How picks are graded
Where picks come from
Kelly reads and listens to the analysts it follows: podcasts, videos, articles and posts. From each one it writes down every pick: who said it, the game, the market, the side, the line and price they said, and the moment in the source. A pick is published when Kelly is at least 75% sure it read it right. Anything less is held for a person to check, and never counts until it is published.
Each pick is marked Official (stated as a bet), Lean (a lean, not a bet) or Mention (named in passing). Official only shows the first kind.
Said, out and now
Said is when the analyst said it, often before the episode or article came out. Out is when the source came out, with Kelly’s consensus line at that moment. Now is the line now. Each pick page also shows when Kelly reported the pick and how long after release.
Grading
- Kelly grades every pick from its own results once the game is final.
- Every pick is 1 unit, at the price the analyst stated, or −110 when they stated none.
- A win pays at that price, a loss is −1 unit and a push is 0.
- Units at the analyst’s own stated stakes are kept beside the flat units when they name a stake.
- Void picks (the game or market didn’t happen) and late picks (out after the game started) are left out of W-L-P and units, and counted as left out on every record.
Closing line value (CLV)
CLV is how many points better the line said was than the closing line, the last consensus line before the game started. Positive CLV means the analyst beat the close. Kelly uses its own consensus close in every sport, and the published NFL close when its own is missing.
The luck read
For each record Kelly works out how often a bettor with no edge, betting at the same prices, would match it or do better. “A bettor with no edge matches this record 14% of the time” means luck alone does that about one time in seven.
Beats the market so far
With hundreds of analysts, some will look good by luck alone. Kelly tests every analyst together (e-values with the Benjamini–Hochberg rule), so only records that hold up across the whole field read beats the market so far. The rest read no edge shown, however many picks they have, winning or losing. Analysts under the bar of 100 priced, decided picks read not enough picks yet and sit below the ranked rows.
The leaderboard
The leaderboard opens on the last 30 days of live picks: picks Kelly reported as they came out. + back catalogue adds picks Kelly found later in past episodes and articles. It sorts by units, ROI, win rate, CLV or picks, and is rebuilt after each hourly grade.
Corrections and removals
When Kelly misreads a source it corrects the pick in place. A pick comes off a record only when Kelly misread it, and every removal is counted as removed on that record, so a record can’t be cleaned up quietly.