Weighing the Odds in Sports Betting
by King Yao
283 pp, Huntington Press, 2007–2022, $21.20
In 1835, Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote “In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” That was 188 years ago, and things change.
From now through the end of spring, both young and old, men and women, fancy sports betting. It’s the season of the NFL playoffs, the Super Bowl, the NBA, March Madness, Daytona, the Masters, Spring Training, and preparations for hoisting Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Interest today in sports betting is at a record level. ESPN used to cover only players and the games. Now, a good portion of every broadcast sounds more like a tip sheet for setting lines, making fantasy picks and tracking the odds. That’s not to mention that most every other commercial is from Draft Kings, BetMGM, Caesars, William Hill or Fan Duel.
While pro sports management and ESPN treat betting as if it were the latest Tik-Tok trend, we all know that it has been around for decades, possible centuries. Does anyone doubt that wagers were placed on chariot races or Rome’s blood sports held in the Colosseum? Later, when only the Nevada books were legal, almost every town, big or small, still featured a back-alley bookie unburdened by the state’s tax laws.
Perhaps that’s why Huntington Press decided to re-print Yao’s book now, when it was conceived almost two decades ago and first published in 2007. The basics of betting haven’t really changed since the days of the Gladiators, with just a few exceptions: “in-game action” and “mobile/internet.” The latter has ushered in an era of poorly conceived promotional offers that can tilt the odds in your favor. I haven’t found this topic covered in any book, but you can keep abreast of the loopholes on sites like www.DarkHorseOdds.com.
For the basics, Sanford Wong’s “Sharp Sports Betting,” which inspired Yao to write his book, is still one of the best. “Conquering Risk: Attacking Wall Street and Vegas” by Elihu Feustel and George Howard came out in 2010 and is excellent. “20/20 Sports Betting” by Logan Fields is also good and one of the more recent volumes published in 2020 (reviewed here in October 2021).
Just like Feustel and Howard, Yao came from the world of Wall Street as a derivatives analyst before becoming a pro poker player and writer. As he says in the Intro, “I would rather analyze how Alex Rodriguez will perform in his next playoffs given his poor performance than how PAC IOs will perform given an increase in mortgage refinancings.” This is a graphic reminder of the age of this material. Ironically, if Yao had followed through with his ’06 financial analysis on mortgages and thought to “short” them in 2008, he could have made billions. C’est la vie. Anyway, the rest of his excellent advice is timeless (except for not anticipating the spread of legal betting nearly nationwide).
Chapters 1 through 7 are mostly generic and could be applied to any risk proposition from finance to sports betting. The remaining chapters are targeted to individual strategies and specific sports. One poignant tip here is, “If you are inexperienced as a handicapper, concentrate on one sport at a time.” And “Choose a sport you enjoy … if (a handicapper) does not enjoy a sport, then there is no real difference between handicapping that sport and analyzing stocks for a Wall Street firm.”
He’ll explain when to bet on the Triple Crown, how to evaluate the upcoming Super Bowl proposition bets, when to (and what is a) “scalp”, and even how to get ahead in your March Madness pool or bracket.
You’ll also enjoy his Glossary, which will allow you to sound like a pro while sitting in any sportsbook.
You can find a few copies of his original 2007 book published by Pi Yee Press on Amazon, but it is higher priced than this new one re-published from Huntington Press with the black cover. I like supporting Huntington and publisher Anthony Curtis since they are responsible for encouraging countless gaming writers and putting out more casino titles than anyone else.
This book should help improve your odds just a bit this season. So, good luck on your pools, parlays, props, trifectas, and money line bets this season. Someone has to win, and let’s hope it’s not always the books.
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NOTE: If you want to learn about the perspective from the other side of the betting window, check out two excellent titles from longtime sportsbook manager Chris Andrews: “Then One Day” and “Then One Year.”
