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“It’s already priced in.” A member who left, and why I disagree.

A member of the jjB!B beta decided not to continue. I asked him for honest feedback, and he gave it, with an argument many bettors believe: the news is already in the price. Here is his side, without his name, and mine. He was not the only one who left: all of them, and their reasons, are on Why members leave the beta.

What he said

His first reason was simple: he doesn’t bet the leagues jjB!B covers. That is a perfectly good reason. It is exactly what I say on the jjB!B page: it only helps if you already bet those leagues. If you don’t, you shouldn’t pay for it, and you shouldn’t start betting them because of it.

His second reason is the interesting one. He bets with numbers. He tests systems against the odds. And his view is that the market has become so sharp that the news is already priced in. A player is missing? The line has already moved. Nothing left to win.

He also offered to test it: take the moment an alert fires, compare the odds before and after, and see if anything is left.

Where he is right

• The market is getting sharper. Lines that were soft a few years ago are much harder to beat today. Tipsters who lived on one angle are losing it.
• No program can make the decision. His words: whether to act on the info is “just your experience and expertise.” I agree completely.
• Most pregame news does end up in the line. Most of the time.

Where I disagree with him

Priced in is not the same as lost

Say news comes out that a team is missing an important player. The line moves from −1 to −5. The game starts, they fall behind 0–6, and now you can take them to win at plus money. The missing player is priced in. Fine. But I would still take the other team any day of the week.

I bet on the info, not on the odds and the handicaps. I don’t bet big favourites, so most of my bets are simply win or lose. If a team is weaker tonight, it is more likely to lose, whatever the price says. When a team needs to win, “priced in” loses most of its meaning.

Some things cannot be priced in before they happen

A key player picks up his fifth foul, or a disqualifying one. Nobody could price that in before the game. And live, there is no one at the bookmaker watching your game. Live odds come from a program: the score, who has the ball, the pregame line, the money coming in, and copying the biggest books. It does not know who that player was.

Priced in where?

News moves in a chain. The people who know first move the line with their money. Then come the people who read the open news. Then everyone else. The biggest, sharpest books, Pinnacle and bet365, react fast. Most of the bookmakers in the world follow them later, especially live. “Priced in at Pinnacle” does not mean priced in where you can actually bet.

Why I don’t run his test

On paper, a before-and-after test sounds simple. In a live basketball game, it isn’t. The line moves on every possession. A foul means one, two or three free throws, and the odds already treat them as almost scored, then move again on a miss. You cannot separate what an alert did from what the game did.

And no two alerts are the same. The same missing player matters differently in different leagues, because of import rules, for example. Alerts compound: one big man out is news, both big men out is a different game. Every team starts from a different situation. Average all of that together, and you hide exactly the alerts that matter. The odds feeds you would need to do it properly are professional bookmaker tools.

Most of all, it would test the wrong thing. It cannot test the one thing that decides a bet: the person deciding.

What jjB!B is, and what it isn’t

jjB!B is not a magic ball. It doesn’t predict anything, and it doesn’t give you any advice. It simply states facts. But it uses my logic on which facts matter to a basketball bettor. The name says it all: Jimin Jibao Brain in the Box.

Think of it as a box. On one side goes everything about a basketball game, everything that is going on there. Inside the box, my brain works: my logic filters out the noise. Out of the other side come only the facts that matter.

There is no magic to it. You get the same facts that went into the box in the first place. My brain just filters out everything that, in my opinion, is unnecessary, and keeps you focused on the facts that matter when you decide to bet or not to bet. jjB!B doesn’t tell you what to bet. It gives you the relevant facts about a basketball game. Many games, at the same time, fast.

Not every alert is a call to action. Most of them are not. What you do with it depends on what you already know about those teams and those leagues. That is why it only helps people who already bet them.

Why I will never say it gives you an edge

jjB!B is the same program I use in my own betting every day. If it was an edge on its own, why would I give it away? Why not just use it myself? And I do use it myself, on different leagues. That is why I can open the jjB!B beta to other people.

If anybody tries to sell you something that gives you an edge, ask yourself one question: why are they selling it, and not using it themselves? Be careful with the answer “we use it too, there is room for everybody.” I don’t think that is honest. Real edges live in very limited markets. There is barely room for the person who found it.

He bets numbers; I bet basketball. We both have our own record, and mine is documented online, every pick. He made the right call for himself, and I respect it. Thank you for the honest feedback.

The other members who left, and why, are on Why members leave the beta.

If you don’t bet basketball, don’t even start.

If betting is already a problem, free and confidential help: BeGambleAware.