Matt Holthe's Fleeting Thoughts

I keep track of sports betting and focus more on NCAA Men's Basketball than any other sport. So far, in 2018, here's the trends: Favorites playing at home: Favorites are 293-285-19 ATS (50.7%) Favorites playing on the road: Favorites are 64-70-0 ATS (47.8%) Favorites in neutral court games: Favorites are 123-94-4 ATS (56.6%) In "pick 'em" games, the home team has won 4 times and the road team has won 4 times. For totals, the "over" is 466-484-16 (49.1%) What does all this mean? That Vegas continues to be good at what they do - you can't make any predictions based on generalization from the season. I doubt I'll have time to tweak my ranking system and the predictor that goes along with it. In the past I've been about 55% accurate, which isn't anywhere near good enough to take the predictor into the real world. I'd like to get up to 60% or even 65% before I start betting actual money using the system. That means I have a lot ...

After last year's cruise and this year's cruise, my daughter has added some states and countries to her list. For states, I differentiate those that we've visited (set foot) and those that we've spent the night in. For countries, I don't differentiate since the cruise makes stops to different countries. Anyway, here's her list of states where she has spent the night: California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin Here are the additional states where she has set foot, but not spent the night: Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee That's 18 out of 50 states that she's been to. I've been to 44 out of 50. Additionally, she's been to the following countries: Bahamas, Jamaica, Grand Cayman (Cayman Islands), Tortola (British Virgin Islands), Virgin Gorda (British Virgin Islands), St Thomas (US Virgin Islands)