I can’t cook, I’m terrible. If I was the head cook at Leavenworth Federal Prison, inmates on death row would turn down their last meal. Every time I go near the stove, our dog howls. Since I work out of my house (never late for work!), I do a fair amount of cooking dinner for my wife and I.
Before I went off to college (40 miles from home), my mom (probably the worst cook there is) tried to teach me everything I needed to know to survive on my own. Unfortunately, along with sewing buttons on a shirt, I never got the grasp of how to prepare a meal very well. However, last week was different.
On Monday I looked up a recipe for cooking salmon. I had never heard of putting mayonnaise on a fish before, but Rachael Ray swears by it, so who am I to argue. I mean, she has a TV show, I don’t. With some seasonings, it was surprisingly good.
Tuesday, I decided to finally pull the crock pot out of storage that my Aunt June (also, a terrible cook) had gotten us as a wedding gift. I cooked a rump roast that was so tender and tasty my wife thought I should open a restaurant. Three consecutive great meals, I’m on a roll!
That streak of fine food ended abruptly the next night cooking steaks on the grill. First, I accidentally seasoned them with taco spice instead of pepper. I went inside, got distracted by an intriguing episode of “Cops”, and forgot about the food. The asparagus and mushrooms had literally turned to ashes and the filet mignons were now part of the grill itself. I was on a streak, everything was looking great. But then I failed miserably, the streak was over.
There probably isn’t a sports handicapper out there that doesn’t look at streaks. Everybody loves to bet the team on the winning streak or against the team on the losing streak. And why not? That seems logical.
I had a friend call me Sunday saying he didn’t understand why the Lakers were only favored by 3.5 points at Atlanta. He stated the Lakers had won their last 5 games covering their last 4 while Atlanta had lost 2 games in a row. He wanted to back the truck up and put it all on LA. I tried talking him out of the wager saying that just because a team is on a streak cannot be the only criteria to use to handicap an NBA game.
I quickly did a database query and found that teams on a three-game or longer winning streak when playing a team on a two-game losing streak only cover the spread 42.9% of the time. I also looked at a team winning more than 60% of the time was on a 5 game winning streak and were away faves, just like LA. They only beat the number 14 out of 36 times, 38.9%. I know my friend didn’t like to hear what I was saying, but hopefully he listened as underdog Atlanta beat the Lakers outright by ten points.
To further understand how teams do when on a streak, I looked at teams who had lost three straight games. To get any worthwhile results, you have to know whether the team is at home or on the road. I did find a spot where betting against the losing team is correct, assuming they are playing at home. Betting against the 3 straight game losers at home is winning at a 57.0% rate, 151-114. Even more profitable is to take the Over in this situation, a 153-112 mark, 57.7%. Just the opposite results occur if our 3-game losers are on the road, they cover at a 54.0% clip.
I expanded the streak to include teams losing straight-up 3 to 5 consecutive games. Again, it depended upon whether the team was home or on the road. Betting against the home team streaking downward provided 57.6% winners with 54.9% of those games going Over the total.
Again, the other end of the spectrum prevailed if our bad streaking team was on the road, 56.2%, 318-248.To determine whether good teams perform differently than bad teams in streaks, I added a team’s winning percentage range to my query. Unless otherwise stated, all records start with the 2005 season and do not include playoffs.
Starting with the smallest of streaks, one game, I looked at how bad teams, ones with a below 40% season record, perform. Remember, a streak starts when you have the opposite result of the previous game. A one-game winning streak means the team lost their game before that. Bad teams that just started a winning streak cover their next game only 48.2% of the time. Bad teams beginning a losing streak of one do better and cover their next game 53.9% of the time.
Good teams, higher than a 60% record, have an unusual pattern after a one-game streak. There is nothing of note on the ATS side, but there is an interesting O/U trend. If our good team has a one-game losing streak and their game is at home, the Under has a 151-118 mark, 56.1%. Even better is if the streak is a winning one—gamer and the game is away: the Under cashes 57.8% of the time.
A good situation to go against the streak is when you have a good team, over 60% winning percentage, which has a losing streak of 2, 3, or 4 games and is an away favorite. Their ATS mark in their next game is 32-12, 72.7%. Since the 2005 season began, a four game losing streak is as long as there has been with a team still favored on the road. If our good team had been a road dog in that exact same scenario, their ATS record has been 22-25.
To emphasize the dichotomy of wagering results home and away, let’s look at how a bad team, below 40%, does on a 5-game losing streak. If their game is on the road, betting on our losers to cover cashes your tickets at a 67.1% frequency, 47-23. Not too far behind is also betting the Over, 43-28, 60.6%. However, if our team is at home, just the opposite happens, they only cover 36.8% of the games.
I believe it is going to be worthy looking for a team that’s dropped 5 straight. Some cappers put more validity in an ATS streak: beating the point spread in consecutive games. They aren’t worried if a team is not winning straight-up, just beating the number. There is virtually no advantage on blindly betting against a team on a streak not covering the number or betting on one that is. I stopped at 5 game streaks, both winning and losing, with the only streak with at least a 5% edge being when teams have covered 5 straight games, 65-53 ATS, 55.1%.
Sometimes you should do the opposite of what seems like the correct wager. Instead of betting against bad teams, less than 40% W/L record, that are on an ATS losing streak of 1 to 5 games and are away, bet on them and you cash that ticket 57.4% of the time, 364-270. It’s kind of like when George Costanza on Seinfeld started doing the opposite of what he thought was right and everything worked out great.
Taking it a step deeper, how about teams that have won and covered in equal streaks: 3 straight wins and 3 straight covers for example. I did the losing side of these streaks also. The results? Goose egg, zilch, nada, nothing! To illustrate, a team that has a streak of 4 in SU and ATS wins has a 50-55 ATS record in their next game. A streak of 3 losses and non-covers has a 122-115 ATS mark in their following contest.
Using teams with correlating and equal streaks gives you no advantage if that is your only handicapping tool. Sure, it’s easy to believe that a team that has won and covered three straight is a good bet. The 3-year results of 131-131 says no.
A statement I hear frequently is to ride out the hot streaks and bet against the cold streaks. Only using a SU or ATS streak as your sole reason for betting on an NBA game is an extremely lazy method to handicap a game and will cost you lots of money.
Jim Kruger of Vegas Sports Authority created this article.
No, it is not true that the city of Detroit has been invaded by an army of Gumby’s or space aliens (though Michigan fans might believe so), it’s just the green-clad Michigan State fans have over-ridden the Motor City with the hopes their team can become national champions for the second time this decade. As coach Tom Izzo continues to morph into his mentor and predecessor Judd Heathcote, he keeps churning out Final Four teams, nearly at the same pace as the octumom.
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