The Ten Commandments of Prudent Sports Gambling

Image via Wikipedia

The Ten Commandments of Prudent Sports Gambling

#1: Thou Shalt Use Sound Money Management
Perhaps the biggest mistake that I see in other players is a complete lack of Risk Management and a lack of discipline therein. This is the single most prevalent reason that I see why people blow up and get in big trouble gambling.

Let’s first go over how a player should assess their own situation when it comes to Risk Management, as it will determine the total amount that they are willing to lose (Bankroll), the number of plays they will make (Gross Action), their worst case win rate and their average bet size. If you compute these factors BEFORE you start playing, then you will not blow up, pure and simple. You will have a plan and will sleep better at night. You may still lose but it will be a manageable loss inside of your bankroll. If you don’t do this, things can get away from you very quickly, and before you know it, you have blown up, and Moose and Rocco are driving away in your car. We just can not allow that to happen.

When I ask most players what their bankroll is, or the total amount that they are willing to lose in a season, most give me a blank stare or say “as little as possible!” If you play, you simply have to have a stated amount that you are comfortable losing and have it in a liquid (checking or savings) account at a bank. Moose and Rocco mostly only accept cash so you should have it ready at hand in the event that things go the wrong way. Trust me when I tell you that there is nothing worse in the world than having to scramble to get the cash to pay off a bookie as I have had to do this myself a time or two over the years. It’s incredibly stressful and most of us already have enough stress in our lives. One other piece of advice is if you get paid out before the end of the season, deposit it in the same bank account and do not immediately spend it. You can always spend it at the end of the season and you may need it to cover a subsequent cold streak later in the season. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

One last point that deserves to be stressed: if you don’t have any money to lose, just do not play. I know that sounds obvious, but the fact is that many players that I know have no business playing in the first place. This is a game for people with means who can afford it, and the least capitalized players are also the most desperate players and they make reckless, desperate plays….and lose, and the consequences can be devastating. It goes without saying that you should not be gambling your mortgage payment each month on lay 110 to win 100 propositions. Your betting should be an investment of capital that you have in the bank that you hope to make a nice (tax free) return on, but if it has a more significant impact on your overall livelihood and well-being if it is wiped out, then I am sorry but you just do not qualify to be a player. Come back and see me when you have some risk capital for this activity. But until then, DO NOT BET!

Most people bet too much per play and don’t even realize it. This is the case because they bet too high of a unit level given their risk profile and number of plays they make over a given time horizon, usually a season.

Let’s go through an example for the football season and see the math that helps us arrive at a sensible unit level per play:

Bankroll: $10K

Number of plays: 10 per week over 16 weeks, or 160 total plays

Assumed worst case win rate: 40%

Drain ratio: Win factor .40 + Loss factor (1-Win factor)*.10 vig= -.26

In order to cap your losses at $10,000 with a Drain Ratio of -.26, you can afford Total Action of $10,000/.26 = $38,461

Therefore, if you can afford $38,461 in total action for the season and put out 160 plays, you should use an average play of $38,461/160, or $240 per play. Most people are shocked to hear this low number, as they usually say “If I had $10 dimes to lose, I would bet a nickel or a dime per play!”, but the numbers don’t lie and you should take heed.

An important note is this should be your average play, not your base unit. Your base unit in this example should probably be $100 and you will be betting and average of 2.4 units per play. Most pick services will have varying levels of attractiveness in their plays, such as a 2* or 3* etc. So, use a base unit to work your action to fit this model. In this model, to keep your average bet at the $240 level, you will most probably want to play $200 and $300 per play, and occasionally a $100 or $400 play mixed in. Another way to look at it is that you will have a “budget” of about $2500 of action per week and can put out 10 plays, so it is up to you to vary the number of units to “fit” your service.

Also, please understand the sensitivity of the average bet to the number of plays and/or the worst case win rate. For instance, if you are more conservative, perhaps you will want to use a lower worst-case win rate of 35%. This will take the Drain Ratio up to -36.5. Based on 160 total plays, you will only be able to afford $27,397 in Total Action over the same 160 plays, taking your average bet down to $171.

In like manner, if you think you will play more often, then it will also have the effect of reducing your average play. With a 35% win rate and double the plays to 320, then the average play goes all the way down to $85. It makes sense that if you play more often, you can lose more often and your bets need to be smaller.

There are a few more points to make. First, you obviously are looking at your risk over the whole season but you should not vary your bets over the course of the season based on how well/poorly you are faring. It flies in the face of risk management to do so, so the plan is to stick to a base unit that will produce your targeted average bet and STICK TO IT no matter what. If you don’t, this plan will not work and you will most likely blow up. Second, because this is a plan for the entire season, it limits your loss to your bank roll over the entire season. It does not account for the timing of the win ratio. For instance, if you bet $200 per play and started out 0-45, your $10k bankroll would be gone and you would be at your stop loss before you had the chance to go on a 64-51 run to finish the season and get some back(based on a 40% win rate). And the opposite can happen too, when you win a lot early and then go deathly cold to end the season. Either way, it is not a fail-proof thing, but at least it gives all players a framework in which to customize their wagering size based on their own view of how much they will play and how badly they could possibly do on a worst-case scenario. My job is to let you see the factors at work here, and clearly no one thinks they will only win at a 40% rate, otherwise they wouldn’t play in the first place. I personally use 40% as my worst-case win ratio, based on that fact that my service historically runs at about 57%, so for them to only win at only 40% is a pretty major divergence from their mean win rate. But I use it as a Doomsday Scenario so I can plan my season accordingly, and if they have a terrible season, I know that I will be stopped out at my bankroll. My point is to show you how your money will last in bad scenarios so that you can think it through before it happens, be mentally prepared to deal with it, and have the cash on hand to pay it.

Eventually, I will try to create an interactive calculator on here for people to use to gauge what average bet they plan to use for a season. But, again, it is up to you (and only you) not to deviate from the plan. Get your units straight before the season starts and stick to them all the way through, no matter what happens. If you start to “double up to catch up” (betting bigger average bets when you are in a cold streak), you will blow up. That is the biggest lesson that I can show out of this whole section.

#2: Thou Shalt Hire A Pick Service
Let’s be honest: anyone who bets thinks that they know a lot about sports, or rather, they think that they know more about sports than the average dude. And we may know our own favorite teams inside and out. But, at the end of the day, we simply have to face the stone cold truth that we really do not know anything truly relevant to the outcome that everyone else doesn’t know. Sure, we have our own opinions and we may occasionally be correct, but in reality we are just guessing and making hunches over and over again, with no real “edge” that is sustainable. And without a sustainable edge, how do we plan to overcome the 10% vigorish over the long haul?

As an example of what I mean, do the following exercise with a friend. Your friend will be “The House”, and he has 10 $1-dollar bills in his stack. You are “The Player”, and you have $9 $1-dollar bills and 10 dimes. Your buddy flips the coin and you try to call it in the air. If you are right, you get a $1. If you are wrong, you pay $1 and a dime. See who runs out of money first…..

If you are a sports gambler, this is what you are doing, over and over again, but the stakes are much higher than my example as most players bet $100 to $1000 at a whack, and those dimes really range from $10 bills to $100 bills on each play. If you know each flip is a 50-50 proposition as it is in my example, than you probably can see why most players lose. If you play Exotics, use quarters in the example instead of dimes. Eventually, the vig will grind you out of your bankroll. It may take a long time if you win a few times in a row or it may happen very quickly, but the reality is that if you have to pay vig on a coin flip, you will lose in the long haul. Period. There is simply no getting around this reality of simple mathematics. If this fact were not true, than sportsbooks and bookies would not exist and would not earn significant profits year after year.

So, given these facts, if you plan to still play, you simply need to find a way to make your odds better than a coin flip. In other words, you need some means (an "edge") to find a winning percentage above 50%. That is why I suggest that you outsource your picks to a Pick Service, also known as a “Tout” or a professional handicapper. These are people whose whole livelihood is based on their ability to pick winners; this is all they do all day. Surely, all things being equal, they stand a better chance of beating the 50% win rate than you can, given their ability to analyze all aspects of a sports contest. They have so much more data and analytical capabilities that you and I simply do not have access to.

But not all pick services are the same, and it demands you to do some diligence on your part, since you are basically putting your hard-earned cash in their hands. I have 4 rules when it comes to Touts:

Rule #1: There is an inverse relationship to a touts credibility and their decibel level. As you probably guessed, some touts are scumbags. As a matter of fact, most are! Most are just trying to get you hooked on their picks and make outlandish claims such as “We were 8-0 last week in the NFL!” And I have noticed that the louder they yell their picks into their recorded message or on the radio or on TV, the more they are just trying to instill false confidence in you to try their service. Many of these boiler room touts will have one recording for half of their callers, and another recording with THE EXACT OPPOSITE PICK for the other half. This way, they always have someone who is happy and will be back to pay them the next week. Only choose a pick service with a verifiable track record and be skeptical about them. As in all things, talk is cheap and these guys can tell you anything you want to hear.

Rule #2: You get what you pay for. I recommend paying for a pick service, as “free picks” from touts, the media, or your buddies that call with “locks” are long-term losing situations. When a pick service gives away their picks, or their 400-Star “Lock of the Week”, think about what they are trying to do. They are trying to get new customers who will eventually pay, so they do the 50-50 thing and will look great to the half who got the winning pick, and they blow out the losers. The winners come back for more and then they do it all over again for a new set of new players the next week. You can imagine how many people they convert if their “Lock of the Week” wins. You probably think they always win like that. But the fact is that you don’t know which half you are in.

Paying for a service should not make you wary, but should actually make you more comfortable with your pick service. The reason is that the good guys in this business don’t have to give away their best picks for free to attract new subscribers. Their published track record speaks for itself and enough people view it as a recurring source of winners to keep them in business year in and year out. Quite simply, they do not have to resort to hype and/or false claims to sell their service. Let the market point you to the good guys.

As for listening to the media or your friends, trust me when I tell you that it is a losing proposition. For the most part, the media are the people responsible for creating the public perception that helps the oddmakers create line for games, and they constantly state the obvious and really have no real inside scoop. In a nutshell, they are really not much more capable of consistently picking winners than you and me. So why would we ever want to invest our money on their picks? Anyone who watches ESPN Gameday or NFL Countdown to make their wagering decisions is never, ever going to win consistently.

Lastly, if you have that friend of yours (and we all have them) who calls you 5 minutes before kickoff and says “Notre Dame laying 3 at home is a lock!” please do yourself a favor and ignore him. As a matter of fact, tell him to not call with his picks until after the games have started. This way, you can still talk amicably about betting the games without you having to deal with the temptation to play his poorly reasoned plays. Want an easy way to get him to stop? Just challenge him “What is your edge?” or “What is your thesis or angle on this one?” Most times you will hear silence, as they are just betting on a hunch, clearly a losing proposition when you flip that coin and lay 110 to win 100. Stay away!


Rule #3: Look for detailed analysis of each pick service’s plays. The legitimate pick services out there are happy to show you examples of their analysis, and the more detail that is provided, the more credible they are. If your pick service is merely some meatball screaming the pick at you without any real basis or backup, they are probably hucksters and you should run far far away. When you think about it, if this is their entire livelihood, and all they did all week was crunch stats and assess angles and power ratings all day, surely they could provide some of that analysis to you if you are paying them for the picks. So, the lesson is that it is a huge red flag if a service just gives you a side and leaves it at that. The legit guys will explain the various angles involved and make you feel a lot more comfortable in playing it, while the illegitimate guys could well be flipping a coin. So, be careful and always be asking your service to “Show You the Edge” before you show them any money.

Rule #4: Just like in investments, when something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. When pick services make outlandish claims of winning over 70% of their plays, they are doing one of two things, neither of them respectable. On one hand, they are just flat out lying, as there is no one out there to police their claims. There is no Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) policing these claims like there are in the investment world. So, they have nothing really to lose by falsifying their track record. On the other hand, their hot track record may actually be true, but over a limited, cherry-picked time horizon. They may have actually gone 7-2 last weekend, but they fail to disclose that they are 34-56 for the season. The former number will sell their product, the latter will not. So, just think through what these people are representing, be skeptical, and never believe claims in excess of 70% win rates. Even the best (legit) handicappers in the world run long-term win rates in the 55-62% range, so any claims above that range are most probably fraudulent. Also, the use of the terms “Guaranteed” and “Lock” are also red flags, as there simply are no guarantees or locks in this business. Just use your brain, and ask other players for referrals to the legit guys (or choose some from my Approved List) before you turnover your cash (their fee) AND your profit and loss (the results they produce using your bankroll). There is obviously a lot at stake so choosing your service is extremely important to get right.

If you are unsure about a service, email me, I will do some due diligence of them for you, and post my findings on the Approved List or “Stay Away List”

#3: Thou Shalt Employ Multiple Bookies
The vast majority of players that I talk to only use one bookie. I strongly suggest that you have more than one bookie at all times as there are many solid reasons for doing so. Perhaps the most important reason is so you can shop your action to whomever has the best line on any given game. You have no idea how overlooked this is and how much money it can save you! While most bookies have the same lines on most games, perhaps 25% of the games have ½ point differentials, and some even over a point! One Super Bowl, thought to be the most efficient oddsmaking game in the world, had a 2 ½ point variation from one bookie to another, due to the region of the country. But you would never know it if you just booked with one guy. It is so very important to shop more than one book for the best line, as that ½ point difference can easily mean the difference in a loser and a push. It has happened to me over and over again….my buddy will call all depressed “Man, I am so bummed that we lost that bet by just a ½ point” and then I just don't have the heart to tell him that I played it at a different book and pushed.

Remember that when you buy the hook (which I never ever suggest), a bookie gets double juice. So, for every $100 play, it is worth $10 (or $5 on an expected value basis). So, if I can find a better line and play it, it is like getting $10 per $100 for free. Why wouldn’t I have multiple books to shop it and pick up $10 every time I succeeded? If you take no other advice away from this site, I beg you to get multiple bookies and shop them. You will thank me when that Push turns into a Winner because you shopped your action.

There is another important reason to have multiple bookies is a very little known online practice called “Player Profiling”. Now, what I am about to suggest occurs is a matter of speculation on my part, my own experiences betting online, and rumors from other players. Player Profiling is usually only done by online sportsbooks and involves the practice of analyzing the individual tendencies that you have as a player based on your track record. It can involve such factors as your geographic location, your penchant for favorites, or your pick service. What I am convinced that they do is use this information about you to their advantage by shading the lines published to you in their favor and hurting your odds of winning significantly.

Let me give you a few examples. Let’s say that you live in Miami and you play Miami every week by routine. Well, they will probably see your home address and figure out pretty quickly that you are not price sensitive and will bet Miami no matter what the line is. So, I think they publish a Miami line only to you (through your player ID) that is 1/2 to a full point worse than that which is offered to “non-Miami” players. There is no law that I know of that makes them have to offer the exact same line to everyone they have in their book, and even if there is, who is going to call them out on it?

Instead of being a Miami player, perhaps you always bet big NFL favorites consistently. I contend that they have the ability to mine the data of all of their players that have this same tendency and shade the lines against them. And the same is true for pick services. I have seen this happen before in my own experiences in that they can pretty easily figure out what pick service that you are playing. I have seen them move lines against me by a full point between the time I enter the bet and then try to confirm it. And they do this because they then subscribe to the same service that I do and then move the lines against me before I can play them at the original lines. They can only do this by player profiling. If you use more than one book, it is a good way to “throw them off” as each book will only see a partial picture of your overall action and it may fall into the random category of play instead of a specific profile. Trust me when I tell you that you do not want to be taken advantage of by being profiled and multiple bookies will help hide your edge from them.

Lastly, there are a couple of other benefits of multiple bookies. One is the ability to have multiple lines of credit. It is always preferable to have a line of credit as opposed to having to pay upfront as most offshore book require. It is a huge pain making deposits these days, so if you can find a local human bookie who will extend credit, use static lines, and isn’t profiling you, they are usually the best set up. If you feel better about an offshore set up, look for discounted juice, deposit bonuses, and other perks for the hassle of paying upfront.

The last benefit is that when you have more than one bookie, you have the ability to play “middles” when the opportunity presents itself. A middle is when the same bet has significantly different lines at different books, or a line that has changed significantly from where a player initially bet it. In a middle, you play both sides on the same bet and hope that the game ends up between the two lines. A Middle player is just risking the vig on one side of the play, in the hopes of hitting the middle and winning both sides of the play, resulting in a 20:1 hit assuming 10% vig. A Middle can also win on a push which is a 10:1 hit. Obviously, a middle player wants to have as wide a spread as possible between the two lines, ideally covering some of the magic numbers of football like 10 and 11, 6 and 7, 3 and 4. Although I haven’t done the math involved (someday I will), I think a common sense rule of thumb is to have at least 2 full points between the two lines to make it worthwhile.

#4: Thou Shalt Display Will Power
Once you have your Money Management plan intact, it is just as important that you do not deviate from that plan. And the only way that you can make that happen is to summon a great deal of will power.

There are three ways to get derailed, and if you start doing any of them at any time during the season, you simply must check yourself and get back to the plan. Otherwise, there is a very high likelihood that you blow up.

Bad Sign #1: Playing without your Edge One of the bad signs is when you start betting on hunches without any edge. If you are doing this, it is time to remember why you bet in the first place. You are betting plays to overcome the odds that are stacked against you. Betting plays without any edge is not accomplishing the goal and will most certainly lead to losses over the long term. If you get the urge to play something outside of your pick service’s plays, do not do so on impulse. Think about if this type of unjustified play is really why you are a gambler in the first place, and most of the time you will quickly realize that it is not and lay off the play. Again, I never said it was easy but being able to say “No!” to yourself is perhaps the most important personality trait a successful sports gambler can have.

Bad Signs #2 and #3: More Active or Bigger Action Another worrisome sign is when you start straying outside of your predetermined limits on size or frequency of your action, and it can get ugly really quickly when you get reckless with both size and frequency simultaneously. If your bankroll, frequency and worst-case win rate all dictate that you should have an average bet of $200 based on our money management formula, and you find yourself putting out a nickel a throw, well you are not sticking to your game plan and will probably blow up. Likewise, even if you are betting within your size limits but are putting out 20 plays a week instead of just 10 like your plan states, you must scale back your frequency; otherwise you risk the absolutely real possibility of blowing up. You need to go on what I call an “Action Diet”. If your plan says that you can afford $40,000 in gross season-long action, then you have an Action Diet of about $2500 per week, based on a 16-week season. I really don’t care how you split up that action and it should really be dictated by your pick service ratings. But find a combination of size and frequency that fits your service and that you are comfortable with. In this example, you could put on 10 plays for $250 each or 5 Nickel plays. Again, do whatever makes you feel comfortable and dovetails well with your service.

One obvious thing that I have noticed in the players that I know is that the lower their will power, the more likely they are to blow up. So, before you start playing, ask yourself if you really do have the will power to be a successful player. If you have any doubts, just don’t play and save yourself an expensive lesson.

#5: Thou Shalt Be A Contrarian
Most sports gamblers that I talk to are amazed when I tell them that Underdogs win more often than Favorites. But it is true. Why is that true? Well, it’s human nature to assume that the status quo will remain the same, and if a team plays well last week, it is easier to assume that they will do the same the following week, especially when the media talking heads barrage the public with this rhetoric all week. Also, it’s human nature to want to back a “winner”. That is why we often have fair weather fans. And the same applies to gambling: people like to bet favorites, and the oddsmakers know this and purposely shade the line higher than the “true line” that the facts suggest.

Bookies and sportsbooks not only make their living off of the vig, but they also feast on the human tendency to bet favorites and the herd mentality that exists. So, if you think like a bookie, instead of the average gambler, and resist the human urge to bet a bunch of chalk, chances are that you will do better than the average meathead.

To give a recent example of how being a contrarian is a smart thing (and profitable), let’s go back to the Tennessee-Florida game at the Swamp in September 2009. Due to the media hype around the grudge between the two schools’ coaches, and line was posted at 30. It takes a true contrarian to stand back and realize that just because there is a grudge between the coaches and Urban Meyer would probably very much like to blow out Tennessee, doesn’t mean that Florida actually is able to do so. Remember, this is the SEC and the talent levels are not over 4 touchdowns different.

But what really got me interested in taking Tennessee was when the non-gamblers kept telling me that they wanted to bet Florida. I have seen this so many times in my life: when the “dumb money” is all on the same side, people who never ever bet regularly are all saying things like “Boy, I’d bet Florida no matter what the line is” or “Florida is going to murder Tennessee”, that’s when I step in and take the other side. As a matter of fact, I took Tennessee with some of my non-gambler buddies, saved the juice, and took great joy in pointing out to them where the ATM machine was when the game wrapped up. Examples like this are few and far between, but I hope you see that the dumb-money crowd is wrong over the long haul. Those huge casinos in Vegas were built because the crowd is wrong, not because they are right. So, when all else is equal, think like a contrarian to the crowd and Take The Points!

One last comment on being a contrarian....I have found that the harder it is to call in a play, the better the play is. Usually, when you call in a "tough-to-play" play, it is some team that is a laughing stock, is a huge dog, and no one on the planet wants to support. In addition, most times this team has had a disastrous last outing, with embarrassing highlights of their ineptitude being played over and over again on ESPN. And then the talking heads all pile on the team. When all of this is happening, that when I start getting interested, as so much can change week-to-week. Just bear in mind, the tougher the play, the better it probably is.

#6: Thou Shalt Not Play Exotics
It should come as no surprise when I tell you that exotics are terrible bets and you should never play them. You can accomplish the exact same thrill and fun simply by playing straight bets and stand much better profitability odds by doing so. Parlays, teasers, reverses…..stay far away from them. They are the devil’s playpen and have ridiculous amounts of juice embedded in them due to the multiplicative effect of coupling 2 Lay-110 to Win-100 plays. You stand very little chance of overcoming the huge vig even if you have the best pick service in the land. Remember that there is a pretty high likelihood that you will lose just playing straight plays, but it is virtually assured that you will not only lose but most probably blow up completely if you get hooked on exotics. Remember that they call them "Teasers" for a very good reason: all teasers look great before you play them.

If you want the absolute best way to overcome the vig in sports gambling then just stick to straight plays exclusively and you will be glad that you did.

#7: Thou Shalt Not “Buy The Hook”
Only losers “buy the hook”, which is parlance for getting an extra half point if you pay double juice. For instance, buying the hook means that instead of playing New England laying 3, you “buy it” down to 2 ½ by laying 120 to win 100. It is tempting to buy the half when it is a 3 point line, but just don’t do it. Bookies have crunched the numbers and figured out that the probability that the game lands on the original line is so low that they will make more on the play when you lose than the exceedingly low chance that it hits the exact original line. If this wasn’t true, then they would not be willing to offer such an option in the first place. In the same vein as exotics, just say “No!” to buying the half and you will come out better in the long haul.

#8: Thou Shalt Not Lose Sight of the Long Term Results
It’s so easy to do….you have a few bad weeks and then all of your discipline goes out the window. But you simply have to understand that you have started the season with a solid money management plan and to change in mid stream can and will be a devastatingly bad move that will certainly move you closer to blowing up.

It is much easier to endure a few bad weeks with a pick service because their track record shows us that they aren't just flipping coins and their methodology has merit and works over the long term. That long term consists of many short terms, some of which have been good weeks and some bad. Just remember that you chose them based on a long-term time horizon of results, so you should judge their current results in the same vein. So, never lose sight of the long term goal and get ready for short term variability in the results. Look, bad weeks are going to happen sooner or later, so don't get all worked up about it. Take it in stride and judge your service over the entirety of a season. If it was really awful, then look for another service next year, but in the meantime, stick to your service through thick and thin, and keep your money management plan intact. If you get to your bankroll limit, shut it down for the year and come back next year. Just do not let a bad streak make you blow up completely.

#9:Thou Shalt Be Methodical and Organized
If you are going to put your best foot forward, you owe it to yourself to being organized and always know what your outstanding action is and what your figure is. I am always shocked by how some players are so unorganized and have no idea how much cash they are down/up or how much action they have on. Some players that I know don’t even write down their action and just take their bookies word for what their figure is!

If this is you, then you need to get your stuff together. One idea is to get a list of all the games each weekend, as many sportsbooks or bookies will provide to you. Use this sheet to assess the lines for each game that you want to play and shop the lines for the games you want to play. It’s a whole lot of information to stay on top of: multiple lines and totals on 50+ college and 16 pro games each weekend can become overwhelming if you aren’t organized. So get organized and do the same routine each week, figure your wins and Losses daily, and always stay on top of your overall situation. It will make you a better player and you won’t make stupid mistakes.

#10: Thou Shalt Not Wager When Under The Influence
I know this is a trite suggestion, but it has burned me in the past, and has really burned some players that I know too. Just don’t do it. Never, I repeat, NEVER BET DRUNK OR HIGH. It is widely known that inebriation in most any form gives us a false sense of confidence and we do stupid things, and it clearly applies to sports gambling. It is so easy to fall into the trap of being talked into a stupid play by your buddies at the sports bar, or you are having a good/bad day, and are trying to give it back/make it worse. Just don’t do it. Will power is perhaps the sports gambler’s must important friend, but it doesn’t apply to just when things are going poorly. Just the same, if you blow what would otherwise be a big (profitable) day by taking Hawaii huge in the super late game when you are three sheets to the wind, it will just kill you long term. Even if you say “well, I still pushed today!” my response will be that you need winning days to offset the inevitable losing days, and if you blow your good days with reckless drunken plays, then you are destined to blow up, no question about it. And you probably should just quit right now. It defeats the whole purpose of playing if you don’t have a gameplan with risk management in place and STICK TO IT, no matter how well you are doing. GUI (Gambling Under the Influence) should be a jailable offense just like DUI. Just don’t do it.www.prudentgambler.com

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Constitutional Case For Legal Sports Betting (wealthyways4you.com)
• We Are All Degenerate Gamblers [Recessionomics] (gawker.com)
• Soccer Betting Predictions - Soccer Betting Masters (slideshare.net)

Why Most Sports Gamblers Lose

Image by tuxthepenguin84 via Flickr

It's a widely known concept that the vast majority of sports bettors are going to lose money. The most popular is that 90-percent of sports gamblers will lose money over the course of the year, but that doesn't stop people from wagering on sports. When those bettors eventually go broke and cannot wager any more, there's always somebody else waiting to take their place in line.

Money Management

The number one reason most sports gamblers lose isn't because of poor picks, but instead is because of poor money management. There are far more bettors who can pick winners than there are who can make money, and money management is the key.
Betting $50 on one game and $500 on another is a sure way to find yourself separated from your cash in the long run, just as betting 50-percent of your bankroll on one game will ultimately lead disaster. A sports bettor may win a few games when betting more than they should, but eventually the loss, or losses, will come and the bettors ends up in trouble.

Doubling up after wins or losses is another recipe for disaster, and is a common mistake many bettors make, including those who have been betting for many years.

If you've ever read books on sports betting, you'll find that nearly every one has at least one chapter devoted to money management and that isn't because authors enjoy writing about it. It's because it is that important.

A good place to start on money management is my article Money Management for Sports Bettors.


Betting on the Wrong Events

It's no secret that football and basketball are the two sports that receive the majority of the betting dollars, just as it's no secret that most long-time sports bettors will say those are probably the two toughest sports to show a long-term profit in.
The sport of choice for most professional gamblers is baseball, which happens to rank well below the top two sports in the amount of money received. Hockey is another sport that many long-time bettors believe can give the sports gambler an advantage over the sportsbook, but hockey is bet less than even baseball.

A sports bettors doesn't have to particularly like baseball or hockey. As long as they like money, those are two sports that should be followed, or at least find somebody who is a good baseball or hockey handicapper and follow their plays.


Lack of Knowledge

Most sports bettors know just enough to make them dangerous, as there is a great deal of difference between being knowledgeable in the NFL and being knowledgeable in NFL betting. Being able to name the starting offensive line for the Dallas Cowboys isn't likely to help a person win a bet.
What many sports bettors don't realize is that they're actually competing against other bettors who spend countless hours on handicapping, studying trends, injuries, and betting angles.

If you don't have the time to study the games try to find somebody who does, whether it be on a posting forum, a reputable sports service, etc., but don't assume you know more than everyone else.

There is the old joke of a sports bettor who loses week after week, and finally, his bookie starts to feel sorry for the guy and suggests that he might want to try betting hockey.

"Hockey! I don't know anything about hockey!"

Betting Too Many TV Games

There are a large number of sports bettors who feel if a game is televised, it's their duty to have a wager on the contest. While this didn't create much of a problem years ago, there are so many games televised now, that bettors can easily have seven or eight wagers on a single night, and even more on the weekend.
Typically, the lines are the sharpest on televised games, as the oddsmakers and sportsbooks realize that those games will be bet the heaviest.

If you have to have a wager on every televised game, those bets should be much smaller than your typical bets, somewhere around one-fourth of the amount. I've seen a number of solid handicappers lose money over time by betting the same amount, if not more, on games that are televised than they do on games they honestly believe are good bets.


Casino Betting

This is a relatively new one for sports bettors to deal with, as many online sportsbooks now have casino-style gaming, which is too much for some sports bettors, including some very good sports bettors, to walk away from. I've known of more than one solid sports bettor who will generally show a profit each week, but give that money back, plus a little extra, playing the casino games their sportsbooks offer.
There's always the legitimacy of online casinos to worry about, as well. It's one thing to be at a blackjack table and see the dealer draw a 5 to their 16 to beat your 20, but it's a bit different when it takes place online.

It's easy to see the allure, as why try to grind out a small profit betting sports, when you can hit a Royal Flush playing video poker and quickly win $1,000 or $4,000?

If this is a problem for you try e-mailing the sportsbook and ask them to block you from their casino. Believe me, they understand, and I have heard of quite a few of them that will actually do it.

There isn't any one key to becoming a winning sports bettor, but those who practice money management, put in some time, and practice discipline, are generally a step above the majority of bettors.

Related articles by Zemanta

• 2010 March Madness Picks & Bracket Predictions (touthouse.com)
• Sports Gambling's Latest Technology: The eDeck Arrives In Las Vegas (huffingtonpost.com)

Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act,

Image by chad davis via Flickr

Most of you have been affected by the downturn in the economy over the past five months. Even if you were not directly affected, I'm sure you know someone who has either lost their house, lost all their equity in their house, or has lost a significant amount of money in their savings. What I'm talking about is the American sub-prime housing fiasco, which is quickly becoming a worldwide financial concern.

For those who are not financial junkies like myself, let me give the brief version of what has happened in the financial markets in recent years. As usual, it has a lot to do with greed, subterfuge, and a lack of foresight.

In 2003, banks and financial institutions realized that the only way to keep the housing bubble inflated was to keep people buying homes. The problem was that most of the eligible market had already been serviced in the previous few years and the market was threatening to dry up.

Luckily, they identified a huge untapped market of potential home buyers: people who could not afford homes. These people would never get a bank loan under normal circumstances, but these were not normal circumstances because the banks had a great plan. They would just hope that the good times would never end.

Taking all of the best parts of "historically low interest rates" and combining that with the traditional "low payments for three years" with just a dash of "don't worry, we'll figure that out when it happens", they created a new financial tool called the subprime mortgage. This deal allowed home buyers to pay only two percent interest on the first few years of a mortgage with the interest rate jumping to a variable rate afterwards.

It's amazing they never thought of this before. All they had to do was figure out a way to convince people with poor credit to lock themselves into longterm financial quagmires. So it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Suddenly, people who would normally have been renting were able to buy a starter home. People who should have been in the $200,000 market were buying $400,000 homes. And the wannabes started buying McMansions when they should have been living comfortably in a house half the size. These loans started to get extremely popular because when the friends of these new home owners stopped by for a visit, they were amazed by the grandeur and the low payment so the friends got into the market too and bought using subprime rates. And so on and so on.

What wasn't explained to these people (or what they conveniently ignored) was that your mortgage payment - for the first few years anyway - mainly consists of paying down your interest. And if the current rates are "historically low", then they can only go up. Once they passed the subprime phase of their mortgage, they were going to be on the hook for mortgage payments that were up to 50 percent higher than they had been paying before. If they were having trouble coming up with $1,500 per month, how were they going to find another $600?

Now, you might ask why the banks would take on such risk. Good question.

Answer: They didn't care because somebody had figured out a way to make even more money off the situation.

Enter the wolves. Wall Street saw this this situation and went to work selling snowballs to the Eskimos. They started pooling all these subprime loans together and selling them off to banks and other financial institutions. The idea was that as long as the real estate market was thriving, there would always be value in holding these securities. But the real estate market could only keep thriving because of these ridiculous loans.

See the circle?

In essence, it was a glorified pyramid scheme perpetrated by Wall Street and kept hidden by low interest rates. And nobody cared because it was one of those great moments in history when willful blindness of the inevitable future allowed everybody to enjoy the moment. People with poor credit got their once-in-a-lifetime chance to live in a nice house. Wall Street got rich. For a short while, everybody was winning. But it just couldn't last.

It should never have happened at all. After Enron. After the junk bond debacle of the 80's. It should have been stopped before it even got started. Because of this fraud, the US economy is now in crisis mode. The world economy is fighting not to get dragged down. This situation has more parallels with the global depression of the 30's than any of the relatively minor recessions of recent decades.

So how could the Wall Street clowns pull this off again? How could they dupe the regulators, the law, and the politicians one more time? Well, it's pretty easy to rip people off when no one is watching the store. Or in this case, wasting their time worrying about online gambling. There, I said it.

What was the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department, and the SEC doing for the last three years? They were Spending their time and effort stopping people from playing online poker in the privacy of their own homes.

Rather than nailing down and eliminating the fatal flaw in the subprime mortgage bubble, the SEC and the Treasury Department were investigating UK financial institutions that helped online gaming companies legally list on the UK stock exchange.

Rather than investigate the biggest Ponzi scheme ever perpetrated upon the American public, the DOJ was setting up sting operations in airports to nab the executives of publicly traded firms which happened to be enabling Americans to play poker on their home computers. They were going after companies like Yahoo, Google and Microsoft which accepted money from these companies for advertising.

How about the politicians? What were your elected representatives doing?

Well, they were passing the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act, what Barney Frank calls the "stupidest law ever passed". This law requires the banks to basically monitor every single transaction in the United States to make sure money is not going to an offshore gaming company.

I can hear the siren call: "For God's sake! Stop the gamblers from spending their expendable income. They are going to need that cash once their mortgage payments double!"

Since October 2006, when the subprime guys were at the climax of their heist, the politicians and regulators from the Treasury, the banking industry and the Department of Justice have been locked in a room trying to figure out how to police the Internet. These regulations were supposed to come out in June, then got pushed back to October, and then during the last round were pushed back even further after the banking industry balked at how much effort and work it was going to take to enforce the law.

That's a lot of time and effort spent to restrict gambling. And how much time did they spend trying to control unfettered greed from spinning your country into a recession? For those losing your home, you don't want to know.

But they got what they wanted, I guess. They effectively stopped people from playing at Party Poker and probably halved the $7 billion US online gaming industry. Meanwhile the politicians are debating the pros and cons of a $150 BILLION economic stimulus package to keep the U.S. out of a recession that might have already started. But at least you can't go blowing your money on gambling anymore. The poor guy who loves to play poker really got the shaft. He now has fewer places to play and also lost $100,000 of equity in his home.

I'm not even going to get into the psychology that makes someone believe that allowing an adult to gamble $100 of his own money is wrong, but allowing financial institutions to effectively wager billions of dollars on interest rate hikes is morally and ethically kosher.

And what would this situation be without a little irony?

One of the big accomplishments in the war against gambling was when Bill Frist was able to make an baseless association between online gambling and terrorism and use that to get the UIGEA bill passed as part of the Safe Ports Act. Alright. Nice political maneuver.

An offshoots of this subprime fiasco is that major American financial institutions have now been forced to accept significant foreign investment. So Citibank's major shareholder is now a Saudi Prince. Merril Lynch had to accept billions in financial aid from "sovereign foreign investors." Oil money. In short, two of the most venerable U.S. financial institutions are being bailed out by the Middle East.

I'm in no way saying these investors are terrorists (that's a trick employed by politicians and the DOJ) but I am saying this crisis has opened U.S. corporations to more influence from abroad - Influence that might not be in line with what is in the best interest the average American.

Do you feel safer now?

They also found another novel solution to another problem that didn't exist. Remember that hypothetical child who would steal daddy's credit card and gamble all night with it? Regardless of the fact that this has never been an issue, it is still a regular go-to argument for anti-gambling crusaders. Well, Citibank has reported that their consumer debt risk is at its worst level in years because people are so leveraged. That means even if that child got daddy's credit card, it's completely maxed out and worthless. Problem solved.

How about a little more irony...

The politicians and DOJ had fun characterizing the offshore gaming companies as illegal Pirates of the Caribbean. However, the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda has argued successfully in front of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that the U.S. has not equally applied its gaming laws, in contravention of its commitment to the WTO. In December as a form of restitution, Antigua was awarded the right to legally sell pirated copies of copyrighted material owned by U.S. companies. Music, movies and software are some of the stuff Antigua is now allowed to sell online. And cheap too. So your government's solution worked. They eliminated the illegal pirates by making pirating legal. That sucking sound is more money being flushed out of the American economy.

But hey, they sure kicked the online gaming industry's ass, didn't they?

The final irony has yet to reveal itself, but I can see it coming...

After that economic stimulus package goes into effect, the government is going to need to find a way to pay for it. Can you think of any industries that are begging to be introduced and regulated in America and could generate significant amounts of tax revenue?

I can. Imagine the irony if the one industry the government so disastrously distracted itself trying to fight ended up being the industry they ultimately embrace in their scramble to right their ship.

Learn to identify steam moves

Following line moves is one of the keys to success in sports betting. The importance of monitoring fluctuations of the pointspread has become evident in recent years as most of the major sports betting portals have installed some kind of live odds screen for their site visitors.

There are two types of players who move the lines. First, there are the public or recreational bettors. These players tend to bet on favorites and 'overs', especially in football. Then you have the professional bettors – often labeled 'wiseguys' – and the syndicate players. This second group proves to be most important when examining line moves. When the pros move a number, it's often a good idea to jump on board – as long as it's not too late.

A "steam move" is the phrase used to describe the line change when a large amount of money goes down on one side of a game in a short period of time. This is usually due to the wiseguys making a move on a particular side. After these players choose their side, the bookmakers usually act accordingly by moving their number in an attempt to make the other side look more attractive to other bettors.

"You are going to make as big of a move as you can possibly make because that game is probably not going back to that original number," said Doc from Rio, the head oddsmaker for Skybook, of the line move that comes as a result of a limit bet from a professional player. "Certain guys just know where the line is going. Not that they win or lose every time; but they are right more often than they are wrong."

Steam moves can happen at any time during the week in football. If an opening number is considered a weak one by the pros, they will attack it immediately and the line will shift early in the week. In some cases the wiseguys wait for the public to bet the number to a certain point before making their move. Public money takes some time to move the line. The pros get it moving in a hurry.

"Usually professional money moves (the line) around town pretty quickly," said Jay Kornegay, executive director of race and sports for the Las Vegas Hilton. "All the sudden – boom, boom, boom, boom – all the sixes are gone."

"The public money takes a little longer," Kornegay adds. "It accumulates. Maybe because it is just so spread out. Maybe it’s (because) we don’t respect their opinion as much. It is very rare that the public will bet an underdog. They are always going to bet the better team. So you can always kind of tell by what teams are involved."

Due to the advent of the Don Best Odds Service, which is used by most sportsbooks in the industry; bookies can keep a "real time" tab on the action at competing shops. If they see a game move 1/2-point in the same direction at a couple of books in a matter of minutes, they will often chose to move their number before they risk a limit bet by a professional or syndicate player on the same game. As Doc from Rio mentioned, the pros are usually on the right side.

Public money tends to come in the day before a game or on the day of the game. Professionals take the line when it suits them best. Line moves that take place early in the week are almost exclusively a result of "smart action." In addition, line moves of more than a 1/2-point (if no injuries or weather situations are involved) are usually a result of the wiseguys.

"The best way to know (if a line move is a steam move) is to check the opening line against the game day line," Erick Vill, head linesmaker for Millennium Sports, commented. "If a line moved only 1/2-point, that was due to the (public) action of the book. But if the line moved one or more points, then you know the big syndicate player played it. The big moves in the NFL usually take place before Sunday."

Monitoring line moves is not an exact science. Once the line has moved, all of the value could already be gone from that particular number – especially if everyone in the industry already made the change.

Betting syndicates also manipulate the Don Best service in order to trick the books into moving to numbers that best suit them.

Many books have lower limits early in the week since that is the time frame when the professionals tend to do most of their damage. Some pro players might make limit bets (at the lower limits) on the favorite at a couple of shops that are on the Don Best screen early in the week. This will sometimes cause a panic in the industry where everyone will move their numbers thinking that's the side the wiseguys are on that week.

Later in the week when the books raise their limits, these same bettors will wager heavy action on the opposite side until it is moved back to the original number. They will then take a couple small bets on the underdog at the initial pointspread that will cancel out their original bets. Therefore, they just manipulated the books into giving them the number they always wanted without taking any monetary risk (at the original line). This is called a "fake move" and can be dangerous for the books.

"It's just something you have to follow and use your instincts," said Kornegay. "Watching these line movements over time, you can pretty much tell where the line is going and who is betting it."

SportsBooks & Line Shopping

Expert Sports Picks, Sports Handicapping Systems, Free Sports Picks & Tips
PRO INFO SPORTS clients are strongly urged to have more than one sports gaming source in order to shop for line value. This simply means taking the most advantageous position on every sports investment opportunity. Today there are numerous offshore sportsbooks, providing the opportunity to obtain multiple sports odds, and thus increasing the potential for a positive return.
Posted pointspreads can differ by a point or more on the same game, because lines are intended to evenly divide the wagering public's opinion and, thus, their money. When a sportbook begins to receive more money on one side of a game than the other, they will likely move their line; however, due to the fact that there are so many gambling sportsbooks now, some houses may not receive as big of an imbalance of money as others, resulting in different lines for the same game.
Simple mathematics can easily establish the importance of "line shopping" or finding the best sports odds, as it can ultimately provide the difference between a profitable or losing week, month, or season. Random selections on 100 games should theoretically yield 50 wins and 50 losses. Assume for demonstration's sake that 1 unit was wagered on each game. The result would be a net loss of 5 units due to the "vigorish" service fee taken by sportsbooks on each wager; however, if just FIVE of the defeats were within a point or two of the wagered line, and could have been won simply by finding a better pointspread, the result would be a 55-45 record and a net profit of 5.5 units. This is a reversal of more than 10 units on just a small number of events and with very conservative wagering. Even a half-point can be the difference between a win and a push or a push and a loss. Extrapolate the numbers over the course of a season with a more aggressive money management strategy and the gains are compounded dramatically.
Checking sports gambling odds at several sportsbooks is an absolute necessity and can be done much more quickly now than before the days of the Internet. PRO INFO SPORTS provides multiple live lines on our Sports Handicapping Services - Sports Odds, Scores & News page.
As with any industry there are unscrupulous types to watch out for. Most of the offshore countries where sportsbooks are located require certain terms be met before they grant a license. Also, some countries are now beginning to legalize and regulate online gaming, the same as they do for other industries. Take your time in deciding who you will sign up with. Do your research on the various sportsbooks rules, promos, etc., to see if they meet your needs, and keep up to date with the latest sportsbook news.
Once your sportsbook accounts are funded, you are ready to find the best sports odds and put our handicapping and money management strategies to work for a rewarding and enjoyable sports investment venture with our Sports Handicapping Services