Learn · betting
Do unlucky teams cover the next spread?
Not enough to bet on. Teams in the unluckiest fifth by season-to-date luck covered 52.5% of their next games, the luckiest fifth 48.3%. Across all 3,248 games the correlation between luck and covering is -0.009: the closing line already prices luck in.
The test
For every regular-season game from 2019 to 2025, we took each team’s luck so far that season (once it had played at least three games) and asked whether it covered the closing spread in its next game. If the market underrated unlucky teams, they would cover more than half the time.
| Unluckiest fifth | 52.5% covered |
| Luckiest fifth | 48.3% covered |
| Correlation, all games | -0.009 |
The tilt points the way you’d hope, but it isn’t an edge. With about 650 games in each group, a cover rate is only known to within about ±2 points, so 52.5% can’t be told apart from a coin flip, and at standard −110 odds you need 52.4% just to break even.
Where luck does help: records
Luck is real and it does wash out. Coin-flip wins, a team’s record with the bounces re-rolled, predict the rest of a season better than its actual wins (correlation 0.437 against 0.378). The market knows this too, and prices it into the line before you can.
Some commercial luck models are sold on beating closing lines. With our measure of luck we find no such edge; we publish the test so you can judge.