The Stokastic Projection System: How To Bet Smarter Player Props
Most bettors approach player props the same way: glance at the line, trust a gut read, and fire. The problem is that props are a soft, high-margin market, which is exactly why a fair number matters more here than on a main side or total. The Stokastic Projection System hands you that number. It takes the projections built by Alex Baker, the number-one DFS player in the world, and his team, and puts a fair value on the player props across OddsShopper, free. This guide covers what the projection actually is, how to read the numbers on a prop card, and how to turn one projection into the best-priced version of a bet across the books.
Watch The Video
The fastest way to see the projection system in action is the walkthrough below. A full written guide follows underneath it.
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What Is The Stokastic Projection System?
The projection system is not a rating built off last season's box scores. It runs high-level simulations, many times over, before each contest to settle on the most fine-tuned number for a player. That number is the model's honest read on where a player prop should land: how many passing yards, receiving yards, or completions a player is actually projected for.
The core idea: a player prop is a guess until you know where the number should actually sit. The projection is that number, so instead of betting a line blind you bet it against a fair value.
Two things make it worth your attention. The first is the source. These projections come from Alex Baker and his team, the same model behind a number-one DFS operation, and you are not getting that number anywhere else. The second is the price: it is free. You sign up, log in, and the projections are yours, sitting on the OddsShopper site alongside the live player-prop odds. If props betting is new to you, our player props explainer covers the fundamentals first.
Reading A Prop: X-Win, X-ROI, And Hold
Every prop on the board carries three numbers, and once you know what they mean the whole board opens up.
| Metric | What it means | Why it matters on props |
|---|
| X-Win | The expected win percentage of the bet, based on the projection | Tells you how often the model thinks this prop should actually cash |
| X-ROI | The expected return on investment | Flags whether the price is high enough to be worth the risk |
| Hold | The book's built-in margin, the vig, on that market | Almost always higher on props than on sides, so it is the tax you are fighting |
The one that separates props from other markets is the hold. It runs higher on player props than on the main markets, which is the quiet reason props can be tough to beat even when your reads are fine. Seeing the hold on the card before you bet tells you how much juice you are paying to get in, and the projection tells you whether the number is soft enough to be worth paying it. For the mechanics of that margin, our guide to removing the vig breaks it down.
New to OddsShopper? The projections are free to use, and OS Pro puts the full engine around them: it scans the sportsbooks, grades the whole board for value, and shows you the best price on every play, the exact work this section just walked through by hand. OS Pro is free for 7 days, and code PROJECTIONS20 takes 20% off OS Pro or OS Core if you subscribe. Start your free trial.
Why The Projection System Covers Player Props, Not Game Lines
The projection system is built for one job: player props. That focus is deliberate, not a limitation. Props are where a projection earns its keep, because the market is thinner and the hold is heavier. A fair projected number is the sharpest tool you can bring to exactly that kind of market.
For everything else, OddsShopper hands you a different engine. Game totals, spreads, sides, and game props run through the Sharp Sportsbook Line, which pulls the no-vig number from the sharpest sportsbook on the planet and lines it up against the market to surface the best bets. Two tools, split by where each one has the edge.
| The Bet You Want | The tool that grades it |
|---|
| A Player Prop (Passing Yards, Completions, Receiving Yards) | The Stokastic Projection System |
| A Game Total, Spread, Side, Or Game Prop | The Sharp Sportsbook Line on the odds screen |
In short: use the projection system for the model's own number on a single player, and the Sharp Sportsbook Line for the market's no-vig read on a whole game. Grade a player prop off a game-line tool, or the reverse, and you end up with the wrong read on the wrong market.
A Worked Example: Building A Ladder Off The Projection
Here is where having the actual projected number, and not just a thumbs-up, pays off. Because the model gives you a specific number, you can shop it across books and build a ladder.
Say the projection lands a quarterback at 275 passing yards. The board shows that same prop laddered up the alt lines, one rung at 280 and another at 300. The projected 275 sits below both, so the model leans under, and the higher you climb the ladder the more cushion the under gets: an under 300 clears far more room than an under 280. You are not guessing whether 300 is a good line; you are measuring every rung against a fair value the model already built. From there you shop that rung across books like BetMGM 🎁 and Caesars 🎁 and take the best price on it.
Quick tip: the ladder is about the number and the price together. When more than one book posts the same rung, climb to the one paying the better price on the side you want. A half-point of line and a few cents of juice are exactly the edges a heavy prop hold eats if you skip them.
That is the whole reason the projected number matters more than a simple lean. Remember the hold from earlier: props carry a heavier margin than the main markets, so squeezing the best available line is not a nicety on props, it is how you claw back the juice you would otherwise hand the book. Chase the same edge on any player and any market, and shop the live prop odds against the projection every time. Our breakdown of betting props with projections walks the four-step version of this.
From Projection To Bet Slip In One Click
Once the projection points you at a bet, OddsShopper closes the loop for you. In the walkthrough the pick sits at BetMGM: one click from OddsShopper and the bet opens already loaded in the BetMGM slip, ready to confirm. The projection finds the edge, the odds screen finds the best price, and the hand-off drops it in your slip without a single retype. That last step is the one bettors skip, and it is where a good number quietly turns into a worse one while you punch the bet in by hand.
The Bottom Line
Take the worked example: a 275 projection sitting under a 300 alt line is a wide gap, and that gap is the whole point. It is the room the model says exists on that under, and it is invisible until you have the projected number in front of you. That is what the Stokastic Projection System gives you, free on OddsShopper and built by Alex Baker's projection team: a fair number on the prop, plus the X-Win, X-ROI, and hold to weigh it and the one-click hand-off to bet it. No tool can win a bet for you, but trading a guess for a real number in a high-hold market is where the work actually pays. For the wider toolkit the projection system lives inside, see our OddsShopper betting tools overview, and for the value math underneath it all, how to find +EV bets.
Ready to put a real number on your props? The projection is free; OS Pro grades every bet on the board and shops the best price for you automatically, so you are not doing it by hand. Start OS Pro free for 7 days, then code PROJECTIONS20 takes 20% off OS Pro or OS Core. Start your free trial.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Stokastic Projection System?
It is a player-prop projection engine on OddsShopper that runs high-level simulations many times over to produce a fair projected number for each player prop. The projections come from Alex Baker and his team, and they are free to use once you sign up.
What does X-Win mean on a prop?
X-Win is the expected win percentage of the bet based on the projection, in other words, how often the model thinks that prop should actually cash. It sits on the card next to the X-ROI and the hold.
Why does the projection system only cover player props?
Because props are the market where a projection has the most edge: they are softer and carry a higher hold than game lines. Game totals, spreads, sides, and game props are graded instead by the Sharp Sportsbook Line, which pulls the no-vig number from the sharpest sportsbook.
Is the Stokastic Projection System free?
Yes. You sign up and log in, and the projections are part of the free OddsShopper site. OS Pro is a separate paid subscription for the full toolkit, and new users get a 7-day free trial.
How do I use a projection to place a bet?
Compare the projected number against the line at each book, find the one pricing it most in your favor, and take it. From there OddsShopper drops the bet straight into your slip at that book so you can confirm it before the line moves.
