My Season Profit: $16,365
The performance of my over/under algorithm was terrible in week 14, but I continued using it for week 15 and it did recover into positive territory. It has been in use for 252 games and produced a profit of $126 on $31,300 in wagers. The rate of return is roughly half a penny per $1 wagered. That’s certainly nothing to brag about. All-Star weekend will free up some time for me to test some new models. The biggest flaw in my current algorithm (aside from half a penny per dollar in profitability) is that it produced a strong negative return on the games it liked the most (where I wager $200 instead of $100).
The algorithm is a simple computation of how many times two teams went over or under that total in their last 10 games. So when it fails, it’s attributable to a shift in a team’s scoring (for or against). Last week, Colorado and Florida overs were my biggest losers. Those were teams that had been going over quite a lot. Overs have been trending lately, but it was unders that offered the most value this past week. Goals per game dropped from 6.4 to 6.0, which is right on the border of profitability. Less than 6 tends to produce positive values on unders, and more than 6 yields positive returns for overs (generally speaking).
My week 15 started off smashingly. I was up more than $2,000 after Wednesday, but that dropped to $691 by Saturday morning. The biggest loser being the Penguins loss on home ice to the Seattle Kraken, which should have been a slam dunk. Saturday was revenue neutral (losing more than $1,000 when Winnipeg beat St. Louis and Philly beat LA). We had a decent slate of Sunday games with me laying some large wagers. It started off poorly with another Penguins home loss to a beatable team, but Carolina, Colorado, Columbus, and the Rangers all delivered, helping me post strong earnings for the week.
My Week 15 Results
*Note* “Market Return” is based on betting exactly
$100 on every outcome.
If you bet $100 on every NHL moneyline favorite this season you are up nearly $6,000. That's substantially higher than either of the 2 previous seasons, both of which sloped negatively from this point onward. We're going to find out whether or not this is sustainable. #NHLBetting pic.twitter.com/Ouurmuyyi6
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) January 30, 2022
The worst category you could have bet this week was underdog moneyline. I’ve been really pounding favorites lately, and they continued carrying me. After some bad luck with pucklines -1.5 goals, I’ve been shifting more of my bets to favorite moneyline. I don’t take weekly looks at empty net goal rates, but either there has been a decrease in empty net goals, or more games are going to overtime. We don’t see coaches pulling goalies nearly as early or often in the playoffs. During the 2021 playoffs, I was crushing underdogs +1.5 goals.
One big shift in the market this week was a boom for
road teams, who won 55%. It has been a home-dominant season to date, but not
week 15. If you bet $100 on every home moneyline this week, you lost -$1,534. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a
permanent upward trend in road teams, but more so that we happened to have a
high proportion of good teams playing road games. Sometimes the stars align
that way. The Ducks, Stars, and Oilers each picked up a pair of road wins, so
it wasn’t entirely caused by the best teams in the league converging. We'll have to see if this is the beginning of a new trend of increasing visitor effectiveness.
My Team of the Week: Colorado Avalanche, +$1,274
I have been betting heavy on the Avalanche for most of the season, but they whiffed on a few big bets that dropped them down my power rankings. Lately it was two $1,000 bets on the puckline -1.5 goals against Arizona and Montreal that did heavy damage. At this point everyone knows the Avs are among the league’s best teams, so it can be really tough to get a good price on their lines. This week, they won all 4 games and covered the puckline 3 times. Nathan MacKinnon was lost to a broken nose, but they won their next 2 games without him. So far so good, but I’m still a little nervous until MacK is back.
Heading into the weekend, it was a tight race between Colorado and Montreal to be my team of the week. Montreal was my worst team to bet in week 14 (where I was entirely betting against them), but that didn’t convince me to stop betting them to lose. I kept my foot on gas pedal and reaped the rewards, winning $1,153 betting on Habs games, including $265 profit betting overs.
Fun Fact: The amount of money that I won on Colorado
is exactly the same as the amount of money I lost on the Penguins. I had to
double check to make sure it wasn’t a typo. No, that really happened.
My Worst Team of the Week: Pittsburgh Penguins, -$1,274
The Pittsburgh Penguins had been among the hottest teams in the NHL dating back to December. Well, they kicked off week 15 by losing back-to-back games at home to non-playoff teams (Seattle and Detroit). Needless to say, that slippage cost me a pair of large bets. So, what was my response when they played another home game against LA on Sunday? Yes, I laid another $500 on Pittsburgh to win. I have a comment column in my spreadsheet and write a note about every bet; for Kings vs Pens I wrote “these are the games where LA kills me”. I tried to warn myself but refused to listen. At one point recently, the Ottawa Senators had taken sole possession of dead last in my power rankings, but LA's loss to Philly and win vs Pittsburgh sunk them back to the bottom.
The Washington Capitals continue to give me problems. They were among my 3 most reliable teams in the previous 2 seasons, but their dominance has been diminishing. They were my 2nd worst team of the week, losing to San Jose at home then beating Dallas on the road, with me on the wrong side of both outcomes.
2) Colorado to win ML+PL: +$1,314 2) Road underdogs +1.5 goals: +$846
3) Montreal to lose ML+PL: +$987 3) Road moneyline: +$661
2) Boston to win ML: -$848 2) Home favorites -1.5 goals: -$1,365
3) Underdogs moneyline: -$610 3) Montreal to win ML+PL: -$650
My Best Teams to Bet on in Week 15: (over/under not
included)
1) Colorado Avalanche, (+$1,314)
2) Carolina Hurricanes, (+$622)
3) Toronto Maple Leafs, (+$412)
My Worst Teams to Bet on in Week
15: (over/under not included)
1) Pittsburgh Penguins, (-$1,265)
2) Boston Bruins, (-$848)
3) Washington Capitals, (-$250)
My Best Teams to Bet Against in Week
15: (over/under not included)
1) Montreal Canadiens, (+$987)
2) Chicago Blackhawks, (+$490)
3) Vegas Golden Nights, (+$475)
My Worst Teams to Bet Against in Week
15: (over/under not included)
1) Anaheim Ducks, (-$565)
2) Winnipeg Jets, (-$441)
3) Edmonton Oilers, (-$250)
Team By Team Power
Rankings
These power rankings are based on the sum of all my bets per team, including
where the money was won or lost. Each week my new power rankings will be based
on all the games in the season, not just what happened this week.
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