bills217's 10 Tips for Winning Sports Betting (Plus Gratuitous Brag)

[bills217]

Brag: above is my Excel spreadsheet containing my 2007 CFB picks in their entirety.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:

This is an incredibly hot, unsustainable run, over a tiny, comically insignificant sample. As a matter of fact, all future picks are guaranteed to be wrong. I don't post official picks so you can't verify these on this forum. I could be lying, you will never know, and I'm not going to take the time to post screenshots of all bet results (although it is technically possible). So take my word for it, or don't. The above screenshots do not in any way qualify me to give the content below. Maybe they even make me less qualified. Actually they maybe should be totally separate posts but I'm lazy. $4500 is not a lot of money, and I know you probably made at least 10x this much just yesterday.

Now that we've gotten the brag portion over with, time for the content. My 2+2 career has consisted of a ton of taking and not much giving back – hopefully this has something for the newbs as well as the advanced.

bills217’s 10 Tips for Winning Sports Betting

1) Don't be an idiot. Use a 100-unit bankroll. Never bet more than 5 units (5% of your bankroll) on any one play. This includes over-exposing yourself on correlated plays (like a big underdog and under on the same game). Don't bet 5 units a game with a 50-unit play of the week. This will skew your results so that you won't even be able to tell if you're actually getting the best of it. Don't bet non-correlated parlays/non-Wong teasers unless you have a special reason (i.e., circumventing a site's limits).

2) Line-shopping is way more important than handicapping (although handicapping has its place). Getting the best available line (not just at the moment in question, but throughout the entire time the game has been spread) is money in your pocket in the long run. The difference in getting a true best-available line versus playing whatever you happen to like on the day of the game when you have money in 1-2 books is impossible to understate. As a matter of fact, I am going to state with no proof that you cannot sustainably make money doing the latter.

3) The best way to get truly best-available lines is through successfully predicting the line moves of openers and betting accordingly. I usually know how good my CFB slate for the coming week is by Sunday at 8 PM EST (note this has nothing to do with results).

4) If you're gonna be a square, at least don't be obvious about it. There's no reason to intentionally "balance" your plays, but if you consistently have substantially more road faves than home dogs, for example, chances are something is wrong.

5) Use good judgment on who to follow, if anyone. Know the difference between squares and sharps and in between. (If you want to see what a square looks like, search for my NBA picks thread from a while back, or some of my other posts from that era). Know the difference between cogent, logical analysis and narration. Betting Dr. Bob's picks AFTER the corresponding line moves is probably not a great idea. Neither is following someone with 30 posts who posts picks without analysis and has started 6-0. Following me is a horrible idea obv. Following individual picks is probably better than following someone else entirely anyway.

6) Beware betting too many games!!! Sports betting markets are not strongly efficient (especially on openers), but there's not piles of $100 bills lying all over the place, either (Bodog props notwithstanding). Sustainably beating sports is hard. Myself, I only bet games I have multiple reasons to bet on, or what I consider to be a "margin of safety," which is an investing concept coined by Benjamin Graham. Before you make a wager, think about why you might later regret it. What could go wrong? Could there be some critical info I'm not aware of?

7) Related to 6, if money-making is your main priority, keep in mind that it's your hourly rate that really counts. I don't really consider myself to even have an hourly because I bet mainly for fun, and don't really put in a lot of hours anyway (mainly Sunday afternoons to be ready for openers). Not saying this is the track he should've taken necessarily, but imagine the difference in MT2R's hourly (and overall results too for that matter) if he had bet twice his normal unit amount only on his POTW's over the past couple years, eschewing all his other plays.

8) Don't rely on quantitative models TOO much, especially if you're a donk doesn't know anything about modeling! Though you can definitely do some quantitative analysis with football (Football Outsiders for example), the sport does not lend itself to that sort of analysis nearly as much as, say, baseball. I think Dr. Bob may be finding this out.

Note: I love MT2R and have learned a ton from him and he has contributed immensely to my [temporary and undoubtedly short-lived] success directly with his POTW's and generally excellent analysis, and in no way are these last two points meant to be subtle digs at him.

9) Track your picks honestly (not for anyone else but for yourself) and accurately! My Excel spreadsheet (shown) works great for me - I also have an arb calculator and another calculator for multi-way arbs (NFL divisional futures for example) pasted into the spreadsheet, which is handy.

10) Be objective and honest with yourself at all times, and if you can't do that, don't expect to be successful (this is good advice for life in general). The "Don't-bet-on-your-own-team" mantra is GARBAGE as Mike Gundy would say. If you follow your home team (or any team) super closely, you probably have some pretty [censored] good information! USE IT! I've made who knows how much on Kentucky football over the past two years and I am also their biggest fan. (Warning: small sample, etc.)



Q: bills217, you are clearly God's gift to sports betting. Why don't you post picks?

A: I don't post official picks (I sometimes post picks anecdotally) for several reasons. It takes up time. I don't derive any particular joy from it. Defending every pick against no-content criticisms is a waste of time. I don't have anything in particular to prove to anyone. I already have a spreadsheet for my personal use, which is the only use that matters. The lines I get at the open will usually be gone before I have time to post them, anyway.

P.S. If none if this works for you, this strategy is likely a superior strategy to anything posted above.

[MyTurn2Raise]

much love

[calmB4storm]

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3) The best way to get truly best-available lines is through successfully predicting the line moves of openers and betting accordingly. I usually know how good my CFB slate for the coming week is by Sunday at 8 PM EST (note this has nothing to do with results).

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bills,

Nice post. If you have the time, could you elaborate on this point? How do you go about predicting line movements? Is it by handicapping the individual teams? Or recognizing certain situations that generally indicate a line move one way or the other? Or looking at sites like Wagerline? Or something else entirely? I feel like this is the one aspect of my sports betting that is sorely lacking, so thanks for any help.

Thanks,
calm

[NajdorfDefense]

nice work

[dankhank]

yea i am definitely impressed. my excel spreadsheet would look so different. i'm glad to see you have continued to up your game from last season. what you say about knowing on sunday night how good of a card you're going to have is very interesting. i know what you mean, because last season, i did a lot of prep work while listening to dave cokin on the radio. this year i have been a little lost without him. he was one of the key three "consensus makers" that i listened to. the other two guys are still around this year (myturn and dreamer) but i need someone to add to the triumvirate. or i should work harder myself and have a lot of specific knowledge like you do. i hope i won't have to go that far. there is definitely some good info to be found in the weekly threads you guys do on here. i need to put on my reading glasses and take advantage.

[Thremp]

Hot.

[reachrevolver]

You do realize you pay commission at matchbook?

[paperchamp]

Great post.

[psuasskicker]

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Great post.

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[bills217]

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[ QUOTE ]
3) The best way to get truly best-available lines is through successfully predicting the line moves of openers and betting accordingly. I usually know how good my CFB slate for the coming week is by Sunday at 8 PM EST (note this has nothing to do with results).

[/ QUOTE ]
bills,

Nice post. If you have the time, could you elaborate on this point? How do you go about predicting line movements? Is it by handicapping the individual teams? Or recognizing certain situations that generally indicate a line move one way or the other? Or looking at sites like Wagerline? Or something else entirely? I feel like this is the one aspect of my sports betting that is sorely lacking, so thanks for any help.

Thanks,
calm

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Basically I try to guesstimate a spread for the games involving teams I am familiar with enough to handicap before the lines come out, and then bet accordingly. Lately I have been trying to trust my instincts more and make more plays right at the open - I have been about 80% successful in being on the right side at the open. Results this week were mixed - more good sides, but also two stinkers (Texas +10 and Purdue +6.5) which I usually try to avoid at all costs.

Betting openers is really unique - the lines that are way off will be gone within 2 minutes. When they open, you have to be prepared, scour the board, prioritize your plays and size your bets in seconds, then have the guts to click confirm with the uncertainty of knowing where it will end up. The first 15-20 minutes are usually furious mouse-clicking for me. It is as much an art as a skill. One of the worst moments in life is when the line you love gets changed against you by 3 points at the confirm screen and you know it will never be back - they be stealin' my bucket!

Trying to cap games without the aid of lines already being posted is huge. Posted lines infect your thinking when handicapping - you should try to be as objective as possible. This also allows you to see how accurate you are - it's easy to take positions when the lines are right in front of you, but if you're consistently 10 points off the posted lines when working blind, chances are you aren't doing a very good job.

I usually don't use Wagerline, although I will occasionally take a glance if I'm curious about a certain game. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the public is doing. During the week I am mostly just hitting rogue lines anyway - 90% of my handicapping is done Sunday afternoon.

As far as the finer points of predicting the movements, it takes practice. You learn to focus on the key numbers and how much to bet when. I might rush to get a team I like at +7.5 where I would wait a bit longer on a team I like just as much at +9.5. Typically, lines only move 1 direction, but sometimes for whatever reason they will swing back and forth - Rutgers opened at -14 vs. Navy, swung to -13, I got some, swung to 12.5, I cautiously got some more, then rocketed back to Rutgers -16 within the hour. I rarely, rarely bet more than 3 units at the open, that way I can add just in case it moves against me/I find a rogue later. That said, Rutgers this week was an exception to that - Rutgers opened at -2.5 which was snapped up literally within 2 minutes (I had 2.5 and lost it at the confirm screen) - given that, how off I thought the line was, and how key the 3 is, I considered the probability of it going back to 2.5 to be pretty low, and lo and behold it is now 3.5.

As the article Naj posted states, people tend to overreact to news and the previous week's results. I try to read what people here are saying as much as possible to get a feel for the general sentiment around certain games and teams and mooch off their areas of expertise. The weekly early lines thread on Sunday afternoon is invaluable.