Betting On The NFL Draft

Some news politics-wise as Obama finally endorsed Biden (as did Liz Warren and Bernie.) There's been some movement in the VP market which now looks like a clear heads up race between Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar. I'm going to really get into that in depth on my next post but for today, let's get into the NFL Draft.

Being the New Englander I am, I admit that I don't follow college football all that closely. I find the whole thing to be a little creepy to be totally honest - lots of exploitation, hero worship of teenagers and theres always seedy old guys hanging around getting a little too into the whole thing. And don't even get me started on "draft analysis." Did you know that over the long term, literally not one NFL team has shown any ability to consistently draft better than any other team? For drafts from 1970 to 2013, the year to year correlation coefficient between a teams draft grade in one year and grade in the next year is just .07. (http://www.footballperspective.com/are-certain-teams-better-at-drafting-than-others/) So basically zero.

There's all kinds of studies on this done by guys way smarter than me, which you can start reading on here:https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/no-team-can-beat-the-draft/ and follow the links. But the gist of it is basically; the 'draft market' does a good job of ranking players, IE players drafted in round 1 do better than players taken in round 2, who do better than round 3, etc. So think of it as an efficient market. But as is the case with efficient markets, no one GM or team has shown an ability to beat it long-term.

(There are some interesting draft caveats that I remember reading about. One is that the best value is high second round picks since (in my opinion) people irrationally over-value the difference between a first and second round pick. Also you're generally better off having more picks in total as opposed to a small number of high picks. I think that's why you see the Patriots trade down often.)

But like I said I am no draft expert. And luckily none of that matters really since I simply took a bunch of arbs and middles with a couple polish middles thrown in too. I do ride naked for small amounts on a couple bets too.

So in the absence of ado, here are my total positions on the upcoming NFL Draft (which will be held remotely.)

ROUND ONE PROPS

Georgia players drafted:

o1.5 -125 to win 1.5u
u1.5 +140 risk 1.5u

Clean free roll here. Risking 0 to win .23u. I opted for free rolls in lieu of even arbs since I plan on watching and want to have a side. I need some action goddamnit!


More PAC12 players over BIG12:

PAC12 +1 +180 risk .56u
BIG12 -.5 -280 to win .5u

This one is a weird little middle. Im basically betting that they'll draft the same amount and I push the +1 and win the .5. Its impossible to lose both but very possible to win one and push the other. The lines for total PAC12 and BIG12 players to go in the first round are very similar, right around 2.5-3. I would only do this with such a low total expected as it's more likely that they'll push as opposed to if something like 6-7 players were expected to be drafted. To really know if this is a +EV bet you'd have to know the value of each half point you're getting. IE how many 'cents' are you willing to pay to go from, say, +.5 to +1. I don't know this and I don't know of anyone who could possibly know and how they would, so I'm going on feel for this one. To be honest I don't love it but I also don't mind taking the small risk. It's for tiny volume anyway so we'll see how it turns out.


Clemson players vs Ohio St players:

Clemson: +.5 -140 to win 1.5u
Ohio St: -.5 +155 risk 1.5u

Another clean free roll. Risk 0 to .22u. This is what I did on most of these. They're small but they add up.


Defensive players drafted:

u15.5 -145 to win 1.5u
o15.5 +155 risk 1.5u

Risking 0 to win .16u.


Defensive Backs drafted:

u6.5 -175 to win 1.5u
o6.5 +200 risk 1.5u

Risking 0 to win .37u.


ACC players drafted:

u2.5 +195 risk 1.5u
o2.5 -190 to win 1.5u

Risking 0 to win .07u.


Offensive Lineman drafted:

o5.5 -275 to win 1.5u
u5.5 +300 risk 1.5u

Risking 0 to win .37u.


Alabama players vs LSU players:

Bama -.5 +125 risk 1u
LSU pk +230 risk .75u

Another fun one. I guess you'd call this a polish middle. I can't possibly win or lose both but I can lose one and push the other, which would be bad, or push one and win the other, which would be good. If they end up picking anything other than the same amount I win (either .25u or .52u). This again comes down to the value of half points with these, which again, I don't think anyone really knows (and I'm backed up by the market place with a lot of these lines really being all over the place.) But I'm betting that a half point in this market is worth less than the 255 cents I'm getting here. Getting +125 and +230 just seems way too wide to me. Both lines were a fair bit off from the other books I have too. Not arb-able since I would have just done that, but close.

Both schools are expected to have around 5.5 players drafted in round 1 which is fairly high and leaves more room for variance. This is the opposite of what I did with Clemson/Ohio St where I'm betting a little to win a lot that they'll pick the same amount. Here I'm betting a little more that they won't pick the same amount. And like the one above, I do not 'know' if this is +EV or not and it's possible there's something I don't know or understand about it, but personally I think its a good bet. I like this one more than the Clemson/Ohio St bet too, whatever that's worth.


LSU players drafted:

o5.5 -225 to win 1.5u
u5.5 +245 risk 1.5u.

Risking 0 to win .3u


Ohio St players drafted:

u2.5 -340 to win 1.5u
o2.5 +400 risk 1.5u.

Risking 0 to win .9u


Oklahoma players drafted:

u2 +145 risk 1.5
o2 -135 to win 1.5u.

Risking 0 to win .16u


First WR drafted

Jeudy +115 risk 1u
Lamb +120 risk .6u

First little real position here. From everything I can gather these two guys are head and shoulders better than the rest of the WR group and it would be a pretty big upset if neither of them go first. Jeudy is definitely the favorite. His average draft number that I see is 11ish and Lamb I see at 12.5. Both numbers were outliers - I don't want to say off-market since there really isn't a market to go off of here - but I was seeing a lot of evens and -110s on Jeudy, so this feels like a good bet. It's really a bet on Jeudy with a small Lamb hedge. Maybe I should have just stayed naked with Jeudy actually. I'm liking this bet less and less as I think about it now. I don't know! They can't all be home runs.


Justin Herbet draft position:

o5.5 -110 to win 1.5u
u5.5 +125 risk 1.5u

Risking 0 to win .23u.


I. Simmonds draft position:

u6.5 -115 to win 1.5u
o6.5 +124 risk 1.5u

Risking 0 to win .14u


Offensive players drafted:

u15.5 +230 risk 1u
o16.5 -140 to win 1u

Another whacky polish middle. If it's 15 or less I win .9u, if it's 17 or more I break even, and if it's exactly 16 I lose both bets for -2 units. Same logic as before. Im betting the cost of going from 15.5 to 16.5 isn't worth as many cents as I'm getting. Not exactly sure how I feel about this one. I have to be right about 70% of the time here to break even. One good thing about this blog is I can have a place to go over this after the fact and see not only if they won or not, but by how much. If I barely win this, if its 15 or 17 players say, I won't feel as good about it as if its like 12 or 20 players. It'll be a decent way to actually find out what these half point values are worth (if we live to be like 150).


QBs drafted:

o4.5 +380 risk .5u
u4 +120 risk .5u

An even crazier polish middle! I forgot how frisky things got! Betting that it'll be anything other than exactly 4 QB's. I know its super expected that exactly 4 will be taken but I think Im getting a good enough payoff to bet against that. 3 or less I win .1u, 5 or more I win 1.4u, and exactly 4 I lose 1 unit. If nothing else this is sure gonna be exciting to watch on draft day.


Clemson players drafted:

u1.5 +175 risk 1.5u
o1.5 -165 to win 1.5u

Risking 0 to win .16u.


Wide Receivers drafted:

u5.5 +210 risk 1.5u
o5.5 -200 to win 1.5u

Risking 0 to win .15u.


RIDING NAKED DRAFT SPOTS:

Jordan Love
o15.5 -120 to win .5u

Jerry Jeudy
o11.5 -150 to win .25u

Ceedee Lamb
o14.5 +150 risk .25

These are just the tiny nibbles I first put in a while ago. Theres one guy on the forums I like and he posted a few of these and these were the ones I could get at his prices or better.

So that's everything so far. I'll be checking here and there as it gets closer and closer and the lines move more and will probably have more bets. Overall I feel great about where I'm at. It's almost like I'm free rolling on my positions and polish middles with all the arbs/free rolls I got. I will have to get quite unlucky to lose any money on this. I won't win anything huge either but all in all I'm expecting to come away from this up a few units at the very least (there's 3.46 units up for free if I win every single free roll) and quite possibly as much as like 7 or 8.

There was a big celebrity online poker tourney last week which I nibbled on with .25u bets and literally lost every single one. I think it was like 2 or 3 units which I'll include in my next update for record keeping sake and briefly get into why I made the bets at all (and how wrong I was.) I'll also have another deep dive into politics, specifically the VP market. Quite a few changes there. And some reactions to other peoples reactions with the whole pandemic. Oh and something pretty shocking happened in the stock market the other day that not a whole lot of people are talking about. Check back soon, thanks for reading!