Handicapping Services

If you are a novice to sports betting and sports handicapping services, you can save yourself a lot of anguish and money by ignoring any handicapper that boasts of long term percentages of over 65% in the long run, or even over the course of a full season. In fact, I don’t know of any handicapper that is over 57% over many seasons in football and my 56% lifetime is about as good as it gets. There are handicappers that are going to win 65% in a given season, but they are just as likely to hit 50% the next year unless they have a long term track record of success – and that long term track record is not going to be higher than 55% to 57%. In my 21 years as a professional handicapper I’ve had seasons at 65% too (I was 74% in College Football in 2005), but I’ve also had a season at 46%. The stock market doesn’t go up every year either and it still remains a good long term investment, just like my service is.

You should also beware of any handicapper claiming he has a “lock” or a “guaranteed winner”. There is no such thing. There was a mathematical study done a few years back that determined that 50% of pointspread results were determined by random chance (i.e. turnovers in football). So, if 50% of all games are toss-ups and you are 100% on the correct side on the other 50% that aren’t determined by chance, then you would win 75% of the time. Of course, there is no handicapper that is on the right side 100% of the time since there is not a clear cut 100% side in any game (that’s like saying the oddsmakers are 100% wrong on a game). But, if you are better than the oddsmakers 70% of the time on the games you choose to bet, then you’ll win 60% of your games (70% wins on the 50% of the bets that are not determined by luck and 50% wins on the 50% of games that are determined by chance is 60% overall). The research of my indicators and math models suggests that there is no game that has more than a 70% chance of winning, so don’t believe the hype when a service claims they have a game that can’t lose, or they have some inside information (that’s just a marketing tool to make you think they know something that everyone else doesn’t, which isn’t the case).

I also feel I need to address services that claim they have some (for instance) 21-0 super system on a game and tout it as a can’t miss winner. I have a database that goes back to 1980 and I have also found subsets of situations that have records like 21-0. However, I have done research on the predictability of situations and much of that predictability depends on how many factors are used in arriving at a particular situation. Something that is 21-0 probably has at least 10 factors (home, dog, off a win, played on the road last game, opponent off a loss of 6 points or more, etc, etc, etc) and my research tells me that a 21-0 situation with 10 parameters has only a 59.2% chance of covering the next time it applies (which is pretty good, but hardly a lock). Even a more general angle with only 6 parameters and a very good 120-50 ATS record has only a 56.9% chance of covering in the future, given a fair line (it also depends on what type of parameters make up the situation). So, don’t get too carried away because you have a bet based on some high percentage angle. My research has proved that situational analysis does work, but most handicappers use far too many factors in searching for an angle that gives them the highest win-loss percentage, and the more parameters a situation has the more it explains what has happened rather than what will happen the next time that situation occurs. Other handicappers also have no clue as to how predictive an angle is, but I’ve done the research and I know exactly how predictive my situational analysis is (as well as how predictive my math model is). When I say a game has a 59.1% chance of covering at -7 points, then that is the chance of covering based on the historical performance of my situational analysis, my fundamental indicators, and my math model.