Megan Rapinoe, Buddy Ryan, and The Problem with Names

Political Incorrectness Alert:  Somewhere in this brief entry, I refer to a lesbian as "ballsy." If this offends anyone, I am ecstatic. My goal in life is to offend as many people as possible in the time I have left.



I had a tough decision to make. While I don't know squat about soccer, I was looking at a very rare contextual betting opportunity. After the group segment of the World Cup, the U.S. Women's soccer team had been hyped as "maybe the best ever." Yet the 2-1 win versus Spain in the knockout round had been remarkably shaky, aided by a very questionable penalty call. My instinct was to at least consider France to win versus the Americans. A name, however, was creating a problem for me. The name was attached to a face, and the face was everywhere. Megan Rapinoe owned both.

Megan Rapinoe had been quoted in an interview as saying that, if the American women won the title, she was "not going to the fucking White House." Rapinoe had also been on board with Colin Kaepernick regarding the whole "Star Spangled Banner" issue. For the last couple of weeks, Rapinoe's face and comments had been on every sports website and in every newspaper. She had been hard to miss. I'm usually quite good at ignoring media noise and hyperbole, but I suspect that I'm hard-wired to notice ballsy, semi-lavender-haired lesbians who use my kind of language. When President Trump tweeted this and that in response to her, Rapinoe calmly repeated herself and stood her public ground.

All of that was a big problem for me. I'm supposed to be making bloodless decisions based on value, numbers, and an instinctive understanding of how media exposures affect odds. Rapinoe, however, had been ubiquitous. I probably would have been okay if she had not added the "fucking," but language like that is ultra-endearing when directed at an iconic bully.

By the way, before I'm castigated for being a "Trump-hater," please understand that I agree, more or less, with maybe half of the president's top dozen policy priorities. I just happen to think that the president of the United States should not conduct himself as if he were auditioning for the main villain role in a new Bruce Willis Die Hard movie. I estimate that I've offended 99% of all readers by now, which (as I mentioned earlier) is my goal. But I digress.

My issue with Rapinoe was that her public coverage had affected my ability to make an objective gambling decision. This brings me to Buddy Ryan, the famous architect of the '85 Bears defense and later head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals.

Buddy Ryan had a wonderful habit of referring to most players by their numbers rather than their names. He was especially prone to this during training camps, before rosters were set. I think this was a very useful, practical idea. Whether Ryan was making coldly objective talent evaluations or not, referring to players by numbers certainly suggested just that.

The difficulty, after Ryan became a head coach, was that the veteran players he knew well ceased to be numbers. He hung on to them a couple of beats longer than was wise, and this quickly corroded his rosters. They had become faces, stories, people with links to him. He lost his talent-appraising objectivity. His players had become names.

I examined the France/U.S. match again. France's value was depressed due to their recent successes against the Americans. More importantly, I couldn't get Rapinoe's face and the phrase "fucking White House," which always provokes a hint of a smile, out of my mind. Sometimes one must acknowledge that one's thought processes are messed up. I recognized that my objectivity was lacking, so I passed on betting the match.

Next Tuesday is another match. I'll have to wait and see if I can flush Rapinoe's public persona from my gambling mind. Perhaps by then, I'll be able to make a proper fucking analysis. Or not.


Bob Dietz -- June 28, 2019

Confirmation Bias: The Russians and Stephen A. Smith

"Saying is Believing."


Confirmation bias is in the 2019 news because of its relevance to U.S. politics. American voters have funneled themselves into camps that are virtually impervious to contradictory evidence or opinions. These voters seek only that information which agrees with their established respective mindsets.

Prior to the 2016 elections, Russian troll farms guided many Americans into disparate political camps much faster than would have naturally occurred. Putin set the wind beneath the wings of U.S. voter party alienation. Once the U.S. factions had been pushed a bit faster into their echo chambers, the Russians continually seeded more radical attitudes in those chambers, resulting in increasingly isolated, radicalized American subgroups.The Russians effectively insulated U.S. citizens from each other's perspectives. Putin affected the way Americans perceive each other, and he changed American behavior going forward. Scary stuff.

So what does all of this have to do with Stephen A. Smith?


Conflict and Ratings

American television is a capitalist enterprise. Higher ratings mean more money -- more product sold for advertisers, more income for networks, more money for parent companies, better salaries for stars on the shows. This is the case for everything from The Muppets to ABC's nightly news to a football pre-game show.

Humans are hard wired to attend to human faces and human voices. They are especially hard wired to attend to human conflict. Attention-getting aspects of conflict include higher decibels so as to command the aural stage and non-verbal gesticulating to command the physical stage. Conflict sells. Conflict is the most important component of almost every reality show. The reality shows can range from the political Crossfire on CNN (which set the stage for today's echo chamber politics) to Little Women:  LA to 90 Day Fiance'. Television is shooting for conflict. Conflict gets ratings.

What's wrong with that? And where does Stephen A. Smith fit into all of this?


Gambling Effects

All of the sports talk shows on television, whether head-to-head talk formats or pre-game warmups, are sorely lacking in impartial analysis, the dry asking of proper questions, and the framing of theories. Instead, the shows are rife with declarations disguised as debates about future events. Questions are rarely asked in probabilistic terms. The people on the shows are too busy making declarative statements that conflict with each other. Unless one is clairvoyant, making declarative statements about future events is probably a bad idea, for an array of reasons. You're more likely to see me use "more likely" in a given sentence than you are to hear "more likely" in all of a network's college football prediction shows combined.

I've highlighted Stephen A. Smith because he's an iconic declarer who presents his opinions with a forcefulness, both verbal and non-verbal, best left for boxers after their arms have been raised in victory. Really, the ridiculous certainty of most sports show talking heads is a widespread disease. Skip Bayless, Kirk Herbstreit, almost any ESPN panel, and virtually every sports show on television -- all of them employ conflict and proclamations of certainty as audience hooks. And so one might ask once again, what is wrong with that? Well, to be honest, not much is wrong with it if you're watching and not betting games with the intention of winning. But if you're betting games and trying to win, watching this kind of programming is absolutely toxic, counter-productive, and much worse than just a waste of time.

Most of the formats involve declarative "debates." The topics, which can entail fantasy selections, who will win what games, or college playoff rankings, tend to funnel viewers into camps. The television personalities present their individual conclusions, and viewers are invited to adopt one or another perspective. This guides viewers down the slippery slope to personal commitments, rather than neutral theorizing. In essence, you have been guided into echo chambers. What Russians did to the American electorate, ESPN does to college football fan bases and viewers in general. And they do it every blessed day. Once you've committed to a viewpoint prior to an event, you are in an echo chamber, and that is nowhere for a gambler to be. A commitment is like a thick fog. You'll be able to make out just the bare outlines and dim shapes of actual reality as it unfolds, despite the fact that reality is taking place right in front of you.

Commitments lead to confirmation biases, which include perceptual biases and memory biases. While the primrose path to confirmation biases may be the single most important reason to avoid sports shows, the talking heads also create other compelling problems for would-be winning gamblers. For example, Billy Walters with five players in his pocket would not display the conviction and certainty of the television pundits. The declarative style of the broadcasters can easily have an intimidating or dampening effect on a sports bettor who wisely holds conviction at arm's length. Also, broadcasters spend most of their time discussing players and coaches. In college football, the games are not player versus player or even coach versus coach. The games are organism versus organism. Watching these television shows teaches bettors the absolute wrong way to analyze college football games. If you want to be a winning tennis player, watching people playing tennis with baseball bats teaches you very little. The types of analysis on television are literally that wrong. The tools are wrong, and if the tools are wrong, not much of what follows can be right.

Some people respond by saying that they rely on mid-week and pre-game shows to get injury updates and learn key stats. Folks, if you're learning about injuries and stats from a television show, you are not really trying to win (not that there's anything Seinfeldian wrong with that). For those trying to win, injury updates are best tracked online. I cannot emphasize this enough, but time is of the essence in sports gambling, and reading is faster than listening to the same content. Allow me to repeat that. Reading is much, much faster than listening to the same thing. The only conceivable reason for watching a pre-game broadcast would be to see the on site weather. Even then, you can keep the sound off.

There are other social psychological reasons to avoid the television sports shows, and we'll review those down the road. We'll also discuss ways to fend off intellectual commitment. For now, however, keep your mouths shut and the sound turned down. Don't let the Russkies or Stephen A. Smith get to you.


Bob Dietz -- June 26, 2019

Confirmation Bias -- Introduction

When it comes to sports betting and gambling in general, an understanding of confirmation bias has immense value. I'll tackle various aspects of confirmation bias in at least a dozen posts in the months ahead. I think that it's the most convenient and useful starting point from which to explore sports betting pitfalls and errors.

Many 2019 references to confirmation bias address the current political situation in the United States. Observers see the U.S. electorate divided into hardened camps almost impervious to evidence that disconfirms their respective political positions or that places favored representatives in a bad light. Common nomenclature describes Americans as existing in "echo chambers" or "silos." These terms reference social and informational spaces that are selectively permeable, like a human cell. Information that feeds the echo chamber is allowed in; conflicting data is filtered out. The more the echo chamber fills with one-sided information, the more the pressure difference grows between those inside the chamber and those outside of it.

American politics has thrust confirmation bias and all of its elements into the spotlight. I would, however, like to set aside the political aspects of confirmation bias and examine instead the awesome utility of the concept when applied to sports betting and gambling. So, for our purposes, confirmation bias will refer to the human tendency to vet information so that any resulting conclusions conform to pre-existing theories, expectations, and beliefs.

We selectively filter our acquisition of information both "out there" in the world and information catalogued in memory so that we require the least reorganization of our existing "reality." Confirmation bias is like a personal and flawed version of Occam's Razor. Instead of the simplest explanation as our default, however, we default to the explanation that requires the least adjustment to what we already believe. Consciously or not, we adhere to the premise that our beliefs are best kept crystalline and unaffected by conflicting evidence.


Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance theory is an ancestor and close cousin of confirmation bias studies. Leon Festinger introduced cognitive dissonance theory in his classics, When Prophecy Fails (1956) and A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957). When Prophecy Fails will be a focal point for another column. The book deals with a UFO cult whose leaders predicted events on specific dates. The events did not occur, but the cult members surprisingly became even more invested in the leaders and the cult itself after the prophecies had failed.

Cognitive dissonance was one of the first theories to address things like the fact that people who have recently bought one brand of automobile tend to not read ads for other brands. These tendencies are statistically predictable. While cognitive dissonance may have been a useful (and at the time, novel) tool for asking real world questions, many of the older laboratory studies seemed quite unwieldy. Today, the subject has for the most part been subsumed under the much broader helm of confirmation bias.


Overview

Our entire individual lives are a test of our ability to overcome confirmation biases and the associated narcissism. We live these 70-odd years, pinned down by whatever culture in which we're born, and our life experiences are limited. I'm talking brass tacks, bottom line, numerically limited. Despite this, we are constantly faced with drawing conclusions and making decisions based on the individual data bases of our lives. Quite often, we don't have a statistically significant sample from which to generate future decisions, but either we don't recognize this, or we don't have the ability to de-emphasize our life histories as influences. Our minds are filled with the full color narratives of ourselves. We remember every pain or pleasure without a sense of their lack of importance. The challenge for us is to recognize when our lives have not given us a statistically significant sample, to go get the info required to take statistically sound action, and to then override the flawed perspectives our lives have provided. It's a daunting task.

In my life, I have had a single terrible experience buying a Renault automobile and a single great experience buying a Toyota. These were vivid events in my life, and they are writ large. The reality is that these events have no statistical significance. I am capable of recognizing this, so I will read Consumer Reports before car shopping. If Renault, however, gets top grades, I will still have a very, very difficult time putting my life experiences aside. It's hard to subordinate the evidence of our lives, however sparse, to some third party summary that we haven't personally experienced. The job, however, is to do just that. From a statistical perspective, the idea that "what we've lived should guide us" is largely an illusion. For many things, our lives don't provide a big enough sample from which to draw meaningful conclusions.

We view the world with perceptual biases of which we are unaware. We process information in a sea of memory biases. We may be overmatched by our biases. I think, however, that in the arena of sports gambling, we have a chance to improve ourselves by recognizing and controlling these biases. We'll discuss how in the weeks ahead.


Bob Dietz -- June 20, 2019

Vintage Vegas: Sweet Suites and Edmund Slick

Astrology can be a bitch.

The initial World Cup of Handicapping (Football) took place in 1985 at Caesars Palace. It was a one-weekend, thousand-dollar fee event that drew many of the biggest names in football handicapping. In 1985, a one-weekend, 1K contest was slightly out of my sanity range, but I had targeted that particular weekend as very beatable in terms of the college football schedule. Frankly, it appeared to be the best college football wagering week of the 1985 season, so I sucked it up and entered.

The format was formidable. Contestants had to select 20 college sides, then rank them by designating two as $2000 bets, two as $1800 bets, and so on down to $200. Similarly, one had to choose 20 NFL plays from sides and totals and rank them. Prizes would go to the top 10 college records, top 10 NFL records, and top 10 combined records. Bonus prizes went to the top bankroll scores in the three categories. I had no illusions about doing well in the NFL that week, especially with 20 plays. College football was going to have to carry me, and I thought that it could.

Caesars Palace had a huge, respected independent sports book at the time. Harrah's had not yet bought it and imposed its Borg-like assimilation. The Caesars sports book hoped the World Cup would become an annual football handicapping event, much like the World Cup of Thoroughbred Handicapping. To this end, Caesars treated us pretty well. Unlike current Las Vegas horse handicapping tournaments and the WSOP, which saddle players with housing costs, Caesars comped our rooms. And boy, they were nice rooms.

I'm a frugal sort, so I can honestly say that after 40 years of Las Vegas visits, I've stayed in just a handful of suites. I've enjoyed the Palace Station original suites, with their classic brass accoutrements, just off the casino floor. I've also stayed in the old Barbary Coast suites. I hadn't even known about the Barbary suites until my 2 AM arrival forced the BC staff to honor my reservation. The retro suites at the Rio are fun in a 1980's way, and the Tropicana's retro suites with the mirrored ceilings are very cool, too. I once visited a client at the old suites in the Stardust rear complex (prior to the building of the tower). Those suites were two stories with a spiral staircase. My World Cup Caesars Palace room, however, definitely topped these others.

I had a huge round bed, like Dean Martin in the Matt Helm movies. The walls were covered in mirrors. The ceiling over the bed was mirrored. Many, many mirrors. It was all sort of wasted on me, since I was traveling alone, but I appreciated the ambiance when I wasn't unsettled by it. If you like looking at yourself -- a lot -- it was a wonderful room.

Saturday was a long day. About a hundred handicappers had entered, and the day was one lengthy dogfight. My instincts and schedule analysis had been spot on, but cashing came down to a final game between LSU and Kentucky. I had Kentucky with seven points. As the game unfolded, LSU pushed them all over the field. I knew I had the wrong team, but a heavy, driving rain and some scattershot field goal attempts kept Kentucky in it. LSU held a 3-0 lead with a minute to go and the ball inside the UK 10-yard line. LSU could have run out the clock. They did not, and a third-down, off tackle run broke for a touchdown. LSU won 10-0.

I finished 15-5 against the spread. Unfortunately, 18-2 ATS won the day, and the cashing cutoff was 16-4 ATS. On Sunday, I eked out an 11-9 ATS record, doing just enough to not win any money overall. Rough break, as they say.

Now about that astrology thing. Yeah, about that. At the awards ceremony, I learned who had won the college part of the contest. He was a really chubby guy with a tightly coifed 80's perm, a frilly pink shirt with ruffles, and a tuxedo featuring astrological symbols, stars, and ringed planets. His name was Edmund Slick.

At the time, Edmund Slick was a ubiquitous presence in football magazines. His schtick was that he used astrological analyses to determine his handicapping plays.

To be honest, I don't know if he actually won the contest with his own handicapping, or if he simply took credit for the winning entry. His name was not on the contestant list. The official story was that he had entered under a pseudonym and stepped forward to take credit after he had won. Well, maybe I buy that. Or maybe he paid the name that actually went 18-2, and Slick claimed ownership of the entry after the fact. I do not really know, just as I don't know whether the stars and planets on his tuxedo glowed in the dark. I suspect that they did.

As a fan of James Randi, as an avid supporter of CSICOP, and as a card-carrying investigator for the short-lived SSDPE (Society for the Scientific Documentation of Paranormal Experiments), I was appalled at the idea that someone was using an astrology gimmick to sell football plays. Those glittering symbols on Slick's tuxedo really annoyed me. The fact that he was the winner of the college contest bothered me more than the fact that I didn't cash. Time, however, heals all wounds, or at least dims our memories.

I can look back at it now and chuckle. At least I had a really nice room.


Notes: (1) That was the first and last World Cup of Handicapping (Football). (2) For a relevant article capturing a feel for the sports services of the time, I recommend Melissa Isaacson's column at www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1986-08-26-0250080277-story.html


Bob Dietz -- June 13, 2019

Days of Futures Passed

I'm known as something of a futures guru. Futures have led to some significant, reputation-making scores. Futures are the one category of wagering in which I will occasionally "step out of my lane." I am, however, a conservative creature, and in 2019 I have arguably been too conservative. My mistakes have to do with NOT betting teams. These errors of omission have turned out to be real botches.

I tend to be tight when analyzing sports at which I'm not expert, which is everything but football. I  think that comprehensive shopping, schedule analysis, and timing can carry bettors to futures profits, but my trigger threshold is much higher for sports other than football.

Prior to the start of the NHL playoffs, Boston had caught my eye as the best value based on some of my post-season statistical priorities. I thought, however, that the odds to win the title were right on the edge of wager worthiness. The record-setting Tampa Bay team scared me. I made the decision to pass. Then the favored Lightning were miraculously swept in the first round, two of the next best teams were also ousted, and Boston had a clear path to the finals. Once in the finals, hedging would have guaranteed me a solid profit. Not a great decision to pass, as it turned out.

In the NBA, I had my eye on Toronto, as the Raptors are routinely underbet in futures, especially in Las Vegas (as opposed to offshore). One problem, I felt, was that Toronto faced Philadelphia in the first round. Toronto had completely owned the 76ers recently, winning 14 of 15 games or thereabouts. That depressed the Raptor futures numbers. In addition, Golden State loomed as a likely Finals opponent that would be a prohibitive favorite. I was not sure how heavy a favorite. Years earlier, I had taken a very good 76er team at 30-1 and 35-1 to win the title, only to see them face off against a Kobe/Shaq Lakers team that was -1100 in the series. The -1100 had surprised me, and I made very little on the wager because of the wicked hedging. I was concerned I'd run into a similar situation. Once again, I passed. Well, Toronto leads Golden State 2-1 in the Finals, and the Raptors will be a lousy value for years to come. So that is the end of that.

In baseball, I will be surprised if the present does not portend the future, which simply means that I expect the teams in first place after 50 games to finish on top. This season, there appear to be no baseball futures bargains. After 30 games, I had my eye on the Mets as a conceivable long shot threat. They had decent numbers in the statistics I prioritize, and they were owed a huge home stand in terms of home/road games. Their numbers, however, took a dive during the next 20 games, and now I really cannot take them. Despite my recent errors of omission, I'm going to take a deep, sighing breath and pass once more.

The job, after all, isn't to amuse yourself or demonstrate cajones or brilliance. The job is to make money. Keeping your wallet in your pocket should always be the default.


Bob Dietz -- June 7, 2019

Vintage Vegas: Me, Myself, and The Castaways

I'll be using the "Vintage Vegas" columns to report on handicapping tales from days gone by. I've been doing this sports handicapping gig a long time, 40 years professionally to be precise. Since I'm old, I qualify as vintage, so a few of these reports will touch on things I've done that provide a modicum of credibility.

The "Bob Dietz's Integrity Sports" moniker has been around forever. For a brief snapshot of things I did "back in the day," I suggest heading to the internet archives via the wayback machine. Plug in my old Integritysports.com site and take a look. The accomplishments are real. In future Vintage Vegas entries, we'll examine historical sports handicapping publications and contests, some of which are mentioned on the old Integritysports.com site. We'll take a look at former Seattle Times reporter Mike McCusker's annual "Tipsters or Gypsters?" and an old "Who's Who in Sports Gambling" from Hall Publishing. Today, however, I'd like to talk about the football contest that was the direct ancestor of today's Westgate Las Vegas Superbook Contest. The contest was called the "Pro-Football Handicap," and it was held at the Castaways Casino, on the site where the Mirage now stands. Sonny Reizner designed and ran this competition.

For a nice retrospective on early Las Vegas handicapping competitions and what we called "The Castaways Contest," I recommend a July 19, 2018 Sportshandle.com piece by Robert Mann, a Gaming Today columnist. Mann does a fine job surveying the original contests. I just want to add a little detail from my personal experience.

The Castaways, directly across the strip from the Rat Pack hangout, the Sands Casino, wasn't posh like today's megaresorts, but it wasn't a dive, either. The Castaways was a small, classic-for-the-time casino with a great location. The contest made it a weekly destination for sports bettors and gave the Castaways a certain cachet.

The Castaways Contest, with its hefty thousand-dollar entrance fee, was the forerunner of today's Superbook Contest. There was one huge difference, however, between the current Westgate extravaganza and the Castaways' competition. While the Superbook requires five NFL selections against the spread each week, the Castaways contestants had to pick every NFL game ATS each week. Fourteen games a week, no byes, no breaks. Every single game counted on your record.

I had a client, a CPA from New York, who tasked me with entering the contest in my name and putting his selections in for him. The contest drew more than a hundred entrants. The top 20 contestants had both their selections and their records marked on an old fashioned white board under glass (on the wall) in the Castaways lobby. Those contest plays were quite the draw.

My client was doing pretty well, about six games over .500 after nine or ten weeks, but he got frustrated with his inability to move up in the standings. So he asked me to take the helm for the remainder of the season with the understanding that we'd split the money if I rallied to cash. I had no real interest in trying to pick all of the NFL games each week. Even as a young man, I was aware enough to not take a "pick every game" contest terribly seriously. It's a good way to go blind or mad. I agreed, however, to give it a shot. Although I'd like to share an exciting narrative of being into and out of the money and how I spent long hours analyzing and conquering the NFL schedule, that's not what happened.  There wasn't a drop of drama.We finished more than 20 games over .500, in a tie for 12th, I think. Just the top 10 cashed. Any other year of the contest, our record would have been good enough to cash, but not that particular season.

That was my first and last go at the Castaways Contest. The Castaways itself wasn't long for this world, and was soon demolished to make way for Steve Wynn's opening salvo in the Las Vegas revolution, the Mirage. The times, they were a'changin'.


Bob Dietz -- June 3, 2019