Gambling, Hole 10, Netflix
Gambling 1
Though flashing screens and generous-sounding promotions suggest differently, sportsbooks are not your friend. Most people understand the basic economics of a sportsbook: books offer (somewhat) efficient prices and the implied probability of each betting option sums to more than 100%. So if a spread is Bills +2 (-110) versus Chiefs -2 (-110), your bet on the Chiefs needs to win more than 52.4% (110/210) of the time for you to break even. Over the long run, people do not win enough to clear the juice that the book is taking, so people lose and sportsbooks print money. I am simplifying, but that is the concept. Pretty straight-forward.
But you may not realize some of the other ways in which sportsbooks operate to make profits. As an example, when a sportsbook deems a customer a sharp bettor, they often limit the bettor’s action. A smart bettor might be capped at making $1,000 bets while the general public can wager many multiples of that figure. An Ethan Strauss audio Substack explains this, citing a fun anecdote about the legendary gambler Bob Voulgaris.
Limiting a customer’s action is pretty overt, but there are subtler, more nefarious mechanisms employed by sportsbooks too. “Live betting” refers to in-game wagering. If you think Patrick Mahomes is about to throw a touchdown, you can bet on the Kansas City Chiefs even after the game has started.
And here’s where they get you.
When placing a live bet, bettors might observe their bet buffering for 5-8 seconds before the book confirms the bet. At some sportsbooks, the book intentionally creates this buffer to reject bets that move in the bettor’s favor. If you try to bet on the Chiefs to win at a 50% implied probability, and during the 5-8 second buffer the odds move to 54%, the book will reject your bet because it improved in value. If the odds move the other direction, against you, your bet is accepted. To be clear, I am sure this mechanism only applies to a subset of sportsbooks, but yeah, these businesses are not your friend.
Anyway, I usually monitor live golf odds throughout a tournament to check how betting markets’ numbers stack up with the numbers my models are producing. And I’ve noticed something!
Sportsbooks have shot-level information before shot information is displayed on the PGA Tour leaderboard. So if Hideki Matsuyama stripes a drive down the middle of the fairway, I can see that shot information on the website of a sportsbook 10-30 seconds before it is displayed on the PGA Tour leaderboard.
Imagine a recreational bettor sitting at home sees that standing on the fifth tee, Jon Rahm’s live odds to win a tournament are 10/1. She is surprised to see him at 10/1 and bets on him to win. Then ten seconds later, she checks back on the PGA Tour leaderboard to find that Rahm found a penalty area with his tee shot. Tough luck. Good for the sportsbook, though, which already knew he hit his tee shot in the water when she placed the bet!
I am not writing this to allege anything about the way the Tour transmits data to the sportsbooks. Perhaps the books simply have faster technology than the technology powering the PGA Tour leaderboard (lol, it’d be hard to have slower technology).
But I do think the relationship between the PGA Tour (as well as other major sports organizations) and gambling is worth examining. 99+% of gamblers lose, and shoving odds down fans’ throats during the broadcast seems…bad? After all, I thought we are trying to grow the game. You know what makes it harder to buy a set of already expensive golf clubs? Losing $100 on a parlay that someone on PGA Tour Live suggested was “good value.”
There is a massive difference between destigmatizing gambling and promoting it. It’s too bad we skipped right over the former.
Gambling 2
Ok, this was a fun story.
On Sunday, January 9th, Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson returned to the court for the first time since tearing his ACL in 2019. Not without controversy, at least in the betting world.
Ten minutes before the game started, the Warriors tweeted the following message:
Immediately, gamblers rushed to bet the “under” on Draymond Green prop bets before sportsbooks removed them from the market. Example: You could have wagered that Draymond Green would score fewer than 7.5 points in the game, which was a sure bet.
Prop bets have a “Player must play in the game for action to count” clause. Draymond did play. For seven seconds total. Then he exited the game.
Naturally, the sportsbetting world erupted into discussions on Twitter, also known as arguments, about whether or not sportsbooks should have to pay out the Draymond Green bets. I side with this tweet:
Ultimately, the books paid out. And then limited the action of many customers who had fired Draymond Green unders. As discussed above, sportsbooks hold every advantage over a bettor. They should be ready to pull a bad prop bet when news breaks.
Score one for the little guy.
Hole 10 - PGA West
Something for you to watch this week as the PGA Tour heads to The American Express!
PGA West Stadium Course, host of the tournament, has a couple factors at play that make Hole 10 worth discussing. The golf course has some of the mildest rough on the PGA Tour, meaning there is almost no penalty to finding the rough with your tee shot (or with your approach shot, really).
If you run a test to determine the relationship between Player Distance and Performance by hole, Hole 10 will not show up as the most distance-friendly hole. But it is a prime example of a hole where the longest hitters in the field have an enormous advantage.
Here’s an overhead look at Hole 10:
On this hole, some players choose to hit less than driver off the tee, navigating a fairway that is ~40 yards wide for shots that are hit ~250 yards off the tee. Longer tee shots that travel ~280 yards only have ~30 yards of fairway width. This is a healthy risk-reward proposition. Hit more club, take on more risk.
The issue is that in today’s game, the longest drivers in the field can actually carry the fairway bunkers down the right side of the hole and find a section of the hole where the fairway is more than 40 yards wide. As shown in the measurement above, drives must fly about 290 yards to find the widest section of the fairway. The risk-reward formula breaks. The longest tee shots encounter the least amount of risk.
And also mentioned above, the rough at PGA West barely assesses a penalty. So for players who can carry their drives at least 290 yards, bombing a drive over the fairway bunkers and down the right side of the fairway makes a lot of sense. If you find the fairway, excellent! If you find the rough instead, you are fine.
The data agree. Over the past three years, shots hit more than 290 yards have significantly outperformed shots hit less than 290 yards, which checks out. More interestingly, tee shots hit between 240-260 yards that find the fairway underperform shots hit more than 290 yards that find the rough. Note: Shots hit between 240-260 yards are not guaranteed to find the fairway either. You might find a bunker.
Unsurprisingly, the number of players who have hit a tee shot over 290 yards on this hole has increased each of the last three years. Information gets around.
Here is a visual of performance on this hole during a round last year. We create visuals like this one for clients. The tee shots are colored by outcome on the hole:
Long tee shots eliminate the fairway bunkers, which drives most of the outperformance here.
Observe tee shot strategy on Hole 10 this week. As long as conditions allow for it, players will attempt this shot. Phil Mickelson and Patrick Cantlay are both playing this week, and I’d expect both of them to launch driver down the right on this hole. We’ll see what happens, but attempting this shot has my stamp of approval.
Netflix
On the heels of a successful F1 docuseries called Drive to Survive, Netflix announced a similar concept to highlight PGA Tour players. Initially, I was cynical. The PGA Tour has a history of creating cringe-worthy, inauthentic content, so I feared their involvement in a Netflix series. After listening to two executive producers of the series on an episode of The Shotgun Start podcast (highly recommend), my fears have been assuaged. I’m pumped for the series.
Listen for yourself, but the producers indicate that all governing bodies involved (including the PGA Tour) have supported the project and appreciate the importance of authenticity. I am optimistic about how the athletes will be covered, and I am impressed by the list of golfers Netflix has chosen to cover.
Ranked the #1 amateur in the world, Keita Nakajima will be featured prominently. Until Hideki Matsuyama’s victory at Augusta last year, I did not fully understand the importance of golf in Japan. This year, Japan claims both the defending champion and the top amateur in the world at the Masters. Should be amazing content with global appeal.
Also, the Open Championship is at St. Andrews this year. Netflix should have plenty of material to work with. I am excited!
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Contact/Feedback
Email: Joseph.LaMagnaGolf@gmail.com
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