MLB Betting Against the Public 2003-06

• MLB and Betting Against the Public – UPDATED (Includes 2003-06 Seasons)

SportsInsights is one of the leaders of sports information services and in this article, we update last year’s baseball statistics on how “Betting Against the Public” has fared over recent years.  With almost 10,000 games over four seasons, baseball continues to show impressive statistical results.  In addition, with many sports winding down just as baseball is starting up, baseball will soon be the “only game in town” for some sports investors.  But what a game it is: with a 162 game season and 30 teams, there are plenty of profit opportunities!  The information on this site is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Use of this information in violation of any federal, state, or local laws is prohibited.

MLB Database (2003-2006 Seasons)

SportsInsights’ database for MLB now includes some 9,000 games over the past four seasons.  For the purposes of this article, we include the playoffs, but exclude spring training.  Similar to hockey, baseball is a “moneyline” sport, so that we show “units won” (and not a winning percentage).

Betting Against the Public

This year, we present the “Bet Against” table in a slightly different format.  You’ll see how Betting Against the Public worked at different thresholds of betting percentage AND for home teams and visiting teams.

Table 1: MLB and Betting Against the Public (2003-2006 Seasons)

Using the Table

• In the past, we gave figures for Betting Against the Public, irregardless of whether the team was home or away. The “Total” column contains this information.In addition, we have broken out how Betting Against the Public works at various levels of Public disfavor — if a team is either a Home team or a Visitor. 
• For example, if a Home team has 30% (or less) of the public betting on them (Visitor then has 70% or more of the public), over the past four seasons, this scenario resulted in +63 units!
• On the other hand, Visitors with 30% of the bets (70% of bets on Home team), resulted in +48 units.
• Using SportsInsights’ statistics to study various parameters can help make your sports investing more profitable!

Some Notes

• The 30% level continues to be the largest profit-maker in terms of units won.  Last year, we showed +78 units for the 30% level of “Betting Against the Public” over three seasons worth of data.  This year, we show +111 units in total: very decent consistency. Higher or lower Betting Percentage thresholds will increase or decrease the number of plays respectively.  In baseball, the data seems to suggest that when betting against the public, leaning towards the Home Team might improve results.
• Disclaimer

We do not guarantee that the trends and biases we’ve found will continue to exist. It is impossible to predict the future. Any serious academic research in the field of “market efficiencies” recognizes that inefficiencies may disappear over time. Once inefficiencies are discovered, it is only a matter of time before the market corrects itself. We do not guarantee our data is error-free. However, we’ve tried our best to make sure every score and percentage is correct.