Our NFL Luck Rankings have proven to be a highly successful tool for betting NFL sides and totals.
In the three seasons since we introduced the Luck Rankings, games that met significant thresholds for sides or totals have gone 158-111-4 (58.7%) against closing lines, which are the hardest lines to beat!
This year, we introduced Version 3.0 of our Luck Rankings as a way to continue to improve the methodology, as well as to simplify the thresholds and give you even better luck metrics.
As part of that, we've introduced something called the "Luck Score." This single number will tell us whether a game has a significant luck factor.
If the Luck Score is 1.454 or higher, we'll consider that a luck-based side. In addition, associated with each Luck Score will be a letter grade and a Luck-Based Cover% (LBC%). Anything with a "D" and up is playable, with expected improved results as we go up the letter-grade scale (from D to A).
Unlucky teams meeting this 1.454 Luck Score and D-rated threshold or better are 161-112-7 against the closing spread since the start of 2018. That equates to a 59% cover rate when pushes are removed over a sample size of more than 270 games.
In Week 11, the unlucky teams went 0-3 ATS, moving luck-based sides to 18-13 (58.1%) ATS on the year. In these 31 games, the unlucky team has covered by an average of 2.7 points.
For Luck Totals, the criteria is as follows:
- Luck Overs: Luck Total of +1.5 or above
- Luck Unders: Luck Total of -1 or below
However, there are even stronger thresholds for Luck Totals, which we'll call "strong" Luck Overs or Unders:
- Strong Luck Overs: Luck Total of +2.0 or above
- Strong Luck Unders: Luck Total of -1.8 or below
Luck Totals went 2-0 on the week, with the weak Luck Under going 1-0 to the under and the strong Luck Under also going 1-0 to the under. Overall, that puts weak Luck Totals at 11-14 (44%) while strong Luck Totals move to 4-4 (50%) on the season.
All sides and strong total bets are 22-17 (56.4%), while all bets, including the weak totals, are 33-31 (51.6%).
Based on our Week 12 NFL Luck Rankings, there are three sides and one strong total, and one weak total that meet the criteria.
Before we dive in, I'm going to give a brief update on the results, because I think they are kind of interesting.
NFL Luck Rankings Update
Luck-based sides are 18-13 this year for a 58.1% hit rate. While that may not sound exciting, hitting at that rate is something that professional bettors would love to do.
Additionally, I think it's exciting because if you look back at the Luck Based Cover% (LBC%) for each game, and add them up, you'd get that the unlucky team has been expected to cover 17.9 of the 31 games. Since they have covered 18 of the 31, we're almost exactly in line with the Luck Rankings model expectations.
Now, that's using pre-game expectation, but what about in-game expectation using Expected Scores?
Well, once again, if we add those up, we get that the unlucky teams based on their in-game performance have been expected to cover 17.5 of the 31 games. So again, 18 covers is right in line with expectation.
It's cool to see the model hitting at exactly the rate it should be, as well as the Expected Scores working exactly as they should be to bet on NFL sides.
But what about the totals?
Well, a couple of things there. First totals break down into the following results:
- Strong Luck Overs: 2-2 to the over
- Weak Luck Overs: 2-0 to the over
- Weak Luck Unders: 9-14 to the under
- Strong Luck Unders: 2-2 to the under
I mentioned in previous weeks that weak Luck Unders don't beat the market through the first eight weeks of the season, so it's expected that the weak Luck Unders are the reason for totals not having success thus far.
If we look at weak Luck Unders from Week 3 (where Luck Totals kick in) to Week 8, and then from Week 9 through Week 11, we see this:
- Weeks 3-8: 6-14 to the under
- Weeks 9-11: 3-0 to the under
So weak Luck Unders have continued to follow the trends we've seen in the previous seven years, and typically, the latter half of the season more than makes up for the early-season struggles.
As for the strong totals, we're talking an eight-game sample size, so a bit of poor variance has left those at 50% on the season, but there's still a long way to go, including the playoffs.
Overall, the Luck Rankings are performing either right at expectation (sides, weak totals) or within normal variance ranges (strong totals) based on the sample size.
With that out of the way, let's dive into the Week 12 luck-based games.
