Home advantage? Sort of ….

I don’t bet on anything, unless it’s a sure thing. By that, I mean, like, a bar bet in which I already know the answer.
(The Los Angeles Lakers franchise started as … the Detroit Gems).

But with the boom in sports gambling I have started giving some thought to how a betting man (or woman) would calculate the chances of a team winning a specific sporting event.

Probably it’s NFL games that are the most heavily wagered. As you might expect, home teams are favored and there’s a lot of statistics to back that up.

Overall, according to the betting.us website, playing at home means you’ve got a 56.7 percent chance of winning. But that doesn’t compare to pro basketball, where the home team wins 60 to 62 percent of the time.

I’d guess it’s the close quarters of a roundball arena that magnifies the emotional lift provided by cheering fans

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But baseball is different. Spacious stadiums, many of which have modest fan seating in the outfield, dilute the impact of all that yelling, and the stats show a 53.5 percent chance of victory, partly because the home team bats last.

But it gets “worse.” In 2023 and 2024 combined, the home teams were 36-48 in the MLB playoffs.

This road v. home math is only a part of a successful betting strategy. There are many other things to consider, of course.

Player injuries, weather conditions, fatigue (has one of the teams played a bunch of tough road games?), etc.

But considering that Vegas and the sports books rake in billions and we – the sports fans – (despite all our faith in stats and luck) are the ones providing all that cash, here’s the best strategy to hold on to your car payment.

Don’t bet at all.