Winning at Betting Thoughts.......... Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 1,940
The last month has left me with a very firm conclusion
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Winning betting, still isn't that difficult.
Winning more than 53.5% ON WIDELY AVAILABLE selections, is almost impossible in major sports. Yes, I have gotten RIDICULOUSLY unlucky the last 3 weeks, but I likely got lucky the first few weeks of the season.
The 'right' way to play NE/indy Philly/WASH, and Atl/Rams was to
lay the -3 on all the favorites when the lines were 3.1 and and clearly leaking up. THEN to come over the top with the other teams +3.5 or +4 reduced vig. EVERYONE I know who has accumulated small fortunes betting does exactly this (sometimes just playing 1 or the 2 sides, sometimes doing both)
And your edge is decent, your risk minimal if you play both sides, and you have winning season after season after season.........in fact, this is pretty much the way I've bet for the last 10 years.
But the mind plays tricks with you. When you know more than almost everyone else, and you are winning consistently you can convince yourself that you beat widely available lines. And have you put out GodAwful stupid plays like NE -4 since your reseach shows the Colts 0-5 SU, 0-5 ATS losing by an average of 8-31 in temps below 40. BUT.....the game was in 37 degrees, not 14. So the trend barely qualified. And even if it did.......
The WRONG way is to fool yourself (like I did this week) that a certain NFL side is the 'right' side, and you can play it at any number, and have a good wager.
More and more I'm on the phone with a helper, and when asked about a game like MNF Saying
"Denver, they are +10 -105? OMG. BET WHATEVER THEY WILL LET YOU"
"They are +10 -114? Garbage! No bet"
Guess what? 53% bets kick but -105, but they aren't very good at -110.
A further frustration/complication is that when you are good at betting/forecasting line moves, there often just isn't much good stuff to go around. NE -3-120 was actually out there, I bet it but then it was NE -3 -130 or NE -3.5. More and more, the 'good' bets are gone ASAP whereas even 5 years ago they stayed until game day.
You used to see the screen LIGHT UP on games on Sunday.........NO LONGER. Maybe a rare BALT steam from 11 to 13.5 on gameday, but those games are fewer and fewer......
I've Got Philly -3 in the contests and -3-120, and some Giants +4 and +3+125..........I reallly like all those, even though the edges individually are all small.
........obviously if you are betting CBB totals right now, where openers and even closers can be ridiculously wrong, you can disregard all or most of this.
