Why you shouldn't bet all six Wild Card games

How many of the games do you think you have found an edge on? I watch football, I know football, but A) all of the teams that made the playoffs are good teams, and B) point spreads make every side a 50-50 proposition. I feel like I might be able to isolate one game for which I have found a soft line, or whatever you want to call it, but not more than two games, let's say. But six? It's insane how many people are prepared to bet all six of these matchups of playoff teams.

Anybody here familiar with combinatorics? Consider the odds of showing a profit when you bet six games. Given the vig, you have to win at least four of your six picks. There are 64 different combinations, and 22 of those will result in profit, while 42 will see you lose money on the weekend. If you gave me 2/1 odds against you showing a profit, I would gladly take it, since the odds against you are 1.9/1.

If you pick one game against the spread this weekend, you have an almost 50 percent chance of showing a profit. If you have a bet on all six, you like action more than you like winning money.

Two things can be true at the same time.

Option A:

Houston ML +135

Ravens minus whatever -110

Bills minus whatever -110

Eagles -9 +150

Washington ML +135

LAR -2 (+135)

Option B

LAC -6 +143

Ravens minus whatever -110

Bills minus whatever -110

Eagles -9 +150

Bucs -6 +140

Minn -6 +160

Either option based on your team preferences will profit at 50 % win ratio (less actually).  

@garbagetime

 THIS..."Son, you can go to gamble or you can go to win, but you can't go to do both"...my late father. The gambler craves the action; oh he says he wants to win but his love of the action will prevent the winning. True, he will have his hot streaks, any monkey can be right sometime, but the game is not just today, it's all the days and over time the winner is not motivated by the love of action! Now, nothing wrong with just liking to gamble. If you can afford it and don't let it take over, like any addiction, and ruin your life, fine, gamble for entertainment. If the goal is being a long term winner, well that is another discussion altogether. They play the national anthem somewhere every day, you don't have to hear them all.

Pick your poison 

@garbagetime

 Great story

Any info on plays?

@garbagetime

 I have been gambling for almost 40 years, and this write up is so true. It took me awhile to figure out whether I was gambling for the thrill of it or if I was gambling to make money. I finally figured it out.

very nice thread you started and explained and very true.

For the year posted I am 10-5 not a knock em dead record but a winning one for sure upwards of 80% with a small sample size.

My point is I average less than a game week played throughout the regular season I've been there and done that where I went in all over my head with just too many plays but now I pick  and choose carefully which I've done well with posting and I suggest many to do the same.

I also have an overtime experiment going as well for the season and throughout the playoffs which I will be updating shortly.

Good luck on your plays today fellas

I'm plus-2 units in the NFL this season, break-even in my usual strategy (7-6) and plus-4.5 in twin peaks situations. I'm on Houston +3 today, which I explained in another thread, but my general strategy is to go against the consensus.

A publisher is considering a book manuscript of mine, here's a relevant sample:

The only theoretical way to win is to do a serious amount of number crunching, find something that looks like an edge, blind spots that appear to offer value, and bet them when these situations present themselves.

Betting because you want to win money is a serious grind. If you can find a situation that favors you — meaning you’ve spotted something that happens a third of the time but you can get implied odds of 40 percent — you make that bet hundreds or even thousands of times, gradually building your bankroll.

Last year, in an 18-week NFL season, I made 32 bets and won 19 — 59 percent, a big win. The previous year, 54% — a little better than break even. The year before that, 50%, a loss. If you are attempting to put yourself through school, feed your kids or pay down your mortgage, this isn't going to do anything for you. It’s a long, long road, a place where you can double your bankroll in a month guessing well in soccer, and then lose half of those winnings on a big slate of Saturday games where you guess them all wrong.

It takes tremendous discipline to stick to the games you’ve identified as your best bets, and not waver from your commitment to playing only those games. It takes discipline to refuse to chase losses, and to refuse to take the bets you’re not 100 percent sure of after you’ve won a decent amount of money. It takes discipline to not raise the amount of your bet when things are going badly, and to not raise the amount of your bet when things are going well.

When people warn you about the importance of money management to being a successful bettor, they’re talking about the grind. The grind isn’t flashy. Big wins happen only occasionally. It’s more like a hundred small wins, all for exactly the same small amount, whether you felt going into the game that it was a sure thing or whether you felt it could go either way.

And if you win a hundred bets like that, it means you’ve also lost 85 bets, all for exactly the same small amount. Your edge is small, so your units must also be small. The common advice of having each bet be 1% to 2% of your bankroll is, if anything, aggressive. At some point, you’ll lose 15 or 20 bets in a row. Do you have enough to cover it? You have to have enough in your account to weather storms that you know are coming.

This is great advice.. My comment is that a good gambler knows how to separate

"" action "" from "" opportunity "" . 

And it is foolish to think that "any" gambler has an opportunity on every game..... or even 'most' games  

I myself in my younger years got caught up in the " excitement " of games, but have grown wiser to separate

the " excitement " from" opportunity" ,,,, and i do much better in gambling as a result.  

This..... 

You’re never winning anything with that attitude 

LOL. There's attitude, and then there's maths.

If you're betting to win, you're not a gambler....you're a daytrader in gym shorts and a t shirt.....Very few guys don't bet parlays, look for the best juice, and limit plays. Everybody wants to win of course....but the "big win" is what drives a lot of bettors. The grind of betting solo picks at -110 and hoping to go 55/100 just doesn't appeal to many. An 8 team parlay than can turn $10 into $20,000? Attention grabber. 

I've said it many times on Covers....I dont gamble to win, I gamble so I can gamble tomorrow. 

There is so much good information in here

To address the ""money management "" portion, I can share from previous experience that I have ' reduced' the size of what a 1 unit  bet is.   This practically reduced my chasing to near zero.    As you pointed out, the size of your next bet shouldn't be influenced by the result of your previous bet,.... win or lose.

If you don’t like math then you better have the right attitude 

@maxwagers781

 If you want to have a chance of making money in this business,  then you better have both 

Just  play  props  then. No worries  about  spreads

@bigcash

 I like props.

Your worry with props is that the books find the mean of all game performances, and then skew their line liberally to match the market's preference for overs. Particularly if you favor overs, you're not going to win over time.

@garbagetime

"Particularly if you favor overs, you're not going to win over time."

Disagree.  Especially if as the bettor you do what the book does.

"then skew their line liberally to match the market's preference for overs."

Most recent example, OSU -13 paid +225 which I would need to win 30.77% to be profitable.  

Again if you accept the book lines and take points you don't need you're going to lose in the long term. 

If you move the line to something around +150, you need 40% which most average cappers can achieve.  

Well you know football and have a book deal pending so 

Even if you pick 1 game a day, over a period of 6 days you would still have to go 4-2 to turn a profit or 3-3 with +money bets. 

Less is more but most gamblers don't understand. I posted this same rule a couple of years ago on a different site and I got a response from this guy who bets every Thursday night, Sunday night and Monday night game every week along with 6-7 selections every Sunday afternoon. He asked "why?" and all I said was "you'll see." He went 0-8 on his wild card selections. True story.