What we tested, what we found, and what failed. Newest first.
CLV below means closing line value: how much better a price was than the closing price, in points.
Get these by email: Lab notes.
Every pick now shows two numbers: skill (did the line move your way) and cost (the book's cut).
Our best rules do read the line, but the skill covers only about a third of the cut.
Nobody passes the Tail Test yet. Not our rules, not the builders.
N2, our NHL totals rule, entered the race for the Standard. It starts at zero.
One idea died: empty-net goals are not rising in a way the totals market misses.
We started recording UFC closing lines, so any future rule has honest data to be graded on.
A bettor can have positive average CLV and still lose to the close on most bets.
It happens when a few bets beat the close by a lot, and most lose by a little. The average looks fine. The typical bet does not.
That is why our bar asks for both: a positive average, and more than half of moved prices beating the close.
One number alone can fool you. Two are harder to fool.
Lots of records say they can be checked. Here is what makes that true.
Every pick is posted before the game, with a time.
Every pick shows the price it was taken at.
Every pick is graded against the closing price, not just the win or loss.
Losses stay up. Nothing is deleted.
If a record is missing any of these, you are checking a story, not a record.
The belief: teams on the second night of a back-to-back are mispriced.
The test: every back-to-back from the 2025-26 season, 429 games, graded against the DraftKings closing line.
The result: betting against the tired team moved slightly our way, about a third of a point. Our bar is 1.5. Betting on the tired team lost to the close.
What we did: nothing. The rule was never frozen and never raced. The market already prices fatigue.
I said on X that most of a line's move happens in the last few hours.
We checked 82 games in our own price tapes. The last 3 hours carried about a quarter of the move, not most of it.
I corrected it publicly. Being checkable means checking yourself too.