tailing BEV. It might be time for me to start getting more adventurous with pucklines, at least until these model picks stop cashing.
 
The Game Sum model is only 2 weeks old and had another bad performance (it was up over $3,000 mid-week then nosedived the back half). I may tweak the decision matrix but I’m going to let the sample size build up first to see where it most deficient and adjust for specific weaknesses. I’m still interested in the advice it’s offering because when it says home -1.5 goals, it means that’s been a profitable category in games involving one of these two teams. It lost nearly -$2,000 just betting Islander games, then suffered another setback with Vancouver and Anaheim regressing. Shorting Travel had a bad week, but it’s a small sample so I’m not raising any alarms quite yet.
 
This section usually features all my picks for Tuesday, including my model picks, but sadly there are no games scheduled tomorrow. The lines are up for Wednesday and it’s going to be a busy slate. Instead of rushing to cram them all into my report making this exceedingly long, I’ll work on my picks tonight and send a subscriber picks email Tuesday morning (pacific time). I’d like to start providing more over/under information now that I’ve expanded my algorithms and tracking, but that was just finished today and may not be ready tomorrow. It will be coming soon. If you don’t subscribe and want the picks, it’s free to join.
 

Team By Team Profitability Rankings

These profitability rankings are based on the sum of all my bets per team, including where the money was won or lost. Each week my new Profitability Rankings will be based on all the games in the season, not just what happened this week.