Joe Vardon and Chris Vannini write:
The Temple men’s basketball team, which drew attention from betting regulators for unusual wagering activity ahead of its game on Thursday against Alabama-Birmingham, played at least three other games this season that also generated irregular betting patterns . . . The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board confirmed on Friday that a gambling monitoring service called U.S. Integrity had flagged Thursday’s game between Temple and UAB. . . . The Owls (11-19) are scheduled to play in the American Athletic Conference tournament on Wednesday. . . .
On Feb. 8, Temple hosted Memphis. About four hours before the game, Memphis was favored by 6.5 points. . . By game time, so much money had been bet against Temple that the line had expanded to 10.5. Memphis won 84-77.
On Feb. 28, Temple hosted Rice. The game’s point total opened at 144 before being bet up to 145. Then, in the hours before the game, the total was bet down from 145 to 140.5 — an indication that bettors suddenly had reason to believe one or both teams would not score as much as oddsmakers expected. Additionally, after opening at 68, the first-half point total steadily dropped to 66.5 throughout the day — and over the two hours before game time, the total dropped quickly from 66.5 to 64. The score at halftime was 28-19 (47 points), and Temple won the game 65-43 (108 total points).
Then, on March 2, Temple hosted Tulsa. In a two-hour period before tip-off, the game’s betting line for total points dropped drastically from 144 to 136.5, again suggesting that bettors had reason to believe one or both teams would score less than expected. Additionally, the team’s first-half point total betting line dropped from 68.5 to 62.5 in that time period, including a precipitous fall from 66.5 to 62.5 in about a one-hour period. Tulsa led at halftime 32-23 (55 points) and won the game 72-67 (139 points). . . .
Sometimes a player injury or suspension can trigger late movement in a betting line. But in the three other games for which The Athletic found abnormal, rapid line movement in the hours before tip-off, there was no such information that would have caused the shifts.
Kinda funny that people are betting on a team with an 11-19 record. There are some real addicts out there.
In any case, it’s interesting to see this sort of issue of diagnosing a time series of betting odds. It reminds me of our discussion a few years ago of martingale property of probabilistic forecasts.
P.S. Several years ago in a university library I came across a charming book by Maxim (of gun fame) where he went through chapter after chapter demolishing the martingale betting system. Just when writing this post I was curious about the literal meaning of the word so I looked it up:
Jibboom!
It is hard to assess all this without knowing how much money is involved. If someone were trying to manipulate betting odds, it might take a lot less money to move the odds for a 11-19 team playing a non-headline grabber like Rice than a game involving two teams with multiple final four appearances. I believe that North Carolina v Duke has a very big gaming presence, and the amount of money to manipulate those odds are out of reach. Temple v Tulsa, etc, just might be easier. Don’t bother looking at Villanova, but pay attention to Drexel.
I can’t say about now, but Rice was, when I applied to the graduate program there, a great school. I passed on their offer bcz I thought then that Houston was not a great city.
I’m sure betting on great academic but third-rate-in-sports schools in basketball is no different than betting on penny stocks. Probably thousands of people do it and it’s an industry all to itself with specialize knowledge of how to, at least putatively, exploit the special properties of irrelevant college basketball games.
> Jibboom!
Dolphin striker!
For more on the meaning of martingale in gambling, riding, sailing, clothing, dancing and more:
The Origins of the Word “Martingale”
https://www.jehps.net/juin2009/Mansuy.pdf
> Kinda funny that people are betting on a team with an 11-19 record. There are some real addicts out there.
Why not? It may be a good bet depending on the odds. Apparently the betting spread going into the patch was 5.5 points (against them). They lost by more (71-55) but they were 5 points ahead at the end of the first period so they really stood a chance.
Agreed, no more strange than betting on over/under on total points, etc. I’d guess that not having a rooting interest would be pretty important for success gambling on basketball.
I’ve posted about this guy before, but for anyone unfamiliar, it should be interesting to a stats-adjacent person:
https://www.espn.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/2935/meet-the-worlds-top-nba-gambler
While doing my postgraduate study in the 70s I joined the University folk music club and three of us formed a (Peter Paul and Mary)-type trio. We tried to find a name that resonated with all of us and settled on Martingale. Lyn was a horse rider, Tony liked the association with Martin guitars and I was reading up about martingale theory.
“The martingale garment worn by Rabelais’ Panurge is a pair of pants with an opening at the back (in Rabelais’ words, “a drawbridge on the ass that makes excretion easier”). The use of this garment seems to have been quite widespread; Brantˆome confirms, a century later, that Francois I wore such clothes: “This brave knight had to have a bowel movement every time he wanted to begin fighting and therefore usually wore martingale pants.” https://www.jehps.net/juin2009/Mansuy.pdf
I’m once again impressed by the wide range of topics discussed in this blog – from the stochastic to the scatological.
Reminds me of the CCNY scandal, briefly discussed here: https://youtu.be/FRBxJjqejrM?si=P3hZG9nYpmgzKgth&t=155