JUMP TO:
- Why advanced stats matter in sports betting
- NBA betting metrics to know
- NFL betting metrics to know
- Soccer betting metrics to know
- Other popular metrics across sports
- How bettors use metrics to find an edge
As sports (and the way we consume sports) continue to become more sophisticated — and sports betting continues to become a more mainstream activity — it stands to reason that the manner in which most bettors approach wagering also becomes more sophisticated.
Modern bettors analyze odds, pinpoint values and make their wagers very carefully. Like the sportsbooks, they're engaging in risk management and trying to turn a profit. Stats — especially advanced stats — can play a pivotal role for both sides.
Let's discuss in greater detail how key sports betting stats and data metrics can help bettors become winners, and which ones you should get to know early and often in your sports betting journey.
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Why advanced stats matter in sports betting
Advanced stats allow bettors and sportsbooks alike to go beyond the projection, just like the AllSportsPeople has gone "beyond the box score" since 1886.
Advanced stats can tell a story most mainstream sports media outlets aren't telling, or shine a light on something that few others have realized quite yet. The eye test can only tell us so much, whether it be highlight reel plays, team records and league standings, or basic stats. Advanced stats paint a broader and more vivid picture.
Every sports game or match has a narrative — advanced stats and data metrics help to foreshadow that narrative. That way, the wagers we make are less guesswork and more analytical, and we're approaching sports betting as more of a science than a gamble.
MORE: Everything to know about odds in American sports betting
NBA betting metrics to know
The NBA is one of many leagues in which advanced stats and data are widely available for fans and bettors. These metrics can help teach you so much more about a team and it's short-term and long-term form than basic stats. Here are some key advanced stats to get to know.
Pace
Pace is how slow or how fast a team plays. Finding trends in teams' pace numbers can help bettors target value on the team and game over/under markets, or on the player prop and spread markets.
PER
Player Efficiency Rating (PER) analyzes every players' overall efficiency. A player's PER can help a bettor gauge the value of that player's stat props or project his team's upcoming games.
Offensive/Defensive Rating
Offensive and defensive rating are key statistical metrics used in basketball betting to assess a team's scoring and defensive efficiency. They are more advanced indicators than simple points per game (PPG) and opponent points per game (OPPG) stats, because they adjust for a team's pace.
A higher offensive rating indicates a more potent and efficient offense. A lower defensive rating indicates a more stifling and swarming defense. These ratings can greatly enhance a bettors' overall perception of team's strengths, and translate that knowledge to successful spread, player prop, moneyline and over/under betting.
MORE: What to know about betting on the NBA
NFL betting metrics to know
Here are some NFL betting metrics that will help you better understand how to gauge teams' strengths and weaknesses, giving you an edge as a bettor:
DVOA
DVOA, a metric developed by Football Outsiders, analyzes the "success" of each play while contextualizing the situation (down and distance, field location, score, quarter, time and opponent quality).
DVOA measures the overall value of a team, unit or player compared to the league average, appearing as a positive or negative percent (for example, -25 percent DVOA means 25 percent worse than the league average).
DVOA helps bettors understand a team's overall ability despite the fact that it plays a schedule that's different from the other teams in the league. It has proven over the years to be a much bettor indicator of total strength than records and basic stats, and therefore it's a great tool to aid in predictive and projective game forecasting.
Bettors often use DVOA to project how a game might play out and whether teams will extend or lose a lead if they have one. DVOA can also be used as a live-betting aid during the game.
Here are the DVOA indicators of a team being able to sustain or extend a lead:
- Good rushing offense
- Poor opponent rushing defense
- Good passing defense
- Poor opponent passing offense
DVOA belps bettors break the game down, both before and during it, to forecast if a team can take a lead and preserve it.
Here's the DVOA indicators that suggest a team can come back from a deficit:
- Good passing offense
- Poor opponent passing defense
- Good rushing defense
- Poor opponent rushing offense
EPA per play
Expected points added (EPA) measures how much a single play changes a team’s expected points, based on historical date related to the down, distance, and field position.
EPA captures immediate value in points, so it basically analyzes the raw impact as opposed to DVOA's context-adjusted performance (DVOA).
Many sharp bettors use EPA because it utilizes a vast array of past results to project the points scored on average from a precise situation. It turns every on-field play or situation into a science, like meteorology.
EPA is the difference between the point expectancy before a play and the point expectancy after the play. It helps to evaluate teams, players, plays, formations, route trees and more.
EPA can help forecast games by analyzing how teams' playing styles match up with each other. It can also help with player prop projections. Bettors especially like to use it to analyze quarterbacks, with stats like EPA per drop-back.
Yards per play
Total yards and total points can vary from game to game in the NFL because of a number of different factors. Every matchup is completely unique, and injury reports as well as game plans can differ greatly from one week to the next. That's why yards per play stats can be so valuable.
If you're analyzing how many yards per drop-back a quarterback nets, or how many yards per carry a running back averages, you're getting more of a big-picture understanding of those players' overall effectiveness. It removes specific game scripts and situations and instead measures how consistent they are on the season.
You can also compare a players' per-play stats against a past team that compares similarly to the team that player is about to face. This provides a better understanding of how that player might fare in his upcoming game, giving you an edge when forecasting the game or projecting the players' over/under and touchdown props.
MORE: Complete guide to betting on the NFL
Soccer betting metrics to know
Like NBA and NFL betting, soccer betting can be aided by advanced statistics and metrics. Simple stats like goals and shots on target only paint a broad picture, but advanced data help you dive deeper to identify trends, evaluate overall team and player ability and find betting value.
Here's some soccer betting metrics all bettors should know.
Expected goals (xG)
The gold standard for measuring the quality of a scoring chance, the expected goals model (xG) calculates the probability that a shot will result in a goal based on factors like the shot's location, angle, type of assist and the player's body part used.
The xG model can help bettors pinpoint undervalued teams. Teams with poor recent results but high xG totals are due for positive regression, while teams with recent wins but low xG totals could be in for a sharp negative regression.
Expected goals can also help distinguish players in the prop market. If a certain player consistently outperforms their xG, they're most likely an above-average finisher. If they consistently underperform their xG, they might not be a strong bet on the player prop market.
The xG model also pinpoints defensive strengths and vulnerabilities. A team's xG allowed (xGA) indicates the quality of chances its defense allows to its opponents.
In addition to xG, bettors can also benefit from expected assists (xA) and expected assisted goals (xAG).
The xA metric measures the likelihood that a completed pass will become a goal assist. The xAG post-shot metric credits a player for setting up a shot based on its quality, removing the shooter's finishing ability from the evaluation of the passer.
Shots on target
Shots on target in soccer involves stats or wagers on the number of goal-bound shots in a match, typically for a specific player, team or both.
Understanding this stat and prop bet requires understanding of the strict definition of a shot on target, as well as the knowledge and analytic ability to predict future outcomes.
A shot on target can be one of three things:
- A goal that is scored
- A shot that is saved by the goalkeeper
- A shot that is blocked by the last defending player before it crosses the goal line.
A shot is not a shot on target if:
- It goes wide of the goal or over the crossbar
- It hits the post or crossbar and bounces out without going in
- It is blocked by a defender who is not the last player in the defensive line
- It's a cross that is mistakenly hit toward the goal
Now that you know what constitutes a shot on target, you can use this specific advanced stat to your advantage. Shots on target can help you identify value on the win-loss market, on the over/under totals market and on the player prop market.
Possession percentage
Possession percentage indicates how much of the game a team controls the ball, calculated by comparing their time or passes with the total game time or passes made by both teams.
Higher possession often correlates with increased scoring chances and wins, especially with a high percentage of successful passes in the final third of matches.
It's important to note that bettors should pair possession percentage with other metrics to adequately analyze a team's ability. Possession in and of itself doesn't guarantee goals or success! The teams with good possession percentage and good scoring data? Those are the behemoths.
Here's how possession percentage is calculated:
- Passes: The number of passes a team completes is divided by the total number of passes made by both teams in the match.
- Time on Ball: Some methods use a time-based approach, where a team's control of the ball is tracked with a separate clock.
Once you learn these advanced stats and metrics, start to integrate a few of them together to be able to better pinpoint betting value. Combining your research on possession data with shots on target and expected goals, for instance, can really give you an edge when placing your bets.
MORE: Everything to know about betting on soccer
Other popular metrics across sports
Here' are some other popular metrics across sports that bettors utilize to better understand teams' and players' strengths and pinpoint betting value:
FIP (Baseball)
Fielding independent pitching, or FIP, is a baseball stat that measures a pitcher's effectiveness by only considering events they control (strikeouts, walks, home runs and hit batters).
FIP removes the impact of defense and other luck-based outcomes on batted balls, providing a clearer picture of a pitcher's true ability and serving as a prediction of what their ERA would be with league-average defense and luck.
Batted ball data (Baseball)
Bettors can analyze hitters' hard-hit rate, barrel rate and average exit velocity. They can also analyze which pitches certain batters hit most effectively, as well as which matchups favor the pitcher and which favor the hitter.
Corsi and Fenwick (Hockey)
Corsi is an advanced hockey metric measuring shot attempt differential at even strength, counting goals, shots on goal, missed shots, and blocked shots for and against a team or player.
A higher Corsi for percentage (CF%) indicates greater puck possession and offensive control, with percentages above 50 percent generally signifying a positive impact on the game. Corsi for percentage is calculated by dividing shot attempts for by total shot attempts.
Fenwick measures unblocked shot attempts, meaning shots on goal, missed shots and shots hitting the post, but excluding blocked shots.
Fenwick serves as a proxy for offensive pressure and puck possession at even strength, as unblocked attempts are considered to have a stronger correlation to generating actual scoring chances than total shot attempts (Corsi).
Fenwick provides a foundation for more complex metrics like expected goals (xG) and helps assess a team's or player's ability to control play and create scoring opportunities.
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How bettors use metrics to find an edge
All of the aforementioned metrics in this column — and more — help sharp bettors to consistently find an edge when wagering. The linemakers are analyzing advanced data sets and statistics when setting the odds, so it stands to reason that good bettors regularly do the same.
These metrics don't just help bettors on a predictive and projective basis. They also help bettors identify value on the betting market, mainly by pinpointing undervalued teams and/or players. The No. 1 ability a bettor should hope to develop is their ability to identify value.
If you can start thinking like an oddsmaker, you have a better chance of beating the sportsbooks. And if you start reading between the lines, you will begin to understand the games within the games and go from a casual bettor to a sharp bettor in no time.
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Popular sportsbooks that may be available in your area
Even if sports betting is legal in your state, not all sportsbooks may be available to you. Here are some of the most popular options to look into: