Several years ago, a friend of mine and I spent several lunches trying to figure out how Las Vegas calculates its spread on college football and basketball games. After a lot of trial and error, it became obvious that like every other game in Las Vegas, a sports spread essentially takes the fixed numbers in the contest–and in college football and basketball the one constant is time–and uses certain trends within the “fixed numbers” to come up with the spread.

With that said, we realized that sometimes the formula yields numbers that bettors simply wouldn’t believe. If the numbers show that a football game between Arkansas State and Notre Dame will be a 3 point game, Vegas still may set the line as Notre Dame -20. Otherwise, no one would place a bet on Arkansas State. Las Vegas wants to set the line just far enough so that the bets are reasonably even…and not so far that one group of bettors gets scared off from the windows.

Ultimately, however, when Las Vegas deviates from the actual trends in order to balance the betting, educated bettors have an opportunity to win a few games. Over the past few years, I have had good success by comparing my line to the Las Vegas line. When large deviations exist between the two, a betting opportunity exists….although such deviations have become increasing rare as each year my formula appears to get closer to Las Vegas’ secret formula. (For example, in 27 of the 40 football games in Week 1, my calculated over under is within 2.5 points of the Las Vegas Over/Under. I don’t bet these games since my over/under spread matches Las Vegas’ findings).

Of the remaining games, the overs would be:
1. UAB/FAU–Over 52
2. TCU/Oregon State–Over 50.5
3. Colorado/Colorado State–Over 46
4. Texas/Rice–Over 60.5
5. Akron/Syracuse–Over 43.5
6. Notre Dame/Purdue–Over 54
7. Virginia Tech/Boise State–Over 50.5

Of the remaining games, the unders would be:
1. East Carolina/Tulsa–Under 60.5
2. Hawaii/USC–Under 53
3. Auburn/Arkansas State–Under 57.5
4. Toledo/Arizona–Under 61
5. Louisville/Kentucky–Under 47
6. Middle Tennessee State/Minnesota–Under 51.5

And a cursory review of Vice-Mayor Gray’s plan shows some considerable ambition.

Errr…And a typo here and there. Like this gem:

If the Vice-Mayor is serious about bringing jobs to Lexington, perhaps he should start with a proofreader or two. I hear there are some available in Ann Arbor, Michigan. But not Ann Arbror.

I will say that under his “run government like a business section,” you have to give him credit for suggestions like these, but not without wondering whether they will “address” a mistake like misspelling one of the very cities they claim should serve as a benchmark for Lexington. Solid effort though.

UPDATE–AUGUST 20, 2010, 0848 A.M.: Jim Gray’s staff appears to have updated the website version of their “Fresh Start Plan” so that Ann Arbor is spelled correctly. Unfortunately, Ann Arbor is still spelled incorrectly in the actual 36 page booklet on Jim Gray’s Fresh Start Plan. A pdf is linked here.