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In praise of Bet365 and other thoughts. “How did they do?” A review of the major UK bookies re: Coronavirus and suspended NBA futures
Hi folks, long time lurker here, zero time poster. On this rare occasion, I feel as though I actually have something to say. Who am I and why should you care? well, i'm nobody but over the past 7 years I have held bets with every single major bookie that services the UK. All sportsbooks here are regulated so in general you should never have an issue if you are following the rules.
However, owing to the coronavirus in March of this year and suspension of every major sports league in the world, it quickly became apparent to me in communications with them that none were adequately prepared to deal with a situation quite like this. I was curious then to see how each would step up (or not) to the plate given that the majority of their T&C’s were fairly lacking RE: a global pandemic. How much can you really trust the books to do right by you and your money when it’s nut-crunching time. Let's find out!
I had just over £61k of open NBA division futures across 8 of the major UK bookies when the season was suspended. By day I’m a Chartered accountant (CPA for you folks across the pond) and ex-Big 4 auditor so you better believe I kept a paper trail of every correspondence and read the T&C’s of every site back to front. Now that everything has been settled, I’d like to a take a minute j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶s̶i̶t̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ to write about my experience with each book. Maybe it'll be useful to some of you.
These are the 8 sites in question: Bet365, Paddypower, Betfair, Unibet, 888, Betway, Skybet, William Hill (Notable omissions Ladbrokes/Coral and Betstars)
Bet365 – A+ The gold standard and they simply can’t be beaten. Any bettor with experience knows that they are light years ahead of the competition in terms of well everything.. betting limits, customer service, UI, favourable treatment of their punters. This was one of only 2 books which had irrefutable wording in their rules with regards to NBA futures- “all bet stand regardless of team relocation, team name change or season length". No qualms, the ruling is crystal clear.
A quick chat with one of their agents was all I needed to confirm that indeed all my bets are 100% live. Once the season resumed- divisions were marked as settled and paid out as soon as they were mathematically clinched.
In a gesture of goodwill they also voided all Jazz NW division winner futures and paid out for all parlays which they were a leg of. Spoilers- they were the ONLY book to do so. This was worth over £10k to me and highly unexpected as at best I expected a push. The best book there is, period (and not just because they refunded me)
PaddpoweBetfair - B+ I’m grouping these 2 together because they share the same traders. Another powerhouse duo in the UK. Terms and conditions here were far less forthcoming than for Bet365. No explicit wording regarding the status of suspended NBA futures but reassurances were given by live chat agents that they were in touch with the league to confirm whether NBA divisions would still be a thing. A fair position to take given the circumstances but still significant uncertainty for me regarding the status of my bets.
These were however my fastest bets to settle once divisions were eventually clinched so I give them credit for that. No voided bets and everything settled as is. Communication could have been better in the 5 month gap but on the whole, OK.
Unibet/888 - B Again, grouping these 2 because they share the same traders. No particular wording or clear T&C’s with regards to the status of bets in a suspension but Unibet do have their own forum where you can ask questions. For all intents and purposes I found them to be rather useless. A definite clear line of distinction between the agents answering questions and the traders who know (or don’t know) what’s going on but are unable or unwilling to commit to a clear answer one way or the other.
With no clear T&C’s to cover the situation I understand why they took this line but it was of no comfort to me who had £17k of open bets between them. I was told seemingly every week “there’s a big meeting with the traders to discuss this on Friday” but never heard the outcome or details of said meetings. Definitely felt as though I was being given the run around but hey ultimately these were settled correctly as at the completion of every seeding game. Communication could have been better.
Betway - B Same wording in their T&C’s as Bet365 so I had little worry about my bets being voided. My bets were marked as won as soon as they were clinched but were not paid out until the completion of every seeding game.
I held no losing bets with Betway so cannot speak to whether they voided losers. Chat agents were clueless of their own T&C’s though when I sought to confirm whether my bets were live during the hiatus but on the whole at least tried to be helpful in our back and forths.
Skybet – B- Semi-clear wording in their T&C’s: “If an NBA Division is not completed within the same calendar year, all Division bets will be made void unless the result has already been determined.” No confirmation from their traders what would happen if the season were totally suspended though, just that that they would resort to the ruling from the official governing body. Fine, what else could they do.
Bets were settled on completion of all seeding games. Agent’s again a little clueless or hesitant to confirm or deny what would happen in the event of [insert scenario here] but on the whole, okay. Communication could have been better in the hiatus, i'm sensing a theme here..
William Hill – F Maybe I’m being a tad harsh here but in my experience William Hill was by far the worst of all the books to deal with during this time. T&C’s: “Bets will be settled on the division standings on completion of all matches". What does this even mean? For months on end I was unable to get a clear answer from literally anyone. All matches being all matches of the original 82 game schedule, or all matches of the seeding games?
With hundreds of messages exchanged it seemed crystal clear to me that even they didn’t know or hadn’t decided. On June 14th they ended up voiding all my bets including those which had already clinched by then. To be clear, it wasn’t an issue that these were voided if in fact these were voided in line with their T&C’s. I didn't care how these would be settled. However, the fact that nobody was able to offer any clarity on this one sentence for 3 straight months is ridiculous. Once they were voided then they were able to clarify that actually yes “all games” did in fact mean of the original 82 having having by that point already held onto my money for months longer than necessary.... definitely left a dirty taste in my mouth. Expected better for a book this size. F is for fail.
So overall? fairly positive to be honest. You can trust them all to do the right thing... eventually. The main element that was lacking during the down time was communication. I feel as though almost all of them were caught flat footed- didn't what to do, what to say and how to say it to their players when things first went zerodarkthirty, though even that I can sort-of overlook given the unprecedented situation. There is no doubt though, if your market is available on Bet365 and you aren't limited there's little reason to go elsewhere. This has been my TedTalk. Thanks for attending.
Probably old news, but posting to alert anyone that may have missed the topic. I placed a futures wager on the TB Lightning to win the Stanley Cup on 10/31/19. +750. $500 to win $3,750. Since that time, I've given up sports betting entirely. However, this string hasn't yet been tied up, so I've checked in from time to time to see if it will cash. Now that TB is up 3-1 on the Isles, and Vegas is down 3-1 to the Stars, TB is a -140 favorite to ship the cup. 5Dimes announced on or around 9/8 that they are closing up shop, and all tickets will be graded/voided on 9/21 and cashouts must occur at this time. I contacted customer service to determine if they would pay out the 'expected value' of the ticket (which is now ~$2,500). I'm being told that the ticket will be voided unless I request a refund. I'm clearly disappointed by this. But if all futures tickets for unresolved outcomes (presidency, NHL, NBA, MLB, etc.) are being refunded, that would at least be fair. I've read countless posts on various forums that futures wagers on teams that have already been eliminated may still be "pending" in their accounts, but those tickets won't be offered a refund. Can anyone confirm this? It is critical that 5D treats the futures markets fairly. If they grade even one ticket a loser for a team that won't win the NHL/NBA title, then the remaining tickets that are live should be paid out at 'expected value' or something close to it. I suspect that if you request a refund for a futures ticket that has an eliminated outcome, you will probably be given the refund. But 5D is praying on those customers that don't know any better. Thoughts?
Check out this and this if you’re interested in location-specific MkeBucks #MkeBucksIRL meet-ups!
To keep the sub user friendly, game reactions/hot takes should go in this thread or the upcoming postgame thread (if you post something during or shortly after the game and it is removed, this is probably why).
GAME DETAILS
Time:The game is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. central time (2 January at 1 a.m. BT, 2 January at 3 a.m. EET, 2 January at 12 p.m. AET)
Check out this and this if you’re interested in location-specific MkeBucks #MkeBucksIRL meet-ups!
To keep the sub user friendly, game reactions/hot takes should go in this thread or the upcoming postgame thread (if you post something during or shortly after the game and it is removed, this is probably why).
GAME DETAILS
Time:The game is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. central time (23 December at 12 a.m. BT, 23 December at 2 a.m. EET, 23 December at 11 a.m. AET)
Check out this and this if you’re interested in location-specific MkeBucks #MkeBucksIRL meet-ups!
To keep the sub user friendly, game reactions/hot takes should go in this thread or the upcoming postgame thread (if you post something during or shortly after the game and it is removed, this is probably why).
GAME DETAILS
Time:The game is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. central time (5 January at 1:30 a.m. BT, 5 January at 3:30 a.m. EET, 5 January at 12:30 p.m. AET)
Check out this and this if you’re interested in location-specific MkeBucks #MkeBucksIRL meet-ups!
To keep the sub user friendly, game reactions/hot takes should go in this thread or the upcoming postgame thread (if you post something during or shortly after the game and it is removed, this is probably why).
GAME DETAILS
Time:The game is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. central time (29 December at 1:30 a.m. BT, 29 December at 3:30 a.m. EET, 29 December at 12:30 p.m. AET)
Let's talk about predatory practices in the videogame industry and what we can do as consumers.
Videogames hold a very dear place in my heart. They allow me a reprieve from the daily problems of my life. They give me a space to share with friends I wouldn’t have otherwise. Every so often, a videogame will say something that touches me deeply. I’ve cried at least a couple times at the end of Metal Gear Solid 4. Maybe your experience with videogames is not quite the same, but I bet what I say rings somewhat true for anyone who’s picked up the hobby. I’d argue that, as a piece of media, they’re works of art. They connect us and allow us to express ourselves. I’ve met some very special people to me, just by playing games online. And I’ve been able to play with them, in sandboxes and zombie infested lands and truly bonded over the time we’ve shared. But games are also the product of hard work. They still are a piece of media to be distributed. At the end of the day, a game must be sold to keep the lights on: there’s developers to be paid, assets to be invested in, and stakeholders to answer to. So game companies adopt DRM policies, to thwart piracy and defend their product. They research new ways to reach broader audiences, and to hold their attention over the competition. But I fear that, throughout the years, we’ve gotten it twisted. Game companies don’t talk in terms of “fun” but engagement nowadays. They don’t even call games as such anymore: platforms, live services – games as a service. But a service to who? I brought this question to a buddy who goes by the nickname EndlesNights, he replied with this: “It's clear they only care about their bottom lines… For instance, how can we be in a time with simultaneously both record setting high profits and yet people are being let go from these corporations?” “You can go into further details about the negative implications and implementations of always online DRM. For instance on launch day & during big events, the severs are almost always overstrained which prevents everyone from accessing the server. It creates an arbitrary expiry date for the game, where the severs will no longer be cost effective to maintain and no one will be able to launch the game anymore. It provides no benefits to the end users, and the general ficklety of the services has only turned potential customers away to acquire pirated & cracked copies.” A lot of these AAA companies CEOs don’t really care for the games they make. To them, it’s just another product. Bobby Kotick is infamous for many things. Among these, one that has stuck to the back of my mind was his belief that videogames should be sold like detergent. Back in 2005 he hired a couple of Proctor & Gambler ex-employees for his publishing division. When interviewed, this was his reply: "Processes that have worked well in packaged goods industry -- bringing goods to market, the process of market research and internalizing the business -- have all added the most value to our company…"Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/activision-adds-publishing-execs-with-pg-experience Fast-forward a bit: it’s 2009, and Activison just merged with Blizzard. A bunch of their IPs were dropped, and amongst these was Brutal Legend, which seemed like it would never be published under Activision. So Double Fine negotiated with EA, who would end up publishing the game. So, of course, Activison sues EA trying to block the release of the game.Source:https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jun-05-fi-ct-lawsuit5-story.html This is what Tim Schafer (Founder of Double Fine Productions) had to say regarding Mr. Kotick, after Double Fine got sued by Activision over the release of Brutal Legend by EA, back in 2010: "His obligation is to his shareholders… Well, he doesn't have to be as much of a dick about it, does he? I think there is a way he can do it without being a total prick… He [Kotick] makes a big deal about not liking games, and I just don't think that attitude is good for games in general. I just don't think we're an industry of widgets...” "We can approach it like we approach bars of soap, where you're just trying to make the cheapest bar of soap. He definitely has that that kind of widget-maker attitude. I don't think he's great for the industry, overall. You can't just latch onto something when it's popular and then squeeze the life out of it and then move on to the next one. You have to at some point create something, build something… Hopefully he'll go back to another industry soon.”Source: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/schafer-calls-bobby-kotick-a-total-prick The lawsuit was settled outside of court, btw. But the judge said he was “… strongly inclined to rule against Activision’s motion to stop the game’s release.” You draw your own conclusions.Source:https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-aug-07-fi-activision7-story.html So, it’s pretty clear that, at least for Activision’s CEO, games don’t hold value beyond the revenue they can bring into the company. The outcome? After the success of CoD 4, Modern Warfare, CoD became a franchise that released games yearly. The games weren’t that different from each other, and each came with it’s own new monetization scheme: microtransactions, map-packs, lootboxes, etc. This is bad. And what’s worse, the quality of the games isn’t always up to par. It can’t be, if you’re expected to pump out a product year after year, using a cookie cutter formula. And CoD isn’t the worst example of this kind of thing, it’s just the most popular and polished. The lead up question is, are we getting the short end of the stick as consumers? And I’m hoping to build a solid case of proof and evidence to say “Yes, we are!” This attitude is not localized to Activision, but widespread across the industry. It’s not the exception, is the rule. And, somehow throughout the years, we’ve just accepted this as the way things are. I feel that we, as gamers, make tons of excuses for game companies when they mess up in the pursuit of money, out of misplaced loyalty. Because the games they put out mean more to us than just entertainment. But AAA game companies abuse our demand for games. They wring us for all our worth with a smile and then heckle us in subtle, and not so subtle ways (Yes, I have a phone Blizzard, your game is still a free PoS for the Chinese market.) So, the real question is, what can we do about it? All we can do is try to rally together and vote with our wallets: the only language they understand. I'm here to tell you the current state of the market isn't fine. We’ve gotten to this point, not because games started out as 60 dollar products with a real cost of upwards 100 dollars and spendings on the side - we let it get to this point. I’m here to put forward the motion that, sometimes, we just have to let games we love die and move on. Another one will come to take it's place. It won't be the same, but it always does anyways. It is something regrettable, but when game companies predate on consumers this hard. Below, I’ve put together a list of companies I'm personally boycotting, along with videos and articles that back up the reasons I have for this boycott. IDK if anyone will care to go through this, I certainly hope at least one other person takes me seriously and at least reads through it, just to be informed. That’s all I can ask for.
EA
Lays off 350 people, while hiring a new CEO and giving him multimillion dollar bonus
FIFA 2020 was basically a copy paste of FIFA 2019 with no Quality Assurance. This is the best example of what yearly franchises actually are. You can tell here since it's unpolished: they just forces gamers to reset their progress to 0 and spend more money trying to play catch up with their last year's progress, all the while including very minor updates to the game itself.
They introduced microtransactions into a single player game, allowing you to prepurchase this, along with some day 1 dlc. Maybe it's to be expected now, and they’d done it before with Mass Effect 3 (And Ubisoft did it with Assassin’s Creed), butthey did it with reckless abandon.
Dead Space 3 will have microtransactions, to massive public uproar:
Always online DRM for a Single Player game! (Simcity 2013) This was one of the building blocks for games as a service, as this form of DRM is widely tolerated nowadays. They argued it was needed back then. They wouldn’t really say why.
Did I talk about the Sims online and how they only care about PR? Here's a BOOK on MMOs (just read the abstract), Second Life, and how messed up Sims online was: they never policed it, banned users if they gave them negative PR, not if they were hacking scumbags.
Bioware devs getting overworked to the point of breaking down (Stress Casualities!). This came out in an article by Kotaku’s Jason Schreier about Anthem.
Made Diablo 3 online only, added auction house while reducing drop rates to non-existence. On a loot-based dungeon crawler. They didn't even prepare for the amount of players who wanted to play their game at launch! They also backpedalled the AH by the expansion, upping the drop rates, prohibiting trading "because it's not in the spirit" (BTW they just wanted to stop players selling items on the side), but THE PROFIT by then. And we praised 'em for "fixing” the game after years. Ugh.
Bans player for freedom of speech. Players are on uproar. Congress gets in on the action. Blizzard backpedals publicly with the most NOTHING apology I've ever seen. Player (Blitzchung) is still banned.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY9vBu0z8NQNotice how the guy, almost by reflex, makes a disclaimer to defend his PoV after pointing out this clearly predatory practice (which it is, if you think of what a remaster should be and the actual cost in production compared to the OG release, but I digress). This is what we do to each other by defending the companies. We attack each other to see who’s right and wrong, instead of just letting people voice their opinion freely (likewise you could voice support in the company’s social media “keep doing you” and the such, but it takes all kinds. Again, I digress).
Honestly, maybe I'm a dinasour that's been around for a while but I remember when cosmetics were unlockables and not DLC (as late as 2009, just look at Resident Evil 5, and that game GOT chopped up into DLC). Remember the uproar surrounding Oblivion Horse armor?Video about Horse Armor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uopSzlYo7sg
Bethesda
Fallout 76 promising "No game-affecting dlc" and "no Season pass"
Removes Shadow of War lootboxes over half a year later. Backpedals like it's their sudden realization. What about all the players that already paid for lootboxes? What about the people that were upset about this for months?
BIG day 1 dlc offender. They chopped up some characters OFF their fighting game, then added them later as DLC. The reason how we know the characters were ready at launch is because the character's data CAME WITH THE DISC and the DLC just unlocked them. They sold you a full 60 dollar game and then wanted some more, by hiding the actual cost of the FULL game through sketchy means.
Full disclosure, personal grudge: Messed up MGS5. Had a fallout with Kojima, fired him, tried to remove him from the credits like he never was a part of it.
Conclusion: If it wasn't clear by now, the companies that come out with the game's ratings, like ESRB and PEGI, that should be watching out for consumers, just cover corporate interests! Parent’s get the short end of the stick and companies just reply with empty PR statements, like “You can check the Parental Controls for your system,” which is corporate lingo for “you’re not getting your money back, we don’t care, sorry not sorry.” Most of the money doesn't even go to the devs, if that wasn't obvious by now. They get overworked (sometimes forced to do up to 100 hours a week!), then they get laid off anyways. The money goes to executives and stakeholders, who give each other multi-million dollar bonuses and shares. These execs act like they are nice and care about the consumer, and they even do self-deprecating jokes like they are self-aware. It's just a facade to placate us, to stay on our good side while they suck more money away from us. Game companies don’t validate their users’ grievances. They act like nothing is wrong, shut up complainers until the noise gets too loud (which not always happens) and then just do the thing they’ve been told to do for months while pretending they came up with on their own, or act like it’s some sudden realization and they’ve always had our best interests in mind... If that isn't obvious scumbag behavior IDK what is. I believe it is time that we as consumers put our foot down. Not because everyone else is gonna do it too and we’re gonna enforce some major change, but just because we, as individuals, refuse to be abused so. It’s up to each of us. And if enough people follow suit the market WILL change. Even if it doesn’t, that’s not a good enough reason to keep meekly paying the abusive corporations. So, this is a list of practices I believe should be stopped, by not supporting games that enforce them:
Always online DRM.
Microtransactions on full 60 dollar games.
Microtransactions on exclusively Singleplayer games.
Time saving microtransactions. (If you have to save my time on a game I played for entertainment, then you’re crippling it by design, instead of focusing on making it fun… just so I have to spend money to MAKE it fun. Just give me back cheat codes.)
Pre-ordering (stop throwing your money at incomplete products and empty promises out of hype and misplaced loyalty).
Season passes
Justifying gating all good cosmetics behind microtransactions “because they don’t affect gameplay anyway”.I want to touch on this one.Cosmetics affect my gameplay experience. Growing up, a favorite part of a bunch of games was customizing my character, making it feel my own. It matters, that’s why game companies charge 10 dollars for a bunch of pixels; because enough players pay for those. Just look to Minecraft and Terraria and all those sandboxes, for crying out loud, and tell me it would be the same without the creative freedom to mod in your own skins. Why are we defending them taking that away and gating it behind MORE money? I’m not saying “DLC that comes afterwards should be free”. I’m saying, when I pay for a full priced game, I expect the full content they got, not a maimed version of it. I’m not buying a game in installments, that’s what episodic games are for.Seriously, there’s even a sense of elitism between paying players and “base skin” players in many games (Fortnite comes to mind prominently). Here, check out this talk that explains the psychology behind it in brutally honest terms by the very corporate execs that don’t really care about their consumers. Infamous Video - Let’s go whaling: Tricks for monetizing mobile game players with free-to-play:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4
With that said, Battle Passes also get on the list. On top of wanting you to spend money on cosmetics, they make you grind for them. You’re no longer buying the cosmetic, you’re buying the option to get the cosmetic by investing ungodly amount of hours on their product, on top of whatever price the Battle Pass has. This is just psychological manipulation on top of unfair content gating.
Gambling in video games: from lootboxes, to NBA’s predatory attempt on children. All of it. Gambling in videogames should receive an “Adult Only” rating, but if you can’t trust the ratings companies, why would you even risk being exposed to this BS?
Why support any of this anymore? Disclaimer: This is my take on the matter. I’ve tried to be impartial and back-up my arguments and provide as much info as I can. Truth be told, I’m quite bitter, and I’m aware. This list hurts me. I'd rather not support companies that make their living off the blood and sweat of hardworking people, and then spit in their faces. Who abuse the consumer and e-sport players and then try to take it back with lies. Who apologize like a manipulator trying to keep you nice and subdued, but do nothing about it. We get a choice of which business practices we support and which we don't. It's up to each of us. I don’t fully expect many people to actively boycott these companies: they do provide us with valued entertainment. But I urge anyone who reads this to not be so quick to forgive, and to never forget what it used to be like, how we got here today, and what it’s cost us. I leave you with this: These videosare a more in-depth look behind these scummy practices, and break it down pretty neatly, top to bottom. CAAApitalism: The Successful Failure of Videogames (The Jimquisition). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmW0GhdDOvw The Trouble with the Video Game Industry | Philosphy Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYkLVU5UGM8
Imagine if there was one desk that all stories could cross so that, at 4am, a media plan could be decided upon and disseminated where all news outlets coordinated to set the goalposts of debate and hyper focused on specific issues to drive a narrative to control how you vote and how you spend money; where Internet shills were given marching orders in tandem to what was shown on television, printed in newspapers and spread throughout articles on the World Wide Web. https://i.imgur.com/Elnci0M.png In the past, we had Operation Mockingbird, where the program was supremely confident that it could control stories around the world, even in instructions to cover up any story about a possible “Yeti” sighting, should it turn out they were real. https://i.imgur.com/121LXqy.png If, in 1959, the government was confident in its ability to control a story about a Yeti, then what is their level of confidence in controlling stories, today? https://i.imgur.com/jQFVYew.png https://i.imgur.com/ZKMYGJj.png In fact, we have a recent example of a situation similar to the Yeti. When Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch met on the TARMAC to spike the Hillary email investigation, the FBI was so confident it wasn’t them, that their entire focus was finding the leaker, starting with searching within the local PD. We have documentation that demonstrates the state of mind of the confidence the upper levels of the FBI have when dealing with the media. https://i.imgur.com/IbjDOkI.png https://i.imgur.com/NH86ozU.png The marriage between mainstream media and government is a literal one and this arrangement is perfectly legal. https://i.imgur.com/OAd4vpf.png But, this problem extends far beyond politics; the private sector, the scientific community, even advice forums are shilled heavily. People are paid to cause anxiety, recommend people break up and otherwise sow depression and nervousness. This is due to a correlating force that employs “systems psychodynamics”, focusing on “tension centered” strategies to create “organizational paradoxes” by targeting people’s basic assumptions about the world around them to create division and provide distraction. https://i.imgur.com/6OEWYFN.png https://i.imgur.com/iG4sdD4.png https://i.imgur.com/e89Rx6B.png https://i.imgur.com/uotm9Cg.png https://i.imgur.com/74wt9tD.png In this day and age, it is even easier to manage these concepts and push a controlled narrative from a central figure than it has ever been. Allen & Co is a “boutique investment firm” that managed the merger between Disney and Fox and operates as an overseeing force for nearly all media and Internet shill armies, while having it’s fingers in sports, social media, video games, health insurance, etc. https://i.imgur.com/zlpBh3c.png https://i.imgur.com/e5ZvFFJ.png Former director of the CIA and Paul Brennan’s former superior George Tenet, holds the reigns of Allen & Co. The cast of characters involves a lot of the usual suspects. https://i.imgur.com/3OlrX7G.png
In 1973, Allen & Company bought a stake in Columbia Pictures. When the business was sold in 1982 to Coca-Cola, it netted a significant profit. Since then, Herbert Allen, Jr. has had a place on Coca-Cola's board of directors. Since its founding in 1982, the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference has regularly drawn high-profile attendees such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Rupert Murdoch, Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Oprah Winfrey, Robert Johnson, Andy Grove, Richard Parsons, and Donald Keough. Allen & Co. was one of ten underwriters for the Google initial public offering in 2004. In 2007, Allen was sole advisor to Activision in its $18 billion merger with Vivendi Games. In 2011, the New York Mets hired Allen & Co. to sell a minority stake of the team. That deal later fell apart. In November 2013, Allen & Co. was one of seven underwriters on the initial public offering of Twitter. Allen & Co. was the adviser of Facebook in its $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp in February 2014. In 2015, Allen & Co. was the advisor to Time Warner in its $80 billion 2015 merger with Charter Communications, AOL in its acquisition by Verizon, Centene Corporation in its $6.8 billion acquisition of Health Net, and eBay in its separation from PayPal. In 2016, Allen & Co was the lead advisor to Time Warner in its $108 billion acquisition by AT&T, LinkedIn for its merger talks with Microsoft, Walmart in its $3.3 billion purchase of Jet.com, and Verizon in its $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo!. In 2017, Allen & Co. was the advisor to Chewy.com in PetSmart’s $3.35 billion purchase of the online retailer.
Previous conference guests have included Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren and Susan Buffett, Tony Blair, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Allen alumnus and former Philippine Senator Mar Roxas, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, Quicken Loans Founder & Chairman Dan Gilbert, Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang, financier George Soros, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch, eBay CEO Meg Whitman, BET founder Robert Johnson, Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons, Nike founder and chairman Phil Knight, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, NBA player LeBron James, Professor and Entrepreneur Sebastian Thrun, Governor Chris Christie, entertainer Dan Chandler, Katharine Graham of The Washington Post, Diane Sawyer, InterActiveCorp Chairman Barry Diller, Linkedin co-founder Reid Hoffman, entrepreneur Wences Casares, EXOR and FCA Chairman John Elkann, Sandro Salsano from Salsano Group, and Washington Post CEO Donald E. Graham, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, and Oprah Winfrey.
https://i.imgur.com/VZ0OtFa.png George Tenet, with the reigns of Allen & Co in his hands, is able to single-handedly steer the entire Mockingbird apparatus from cable television to video games to Internet shills from a singular location determining the spectrum of allowable debate. Not only are they able to target people’s conscious psychology, they can target people’s endocrine systems with food and pornography; where people are unaware, on a conscious level, of how their moods and behavior are being manipulated. https://i.imgur.com/mA3MzTB.png
"The problem with George Tenet is that he doesn't seem to care to get his facts straight. He is not meticulous. He is willing to make up stories that suit his purposes and to suppress information that does not." "Sadly but fittingly, 'At the Center of the Storm' is likely to remind us that sometimes what lies at the center of a storm is a deafening silence."
https://i.imgur.com/YHMJnnP.png Tenet joined President-elect Bill Clinton's national security transition team in November 1992. Clinton appointed Tenet Senior Director for Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council, where he served from 1993 to 1995. Tenet was appointed Deputy Director of Central Intelligence in July 1995. Tenet held the position as the DCI from July 1997 to July 2004. Citing "personal reasons," Tenet submitted his resignation to President Bush on June 3, 2004. Tenet said his resignation "was a personal decision and had only one basis—in fact, the well-being of my wonderful family—nothing more and nothing less. In February 2008, he became a managing director at investment bank Allen & Company. https://i.imgur.com/JnGHqOS.png We have the documentation that demonstrates what these people could possibly be doing with all of these tools of manipulation at their fingertips. The term for it is “covert political action” for which all media put before your eyes is used to serve as a veneer… a reality TV show facade of a darker modus operandum. https://i.imgur.com/vZC4D29.png https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol36no3/html/v36i3a05p_0001.htm
It is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means and at whatever costs. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If the US is to survive, longstanding American concepts of "fair play" must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated means than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy.
Intelligence historian Jeffrey T. Richelson says the S.A. has covered a variety of missions. The group, which recently was reorganized, has had about 200 officers, divided among several groups: the Special Operations Group; the Foreign Training Group, which trains foreign police and intelligence officers; the Propaganda and Political Action Group, which handles disinformation; the Computer Operations Group, which handles information warfare; and the Proprietary Management Staff, which manages whatever companies the CIA sets up as covers for the S.A.
…Those operations we inaugurated in the years 1955-7 are still secret, but, for present purposes, I can say all that’s worth saying about them in a few sentences – after, that is, I offer these few words of wisdom. The ‘perfect’ political action operation is, by definition, uneventful. Nothing ‘happens’ in it. It is a continuing arrangement, neither a process nor a series of actions proceeding at a starting point and ending with a conclusion.
CIA FBI NSA Personnel Active in Scientology: https://i.imgur.com/acu2Eti.png When you consider the number of forces that can be contained within a single “political action group” in the form on a “boutique investment firm,” where all sides of political arguments are predetermined by a selected group of actors who have been planted, compromised or leveraged in some way in order to control the way they spin their message. https://i.imgur.com/tU4MD4S.png The evidence of this coordinated effort is overwhelming and the “consensus” that you see on TV, in sports, in Hollywood, in the news and on the Internet is fabricated.
Under the guise of a fake account a posting is made which looks legitimate and is towards the truth is made - but the critical point is that it has a VERY WEAK PREMISE without substantive proof to back the posting. Once this is done then under alternative fake accounts a very strong position in your favour is slowly introduced over the life of the posting. It is IMPERATIVE that both sides are initially presented, so the uninformed reader cannot determine which side is the truth. As postings and replies are made the stronger 'evidence' or disinformation in your favour is slowly 'seeded in.' Thus the uninformed reader will most likely develop the same position as you, and if their position is against you their opposition to your posting will be most likely dropped. However in some cases where the forum members are highly educated and can counter your disinformation with real facts and linked postings, you can then 'abort' the consensus cracking by initiating a 'forum slide.'
When you find yourself feeling like common sense and common courtesy aren’t as common as they ought to be, it is because there is a massive psychological operation controlled from the top down to ensure that as many people as possible are caught in a “tension based” mental loop that is inflicted on them by people acting with purpose to achieve goals that are not in the interest of the general population, but a method of operating in secret and corrupt manner without consequences. Notice that Jeffrey Katzenberg, of Disney, who is intertwined with Allen & Co funds the Young Turks. He is the perfect example of the relationship between media and politics.
Katzenberg has also been involved in politics. With his active support of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, he was called "one of Hollywood's premier political kingmakers and one of the Democratic Party's top national fundraisers."
Last week, former DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg’s new mobile entertainment company WndrCo was part of a $20 million funding round in TYT Network, which oversees 30 news and commentary shows covering politics, pop culture, sports and more. This includes the flagship “The Young Turks” program that streams live on YouTube every day. Other investors in the round included venture capital firms Greycroft Partners, E.ventures and 3L Capital, which led the round. This brings total funding for Young Turks to $24 million.
Hollywood activism long has been depicted as a club controlled by a handful of powerful white men: Katzenberg, Spielberg, Lear, David Geffen, Haim Saban and Bob Iger are the names most often mentioned. But a new generation of power brokers is ascendant, including J.J. Abrams and his wife, Katie McGrath, cited for their personal donations and bundling skills; Shonda Rhimes, who held a get-out-the-vote rally at USC's Galen Center on Sept. 28 that drew 10,000 people; CAA's Darnell Strom, who has hosted events for Nevada congresswoman Jacky Rosen and Arizona congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema; and former Spotify executive Troy Carter, who held three fundraisers for Maryland gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous (Carter also was a fundraiser for President Obama).
Viacom, after splitting off from Les Moonves Les Moonves ' CBS , still holds Paramount Pictures, and that movie studio in December agreed to acquire DreamWorks SKG, the creative shop founded by the Hollywood triumvirate of Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg (a former exec at The Walt Disney Co.). DreamWorks Animation had been spun off into a separate company. Now it's time for Freston to make back some money--and who better to do a little business with than George Soros? The billionaire financier leads a consortium of Soros Strategic Partners LP and Dune Entertainment II LLC, which together are buying the DreamWorks library--a collection of 59 flicks, including Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator, and American Beauty.
NBA Daily Fantasy Plays & Stats ( November 11, 2019 ) from CheatSheetPros!
NBA Plays & Stats for November 11th from CheatSheetPros! << UP arrow if you like the content in this forum! >> QUICK NEWS AND NOTES: With NBA season now in full swing we launched our NBA Algo Best Bets and advised people to play #1 and #2 rated games!We started off 3-2 (just missing a 4-1 opening night) then we followed that up with a 6-0 Saturday and 4-0 Sunday for an amazing 13-2 run for the 2019/2020 NBA Season!Our top GPP Algo plays have also been off to a red hot start! FREE NBA OPTIMIZER (COMING SOON!) We have been providing a FREE NFL Web Optimizer and now our Draftkings version of our NBA Optimizer is only a couple days away from being live!So stay tuned! PLAYERS TO CONSIDER FOR YOUR LINEUPS: I’m not going to focus on the cheap value plays that are popping up all over as everyone is well aware of them.I’m going to focus on some GPP players in good spots with high upside. BRANDON INGRAM (7800) – Across 8 games this year he is averaging a nice 47.7 DK points which is just over 6x his current salary. He has also exceeded 55 DK points in 3 of those 8 games with a high of 63.25 DK points. He has a nice game total of 243 and Houston is allowing 9 more points to his position than league average for a 9.7% improved spot. Not to mention he dropped 60+ last time he faced them. Should be in line for a solid 5x floor and good shot at 6x value. LAMARCUS ALDRIDGE (6300) – What jumps out at me here is that MEM is giving up 23.5% of their total points to the C position. That is 56.6 points per game. Game total is also at 224 and he is coming off a 57 DK point outing. He has stuck around that 30ish point mark with a couple duds but that is why we are only using him in GPP and not cash. Low floor but in a spot for big upside. When he had the 57 point game vs. OKC he took 23 shots and put up 39 actual points. He could be in line for another big game coming off an almost 9x performance! KRISTAPS PORZINGIS (7200) – I love this “sweet spot pricing” of guys in the 6500-8000 range that can hit 50 points. Game total of 219 and BOS is a tough matchup. They are giving up 24.1% of their total fantasy points to his primary position and that is 52.7 fantasy points. If you don’t normally follow along anything over 21-22% is a monstrous number for percentage of points allowed. 2 of his last 6 games he has been over 50 DK points giving you a solid ceiling. RUDY GOBERT (7600) – GSW should have Draymond back tonight but they are still giving up a ton of points to the C position. 24.6% of their total points allowed have come from the C and that is 59.7 DK points! Projected to play 32-34 minutes tonight we are looking at Gobert in GPPs. I also don’t mind him in cash with a floor around 4.5x to 5x I think he can reach up a little higher for GPPs. We have only seen a 48 point game from once this year. DERRICK ROSE (5800) – Questionable for tonight. His value returned in his last 6 games has been 7.1, 5.4, 3.4, 9.5, 5.8 and 7.6. That is what you want in a GPP. You want that BIG CEILING. He is playing anywhere from 21-28 minutes per game but taking double digit shot attempts. At 5800 for 5x value we need 29 points. I think 29 is his floor if he is playing tonight and he has 40-46 points as a recent ceiling. MIN is giving up 52.2 points to his position and that is 22.5% of the total points they are allowing. Whoever is on the perimeter tonight give them some consideration! D’ANGELO RUSSELL (8300) – GPP only play here. UTA is a tough matchup and they play at a slow pace. The game total is only 213 and their team implied total is 102. UTA only allows 41.6 points to the PG position. However, we want low owned guys that can explode. I’m waiting for ownership projections but with the matchup I think his ownership will be down. He is coming off 48, 83 and 49 DK point games! RUSSELL WESTBROOK (8800) – His last 3 games he only has 36, 40 and 25 DK points and those accounted for 4.3x and lower values while Harden was going bonkers. His price tag has dropped from 9800 to 9100 to 9400 and now breaking the 9k mark at 8800! I’m hoping that his recent performance woes people will gravitate toward Harden at 11,500. He did have a string of 5 games where he put up 62, 65, 50, 57 and 57 DK points and those were good for 5.4x value up to 7.1x value. With a game total of 243 points and a team total of 124 points he has plenty of wiggle room tonight. NOR is allowing 57.7 points to the PG position which is 23.7% of their total points allowed. They are only allowing 47.5 points to the SG position but still Harden is un-guardable. CORRELATED GPP PLAYS: I love to find guys that are correlated in regards to their performance on the court.An example is Harden vs. Westbrook.They are inversely related more than 80% of the time.So let’s look at recent games.On 11/09 Harden goes for 75 points and Westbrook a stinker at only 36, 11/06 Harden goes for 74.5 and Westbrook a stinker at 40.Earlier in the year when Westbrook went off for 65 points Harden only had 40.5.A couple of games they both his and exceeded value but rarely do both of them smash.Why is this important?If you are running 20 GPP lineups in a 20 max contents put Harden locked inWITHOUTWestbrook in 10 and then flip it and run 10 with Westbrook locked in and no Harden.I see so many people putting both players in a lineup.If you are looking at our “Player Tracker” sheet you can see the relationships between players by scrolling back over recent performance. Danuel House (5300) & P.J. Tucker (5200)are also inversely related.If you are reading this in the article form I’ll include a screen shot, if you are reading this in a forum the screen shot won’t be below but you can reference the article for the screen shot.I just want to hit on the last 3 games: House 33 points vs. Tucker 20 points, Tucker 46 points vs. House 28.5 points, House 36 points vs. Tucker 10.5 points.So if you want to go a step further with those 20 GPP lineups you can do 5 with Harden + Tucker, 5 with Harden + House, 5 with Westbrook + Tucker and 5 with Westbrook + House.Now when the Houston game goes off you have 5 lineups with 2 monster guys and you might get lucky and they all hit value.Just my thoughts. FREE PREMIUM SHEET THURSDAYS!(Free group here and you get some premium member benefits just by being in the group!) {Remember we post our Premium Cheatsheets for FREE on Thursdays in our Facebook group: http://www.Facebook.com/groups/HazeSheets/} FREE FLICK GROUP CHAT->https://flickchat.page.link/VnJBhbF75TtAjN1J8 < Join us on flick as it is a free app for your phone so we can chat about daily fantasy sports, season long sports and sport betting picks.> Thank you for reading and good luck! Haze
NBA Daily Fantasy Plays (November 11, 2019) from CheatSheetPros!
NBA Plays & Stats for November 11th from CheatSheetPros! << UP arrow if you like the free content! >> QUICK NEWS AND NOTES: With NBA season now in full swing we launched our NBA Algo Best Bets and advised people to play #1 and #2 rated games!We started off 3-2 (just missing a 4-1 opening night) then we followed that up with a 6-0 Saturday and 4-0 Sunday for an amazing 13-2 run for the 2019/2020 NBA Season!Our top GPP Algo plays have also been off to a red hot start! FREE NBA OPTIMIZER (COMING SOON!) We have been providing a FREE NFL Web Optimizer and now our Draftkings version of our NBA Optimizer is only a couple days away from being live!So stay tuned! PLAYERS TO CONSIDER FOR YOUR LINEUPS: I’m not going to focus on the cheap value plays that are popping up all over as everyone is well aware of them.I’m going to focus on some GPP players in good spots with high upside. BRANDON INGRAM (7800) – Across 8 games this year he is averaging a nice 47.7 DK points which is just over 6x his current salary. He has also exceeded 55 DK points in 3 of those 8 games with a high of 63.25 DK points. He has a nice game total of 243 and Houston is allowing 9 more points to his position than league average for a 9.7% improved spot. Not to mention he dropped 60+ last time he faced them. Should be in line for a solid 5x floor and good shot at 6x value. LAMARCUS ALDRIDGE (6300) – What jumps out at me here is that MEM is giving up 23.5% of their total points to the C position. That is 56.6 points per game. Game total is also at 224 and he is coming off a 57 DK point outing. He has stuck around that 30ish point mark with a couple duds but that is why we are only using him in GPP and not cash. Low floor but in a spot for big upside. When he had the 57 point game vs. OKC he took 23 shots and put up 39 actual points. He could be in line for another big game coming off an almost 9x performance! KRISTAPS PORZINGIS (7200) – I love this “sweet spot pricing” of guys in the 6500-8000 range that can hit 50 points. Game total of 219 and BOS is a tough matchup. They are giving up 24.1% of their total fantasy points to his primary position and that is 52.7 fantasy points. If you don’t normally follow along anything over 21-22% is a monstrous number for percentage of points allowed. 2 of his last 6 games he has been over 50 DK points giving you a solid ceiling. RUDY GOBERT (7600) – GSW should have Draymond back tonight but they are still giving up a ton of points to the C position. 24.6% of their total points allowed have come from the C and that is 59.7 DK points! Projected to play 32-34 minutes tonight we are looking at Gobert in GPPs. I also don’t mind him in cash with a floor around 4.5x to 5x I think he can reach up a little higher for GPPs. We have only seen a 48 point game from once this year. DERRICK ROSE (5800) – Questionable for tonight. His value returned in his last 6 games has been 7.1, 5.4, 3.4, 9.5, 5.8 and 7.6. That is what you want in a GPP. You want that BIG CEILING. He is playing anywhere from 21-28 minutes per game but taking double digit shot attempts. At 5800 for 5x value we need 29 points. I think 29 is his floor if he is playing tonight and he has 40-46 points as a recent ceiling. MIN is giving up 52.2 points to his position and that is 22.5% of the total points they are allowing. Whoever is on the perimeter tonight give them some consideration! D’ANGELO RUSSELL (8300) – GPP only play here. UTA is a tough matchup and they play at a slow pace. The game total is only 213 and their team implied total is 102. UTA only allows 41.6 points to the PG position. However, we want low owned guys that can explode. I’m waiting for ownership projections but with the matchup I think his ownership will be down. He is coming off 48, 83 and 49 DK point games! RUSSELL WESTBROOK (8800) – His last 3 games he only has 36, 40 and 25 DK points and those accounted for 4.3x and lower values while Harden was going bonkers. His price tag has dropped from 9800 to 9100 to 9400 and now breaking the 9k mark at 8800! I’m hoping that his recent performance woes people will gravitate toward Harden at 11,500. He did have a string of 5 games where he put up 62, 65, 50, 57 and 57 DK points and those were good for 5.4x value up to 7.1x value. With a game total of 243 points and a team total of 124 points he has plenty of wiggle room tonight. NOR is allowing 57.7 points to the PG position which is 23.7% of their total points allowed. They are only allowing 47.5 points to the SG position but still Harden is un-guardable. CORRELATED GPP PLAYS: I love to find guys that are correlated in regards to their performance on the court.An example is Harden vs. Westbrook.They are inversely related more than 80% of the time.So let’s look at recent games.On 11/09 Harden goes for 75 points and Westbrook a stinker at only 36, 11/06 Harden goes for 74.5 and Westbrook a stinker at 40.Earlier in the year when Westbrook went off for 65 points Harden only had 40.5.A couple of games they both his and exceeded value but rarely do both of them smash.Why is this important?If you are running 20 GPP lineups in a 20 max contents put Harden locked inWITHOUTWestbrook in 10 and then flip it and run 10 with Westbrook locked in and no Harden.I see so many people putting both players in a lineup.If you are looking at our “Player Tracker” sheet you can see the relationships between players by scrolling back over recent performance. Danuel House (5300) & P.J. Tucker (5200)are also inversely related.If you are reading this in the article form I’ll include a screen shot, if you are reading this in a forum the screen shot won’t be below but you can reference the article for the screen shot.I just want to hit on the last 3 games: House 33 points vs. Tucker 20 points, Tucker 46 points vs. House 28.5 points, House 36 points vs. Tucker 10.5 points.So if you want to go a step further with those 20 GPP lineups you can do 5 with Harden + Tucker, 5 with Harden + House, 5 with Westbrook + Tucker and 5 with Westbrook + House.Now when the Houston game goes off you have 5 lineups with 2 monster guys and you might get lucky and they all hit value.Just my thoughts. FREE PREMIUM SHEET THURSDAYS!(Free group here and you get some premium member benefits just by being in the group!) {Remember we post our Premium Cheatsheets for FREE on Thursdays in our Facebook group: http://www.Facebook.com/groups/HazeSheets/} FREE FLICK GROUP CHAT->https://flickchat.page.link/VnJBhbF75TtAjN1J8 < Join us on flick as it is a free app for your phone so we can chat about daily fantasy sports, season long sports and sport betting picks.> REDDIT SUB GROUP: www.reddit.com/FantasyNBAPlays Thank you for reading and good luck! Haze
Has anyone ever tried to start one of these? I see people posting about live bets in a lot of sports on this forum so just was wondering if maybe we could put them all in one spot? I personally like live betting hockey if a fave goes down early or if a heavy fave is down by 1 or 2 going into the 3rd period. I know a lot of people have had success live betting on NBA games when one team gets off to a hot start and the spread moves drastically. Figured maybe this would spark some people’s interest?
I created an algorithm to help me decide which hockey team to support in my inaugural season of NHL fandom. Here are the results!
Hello hockey As the title states, I have created a mathematical formula to decide what hockey team I will support. I will break up this post into a few sections to make it easier to read (aka casually skim through until the very end to see the results). There will be a TLDR at the end of each section. WHY Let’s start off with a little background for this fun scientific experiment. I live in a little midwest state by the name of Indiana. You may have heard of us. We’re known for many things, such as basketball (yay!) and the Indy 500 (meh). Outside of Larry Bird, Tony Stewart, and casual racism from everyone’s grandparents, there’s not too much else here. Anyway, growing up in the mid-to-late 1990s, Indiana was a great place in terms of sports. The Indiana Pacers were a consistently great team, thanks to Reggie Miller & company (still sad no titles). The Colts were up-and-coming with the one and only Peyton Manning. Bobby Knight still coached IU basketball and there was still an air of success around the program. Like most kids in Indiana at the time, I gravitated towards basketball. Fast forward to today. Here I am, nearly 26 years old. The Pacers heyday has come and gone, with our biggest star in 20 years now gone. IU basketball is the shell of a program it used to be, with the team flirting with relevancy during my days as a student there (2010-2014), before spiraling down to our current state of mid-tier in the Big Ten. The Colts, even though we secured a Super Bowl, felt like there should’ve been 2 or 3 more, and will forever be known as postseason choke artists of the 2000s. Enter the 2017 NBA and NHL Playoffs. The 2017 NBA playoffs was essentially a two month time period where some groups of guys tried to throw pebbles at a couple of Apache Attack Helicopters. Like when you’re playing Civilization, and you move your tanks into a group of crossbowmen. From day one of this NBA season, everyone knew the Finals would be the Warriors vs the Cavs. I love watching basketball, especially playoffs, but first three rounds of the NBA playoffs were hard to watch. Very few close, exciting games, with lots of blow outs. This left a void in my heart. I needed to watch something sports related before we got to the worst time of the year (the time of year where basketball is over and football has yet to begin, and the only sport to watch on TV is baseball. In-person, baseball is fine. You get some fresh air, some hotdogs, and a couple beers with some friends. Good times. But who wants to watch a full baseball game on TV? 55 year old, white, recently divorced fathers, that’s who. Seeing as how I am only one of those things (I’ll let you guess which), I did NOT want to spend the last couple months before baseball-only season with no entertaining sports. So, as I was watching my Pacers give up the largest playoff lead in NBA playoff history, I decided to flip over to some playoff hockey. It was so fun! I ended up watching Rangers vs Habs (Rangers won 3-2 in OT) and Sharks vs Oilers (Oilers won in OT). I struggled to understand some of what was going on, but it was EXCITING! So the next day, I watched the Caps beat the Leafs in OT, and Bruins beat the Sens in OT. And you know what, THOSE GAMES WERE EXCITING TOO (Well, Bruins - Sens was kind of exciting. More on that later). I barely even watched the NBA Playoffs that night, I was hooked. So I started popping into hockey and lurking through some of the game threads. I saw some gifs of Fleury doing silly things like hiding the puck from the refs, pat the goal-posts when a puck bounces off the iron, and even jerk off his stick when the handle saved a goal. Charles Barkley started preaching about the NHL being awesome, and I’ve always admired Chuck for telling it like it is. I saw both the exciting side and the silly side of the NHL in this subreddit. I knew I could get into this sport. Prior to those two nights of playoff hockey, my exposure to hockey was minimal. In 2002, when I was 11, I got the videogame Backyard Hockey for PC for my birthday. Martin Brodeur was my team’s goalie, and Jaromir Jagr lead my team in points. I chose the Flames as my franchise, because to an 11 year old, WHAT’S COOLER THAN FIRE!?! C is the letter of my first name, which as you know is also Calgary’s logo, so naturally, I had to pick them. I even renamed them the Calgary Caleb’s. What a fucking dynasty. 12 straight undefeated seasons. Wow, such an amazing run. One for the record books. That’s the only thing I remember from that video game. I didn’t play the game much after a month or so, because that is when I got sucked into Morrowind for hundreds of hours. The only other exposure I had into hockey was during college. Like I said earlier, I went to Indiana University, and of course, that school was LOADED with Blackhawk bandwagoners. I hadn’t seen a single Hawks jersey on campus until they won the cup in 2013, and then they were everywhere. This annoyed me. So the following year, I was out at the bars and the 2014 NHL Playoffs had just started. It was game 1 between the Blues and the Hawks, and of course, the bar was packed with people wearing Blackhawks jerseys, not even watching the game. Me, being slightly intoxicated, started heckling everyone wearing a Hawks jersey. “GOOOOOOOO BLUE TEAM!” I repeatedly shouted. Finally, after 3 OTs, the Blues won the game, so I began heckling even more. I’m surprised I didn’t get in a fight, but after a while, I realized it’s because the Hawks fans there were just bandwagoning and probably didn’t really care. Fun Fact: The number of fights I got into that night is equal to the number of games the Blackhawks won this postseason. Once I got sucked into the NHL playoffs this year, I knew I wanted to get into hockey for real. The problem was, I live in central Indiana. I can’t just support my local team, because I don’t have a local team. I thought about being a Blues fan (GOOOO BLUE TEAM!), but I didn’t really like the idea of supporting a team solely out of my disdain for the fans of another team (Hawks). I wanted to be fully invested in the team. I also considered the Golden Knights, but then I remembered this article from fivethirtyeight. I could totally come up with something like that for my own. After an hour or so of tweaking and determining criteria, the algorithm was born. TLDR: Channel Surfed to 2017 NHL Playoffs, games were awesome, no local team for me to support, time to create a (mostly) unbiased formula. METHODOLOGY Warning, some dry math-shit ahead. I will be assigning a score of 1 to 10 for every single team against a set of criteria. Each criteria will be weighted. I decided to score every NHL team on the following 14 criteria. 1. Jersey and Logo Coolness. Very much a personal opinion here. I wouldn't want to support a team wearing the Mooterus Stars jersey or the Fisherman Islanders jersey. Granted, there really isn't anything quite as ugly as those currently but I will also try and factor in throwback uniforms and logos as well. 2. Quality of Best Player (Skill + Likability). It's important to have a marketable player, both via skill and personality. For example, Crosby would score very high skill-wise, but low on the likeability factor. Half the score here is skill, the other half likability. This was 1 of 2 criteria that generated a lot of internal argument 3. Geographic Closeness. The closest team to where I live is the Blue Jackets at 3 hours 20 minutes(drive time). They will serve as the baseline 10 for this criteria. Every additional 2 hours past 3 hours 20 minutes will result in a loss of a point. Google maps will serve as the utility for which time is measured 4. Quality of Fanbase. Are you fans classy, or are they all inconsiderate douchebags? Low score = hostile fans or fair weather fans. 5. Appearance of bandwagoning if supporting. Nobody likes a bandwagoner. Indiana University was filled with Blackhawk jerseys after they won the Stanley Cup. I hadn't seen a single Blackhawks jersey prior. I find this type of behavior extremely annoying, so I do not want to join a team that has a high bandwagon factor. A low score indicates a high bandwagon appearance. 6. Potential for next 5 years (Youth + Assets). I want to support a team that doesn't necessarily have to be a contender to win it all next year, but I would like to support a team that at least is considered to be a on the upswing. This was the other criteria that generated a lot of internal argument 7. Past Postseason Success. Self Explanatory. 8. Franchise Reputation. Is the franchise known for having a great GM, making savvy personnel decisions, being considered a model franchise by other franchises and other fans? Think the San Antonio Spurs of the NHL. 9. Quality of Goal Song / Power Play Song. A small factor that shouldn't be overlooked. A good goal song should be happy and joyful, a good power play song should stir excitement. I don't even know if all teams have a goal or power play song, but if you don't, you're wrong and I hate you. I concede, Chelsea Dagger is a great goal song 10. Entertainment Factor. I don't care if my future team goes 82-0 if they win every game 1-0 with a goal in the first period. I want to support a team that will excite, for better or worse. Kind of like the Capitals being a choke-hazard. Ottawa, on the other hand, is notorious for running a 1-3-1, which in layman’s terms, translates to “Boring AF”. (The first Sens - Bruins game I watched this post-season wasn’t that bad, but as the playoffs progressed, I started to get worn down by their style) 11. Disposition for City Based Upon Other Sport Fandom And Other Personal Experiences. I like basketball and football. I used to be a bigger baseball fan, but that has waned off in the past 6-7 years. I still pay attention, but not to the degree of the other two sports. Naturally, the teams I support (Pacers, Colts, Reds) have rivals. It would pain me to be a fan of the Bruins, because I know that a lot of Bruin fans are also Patriot fans. Same with Chicago because of Bulls vs Pacers. A low score here indicates that I do not like other sports teams in this city. I will also factor in personal experiences if I have ever been to the city in question. 12. Coaching. Nothing more infuriating in sports than having a great roster with poor direction from the coach. I have much experience with that feeling, unfortunately. (See the 2013 IU Men’s Basketball team, who was ranked number 1 in the nation, but couldn’t break a fucking zone defense from Syracuse in the Sweet Sixteen. Really, Tom Crean? Really? That’s middle school stuff right there) 13. Arena Quality. How bad is the arena in need of renovations? Is there a new stadium coming? Does the stadium kick ass? I plan on actually traveling to see a game in the next year or two, a nice arena would be welcome. 14. Strength In Advanced Stats. My friend Jacob, the advanced stats nerd of a hockey fan, suggested this criteria. He created a custom formula to rank every team in this area. Here is his write-up for the formula he created. Warning, even dryer math-shit ahead. Skip this quoted area to get on with the methodology. No seriously, this shit is dry. You have been warned
GOALIES To summarize goalie performance, I wanted to use season-by-season goals saved above average (GSAA). Basic formula: GSAA=Saves-(Total ShotsLeague Average season save%)* Summary: "How many more saves did this goalie make than a league-average goalie would have made on the same amount of shots?" (higher is better). This takes into account ever-changing league average save% and weights for shot quantity. However, this alone does not factor in shot quality which in my mind is an important factor as well, to remove team defensive ability from the goalie’s performance. If a goalie pads his stats with saves on low-quality shots, what does that truly say about his ability? To include shot quality, I pulled goalie save data from firstlinestats.com, which has shots categorized by low/medium/high danger. I computed the league average for each of these danger categories & calculated every goalie’s GSAA for each category. I then rounded all 3 up into one number, which was weighted as such: Weighted GSAA=1.2High Danger GSAA+Medium Danger GSAA+0.8*Low Danger GSAA * Validity sniff test: In the 2016-17 season, the top 2 goalies by my calculations were Cam Talbot and Sergei Bobrovsky. Talbot had a huge workload (started 73 games) and had an above-league-average overall save% at .919, all while facing the most high-danger shots of any goalie. Weighted GSAA: 49.14 Bobrovsky had a big workload (started 63 games), had a historic overall save% of .931, also faced many high-danger shots, and won the Vezina trophy. Weighted GSAA: 48.89 Though some may debate the order, in my mind, this passes. I evaluated each team’s starter & backup by calculating each of their last 3 seasons’ weighted GSAA. To gauge their overall quality, I weighted their last 3 seasons 4/9, 3/9, and 2/9 (from most recent to least) to project ability & weed out outlier seasons as best as possible. For overall goalie systems, I used starter quality by weighted GSAA, backup quality by weighted GSAA, and prospect quality to get an overall snapshot of a team’s goalie system. Prospect quality came from InGoal Magazine’s rankings from pre-2016-17 season, which admittedly is dated but was the best I could find. Overall Team Goalie Quality=0.65Starter Quality+0.25Prospect Quality+0.1Backup Quality* SKATERS (note: in this section, when I say “shot” I mean “unblocked shot”, aka “shots on goal + missed shots”, aka “Fenwick”) To summarize team’s skaters ability, I wanted to cover 4 aspects: even-strength shot generation, even-strength shot suppression, power play shot generation, and penalty kill shot suppression. As noted by Micah Blake McCurdy of hockeyviz.com, shot generation & suppression are mostly independent, so I reviewed those 2 parameters separately rather than in terms of Fenwick %. Upfront, I’ll acknowledge the weaknesses in this section: Ideally I would have used zone-, score-, and venue-adjusted Fenwick for these calculations, but with Corsica down I made do with the free analytics data I could find. I also only used last season’s numbers here...since there have been plenty of offseason moves, particularly with the expansion draft, I figured looking at only last regular season’s shot data would be the most representative going forward, though I admit it won’t be perfect. To cover the 4 aspects mentioned previously, I pulled the following data, and weighted the numbers as noted:
Power play shot generation (10%): Shots attempted per 60 minutes on the power play
Penalty kill shot suppression (10%): Shots allowed per 60 minutes on the penalty kill
I then ranked all teams based on this weighted criteria. For Vegas, I made a snap judgement call & rated them right in the middle of the pack. This was reinforced by their current signed roster; they have a mix of historically positive shot impact players like James Neal, average possession players like Cody Eakin, & negative possession players like Luca Sbisa. As far as I can tell, they’re aiming for right in the middle of the pack in terms of puck possession. OVERALL After all that, my overall ranking system was simple. 40% goalie, 60% skaters to give a one-stop estimator of team’s advanced stats strength.
Wow, I thought my algorithm was in-depth, but Jacob put his super complex shit inside of my kinda complex shit. And I thought I was a nerd. But how did I determine the weight of the criteria? I didn’t want to just arbitrarily assigned values to each criteria. I wanted to be a bit more scientific. Using a website called www.allourideas.com, I input the 14 criteria into their tool. The website then randomly pits one criteria against another, and I had to choose which I think is more important. I did this over the course of three weeks with 700 matchups voted upon. This “over time” approach help paint a more accurate picture as to what I find truly the most important. My opinions could change day to day, but across 3 weeks, this helped create a better overall picture. Once I reached the day I had planned to do the algorithm, I viewed the results. The website presented me with a 1-100% chance that a criteria would beat any other criteria. I then took the values and divided them by 50. This reduced the scale of the weight to be between 0 and 2. I felt that a criteria weight between 0-2 was a good number. I didn’t feel that any one criteria was more than 2 times more important than another. This would give me a much tighter spread on final point totals than if I had just assigned a 1 to 14 criteria importance. Also, a tighter point spread means more excitement for me and my friends as we filled out the algorithm. If Franchise Reputation is weight of 1.5, and I scored a team with a 10 for that criteria, then that is worth 15 points. Hopefully that makes sense. See screenshot in the final google sheet for the head-to-head probability results. This is pre-scaling of the weight. I’m new to hockey, so how the hell am I supposed to know what team has a great coach, or who the hell has potential for the future, or a good reputation? To help me conduct the algorithm, I am relying on three of my friends who are hockey fans to help me determine point values for the criteria. u/the_team_plug is a lifelong Bruins fan, so when it comes to the Habs, I’m not sure I will take his opinion into consideration. Otherwise, he played goalie up through college, so he actually has a pretty good knowledge base. u/OsuJaws is a longtime Red Wings fan, and seems to believe the Red Wings won’t suck soon. Even though he went to school in Columbus Ohio, he could never bring himself to be a fan of the Blue Jackets. The other is Jacob (who won’t tell us his username, probably because he leaves creepy stalker comments all over porn subreddits). He’s the guy who came up with the advanced stats criteria above. He first got into the NHL when the Thrashers moved to Winnipeg and became a Jets, so he just sided with the newest team at the time. Because Jacob isn’t a complete sadist, he jumped off the Jets wagon and has now been a Predators fan for all of 2 months. Convenient timing and totally not a bandwagon move. TLDR: Math happened and an algorithm was made. Hockey friends will help me assign values that are somewhat in-between subjectivity and objectivity. The Stakes I am putting my money where my math is. Whatever team wins the algorithm scoring, I will purchase some fan gear at the end of the night. Maybe just a t-shirt, maybe a jersey, maybe a full blown mascot costume. That largely depends on how many beers I drink with the guys while scoring this. It also depends on how much I think my wife will harm me if I spend like $200 (Maybe I can make an algorithm for that as well. Beers consumed vs dollars spent vs doghouse potential, find the optimal break-even point). The two other guys are here not only to advise me in scoring of criteria I may not know, but also to keep me honest. I will buy merchandise and be a fan of whatever team wins, NO MATTER THE RESULT. Would it pain me to be a Hawks fan based upon my past experiences? You bet your ass it would, but the numbers don’t lie. And let’s be honest, my friends would have a laugh seeing me wearing a Hawks jersey. So whatever happens, that’s what happens. No going back to fudge numbers. This is it. If I feel ambitious (ie, not lazy) I may even do the stereotypical write a letteemail to the team, explaining the situation, and beg for merchandise asking for a letter back. TLDR: Gonna buy some gear when finished, no matter who wins. Conducting the Algorithm At the start of the event, we decided that it would be better to hide to total column until the very end. Once a criteria had been fully scored, we also hid that column. This would help prevent bias by being able to glance at the totals as started tallying. The Result and Closing Notes Before I share the results: I am certain that there will be disagreement on some of the scoring. I just want to take a minute and say that we scored everything to the best of our abilities. There was a lot of internal arguments for some of the scores, but all reached compromise. For things that we were uncertain, we researched between this subreddit and a few other hockey websites/forums. We know that these scores won’t please everyone. If you want to conduct this experiment on your own, I’d love to help you out! You can choose to uncover the spoiler here, or you can open up the google sheet just below that. I am pleased to announce that in my inaugural season of hockey fandom, I will be taking my talents to the Toronto Maple Leafs! Here is a link to the google sheet with league-wide results, sorted descending in final scoring. Be sure to hover over some of the cells to see detailed notes. I hope you all have enjoyed this post, and I look forward to becoming more knowledgeable and enjoy this great sport! EDIT: Whew, I struck a nerve huh?. Listen, I'm new. I know some of you had your team-pride hurt by my rankings. I can admit that some of it was inaccurate and this is not a perfect method. There probably is no perfect method to picking a team. I'm sure a lot of you are coming from a good place and are wondering on some of my scores. Even calling me stupid may be fair (I mean, I am new), but sending me PMs from throwaway accounts wishing harm upon me is a bit much, no? EDIT 2:https://youtu.be/ryZJWLMe1ag EDIT 3:Is only game
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