NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

[5mn_Major]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

Unfortunately, 5mn_Major, there's no way to tell by itself if the 0.933 is right. Even if RM wins, that just means that the 7 percent chance came through. That happens... wait for it... 7 percent of the time! All the KRACh probabilities actually means is that when teams as good as Minnesota play teams as below-average as RM, the good teams wins over 9 out of ten times. What part of that seems unlikely to you?

If you're making the somewhat more sophisticated point that RM must have played better lately to get through the AHA tournament and MN must be playing worse to not even get to the Big10 final, then that's something that can be estimated. There doesn't actually seem to be a lot of momentum in college hockey, although writers love to write about it, but there is some. But if you want to make a bet on RM and are willing to take, say, 5-1, let me know and maybe we can make a deal.

Of course I understand how KRACH is calculated. I doubted KRACH odds before...and I was pretty much on target for the women (including the fact that they had too high of odds for the UW women).

KRACH chances of the winning the whole women's championship: Minnesota 72.8%; Wisconsin 9.0%; Cornell 6.6%; Clarkson 5.6%; BC 2.8%; Harvard 1.6%; Mercyhurst 1.3%; BU 0.4%

Hard to say that MN's odds are quite that high. I'd also give UW a chance more in line with eastern schools (Cornell, Clarkson, etc): MN has one more opportunity at an L before they would play an eastern school not named BU...and the game is out east giving a hair of an advantage to eastern schools.

Regarding the men, #1 seed MN (#2 in the country) lost to #4 seed Yale last year. MN just lost to both MI and OSU (at the X) back to back. This is nowhere near a slam dunk. 5:1 in favor of the gophers is about right. Those odds are not .933 or 13:1.

[Patman]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

Of course I understand how KRACH is calculated. I doubted KRACH odds before...and I was pretty much on target for the women (including the fact that they had too high of odds for the UW women).



Regarding the men, #1 seed MN (#2 in the country) lost to #4 seed Yale last year. MN just lost to both MI and OSU (at the X) back to back. This is nowhere near a slam dunk. 5:1 in favor of the gophers is about right. Those odds are not .933 or 13:1.

KRACH is a system of equations set out to solve a maximum likelihood problem. ML estimates are known in certain cases to be over-zealous. Further models are just that, models. Each with their own assumptions built in. Each observation is assumed independent. If there is some latent pattern (say, health, for example) then the observations are not independent but rather dependent on some latent process that itself will often correlate in time.

KRACH does not incorporate uncertainty in the parameter. It can't. KRACH probabilities are nothing more than the most likely probability as resulting from a optimization of the likelihood (invariance principle of the maximum likelihood estimator). It is not, in itself, a probability statement on the overall.

*I am not limiting the means of solution to just Bayesian solutions. Nonetheless, if the underlying uncertainty in a parameter covers a range then so should any probability statement. If I were to approach this in a bayesian posterior-predictive form I am sure that estimates would likely slump closer towards .5. More of a mathematical reality of taking an expected value.

----

If I were so inclined to produce estimates I'd probably use a bayesian approach to soften them up. Even then, it will not account for streaks and runs. I mean, say Connor Hellebuyck and Doug Carr break hands in the world's best high-five. The model isn't going to adapt for that and even then, what information is put in its place.

[5mn_Major]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

Fine. Its still off.

[Tipsy McStagger]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

Nothing to see here folks. 5Mn_major doesn't like the KRACH results so we have to find another way.

[SJHovey]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

Google is your friend, people.

http://www.sportbet.com/lines/hockey_college

[mnstate0fhockey]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

Odds to win the whole thing from one source.

Minnesota +175
Boston College +175
Union +200
Wisconsin +250
Ferris State +250
Quinnipiac +300
Massachusetts-Lowell +300
Notre Dame +350
St. Cloud State +350
Minnesota State +400
Providence +400
Colgate +400
Vermont +400
North Dakota +400
Denver +450
Robert Morris +450

LINK

[scoreboard]

Odds to win the whole thing from one source.

Minnesota +175
Boston College +175
Union +200
Wisconsin +250
Ferris State +250
Quinnipiac +300
Massachusetts-Lowell +300
Notre Dame +350
St. Cloud State +350
Minnesota State +400
Providence +400
Colgate +400
Vermont +400
North Dakota +400
Denver +450
Robert Morris +450

LINK

If I were a gambling man, which I'm not, I'd take Lowell. Worst bet to me would be RM at +450. I would not take that bet at +1000. My 2 cents.

[Kdaddy1968]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

Odds to win the whole thing from one source.

Minnesota +175
Boston College +175
Union +200
Wisconsin +250
Ferris State +250
Quinnipiac +300
Massachusetts-Lowell +300
Notre Dame +350
St. Cloud State +350
Minnesota State +400
Providence +400
Colgate +400
Vermont +400
North Dakota +400
Denver +450
Robert Morris +450

LINK

I think Colgate and UML will be a tougher outs.

[uniontrack]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "far from," beyond the fact that these are indeed probabilities, not odds. Las Vegas bookmakers simply try to get equal action on both sides and collect the vig. They do this by putting out preliminary lines (which tend to be quite similar to KRACH odds, btw) and then open very limited betting to see which way to move the lines. So the percentages here aren't exactly lines, because they haven't been adjusted for the 10 percent vig, but otherwise they ought to be fairly close to fair, with the proviso that strong bettor interest on one side or another can move the odds for reasons that have little to do with fundamentals. Roughly, speaking, the odds will simply be the win probabilities expressed as odds ratios (p/(1-p)) and then rounded for vig. For example, BC at .769 win probability becomes 1:3 odds, betting 3 to return 4.

Well, the reality is that even with the best laid plans of mice and men, bookmakers in LV will try to set an opening line that attracts equal action and 99 times out of 100 there will be lop-sided betting. Hence, the house will almost always be rooting for specific teams and props to succeed or fail. When the Super bowl went to Seattle and the Over, the casinos went nuts with all of money they won that day...The 10% juice or commish or vig, etc. is only given on major sports like B-ball and football. It's a twenty cent line. Baseball is normally written up based on 5% juice, or a dime line and most often hockey and other less researched sports operate on 15% or higher juice...The Sportsbet website link that was posted above is running a 20% juice or a forty cent line...They are doing this to protect themselves from the fact that they have no clue how any of the games are going to come out, with one possible exception: The Minny-Bob Morris game where they posted a 2.5 puck line at even money...(If you like Minny to blow them out of the building, this is a pretty good bet...) The odds they have laid out have so much juice "protection" built in to them...It is this fact that might actually attract even betting on both sides with the books taking their 20% vig and running for the hills, or the Caribbean as it were... I have a few locks after perusing these odds, but even I won't bet more than minimums on these games since ANYTHING can happen in this tourney...

[Catamount93]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

Thanks everyone, these are exactly what I was looking for. At the time I posted I had googled and there was nothing available.

My two cents: In a one and done tournament format, they are overestimating the odds of the favorites and underestimating the odds of the "underdogs". The only two teams that I really beleive have "no chance" to win are Robert Morris and Denver. Either could win a game or even two with great luck, but they just could not keep winning for four straight in any realistic scenario. Any of the other teams on this list could definitely win it all. I think taking anyone from about QU/Lowell on down to North Dakota is a great bet. I beleive the odds they are showing would be about right if each round was a best of five series.

[Catamount93]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

I should clarify, I think the "relative" odds are about right if they were for a tourney with five game series. I agree with uniontrack above that there is some serious vig baked into these lines.

[Steve_MN]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

Regarding the men, #1 seed MN (#2 in the country) lost to #4 seed Yale last year. MN just lost to both MI and OSU (at the X) back to back. This is nowhere near a slam dunk. 5:1 in favor of the gophers is about right. Those odds are not .933 or 13:1.

Given the line odds in the link given a bit after your post, I'd say that KRACH is probably about right. The sports book appears to have MN at -675 for that game.

[Patman]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

I should clarify, I think the "relative" odds are about right if they were for a tourney with five game series. I agree with uniontrack above that there is some serious vig baked into these lines.

yeah, often the best bet is just to not bet at all.

[TERRIERFANinLA]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

These odds were created while someone was on crack I think... Union has better odds of beating UVM then Lowell does of taking out Mankato... that doesn't even pass the crack cocaine sniff test.

i love your .sig, but you are kinda shooting fish in a barrel

[JAB]

Re: NCAA Hockey Tournament Odds

Has anyone seen any odds posted for this year's tournament. I think in the past I've seen odds on going all the way but not on individual games.

Great to see the Catamounts back in the dance!

Forget about the odds. In the First Round I'm going with the Animals over the Humans. Every game has this matchup!