NFL Betting: Exposing Systems
By Loot, NFL Football Handicapper, Lootmeister.com
When betting on NFL, you will hear about so-called winning systems that people are trying to sell you. In addition, there will be certain systems that just might occur to you independently. Knowing how to respond to these sales pitches and thoughts are a key consideration when betting on NFL football games.
A system is basically a course of action where the blueprint is drawn up before any bets are even placed. It can fall into a multitude of categories. There might be systems that tell you to always bet against a road favorite in the NFL. Or to always bet against an NFL team playing its 3rd road game in 4 weeks. Or to always bet against a rookie QB in his first three games on the field to open the season. It really can be anything. These are some elementary examples, but it can get really deep.
If you bet on the NFL long enough, you will also generate some ideas of potential winning systems. It might occur to you that maybe you should try the double-up technique. You make a bet. If it wins–you collect. If it loses, you double your next bet and keep doing that until you win. Or maybe it’s occurred to you to bet favorites. If they lose, you calculate how much you would need to wager to wipe out the previous loss. And you keep going until you wipe out that loss.
We don’t want to impugn the integrity of every guy trying to either sell you winning picks or a system. There are some good guys out there who can be of some help to a bettor. But unfortunately, this is an area for life that has drawn a big crowd of hustlers and other unethical sorts. Here’s a good sign that a guy is full of it–when he has a commercial and the voice sounds like a guy hyping a monster truck rally. That’s a bad sign.
When a guy starts talking about his “10-star” picks and his 80%-90% win rate–write him off immediately. If it sounds too good to be true–this is one time where you can be certain that it is. What you want to hear is a guy who is maybe willing to give you some free picks to test it out. When he brags about his winning percentage against the spread, he maybe says he’s 58% or 60%. In other words, he’s realistic. Not even whales can hit 80%, so when you hear someone saying they can do that–do not be drawn into the madness. You’re setting yourself up for disappointment.
Still, we often don’t need a shyster to separate us from our money when it comes to systems. We can do a good job of that on our own. The double-up system has crossed everyone’s mind at one point. You start betting against the spread. You win, you collect. If you lose, you keep doubling up until you win. This might work from time to time. It’s just that when you are betting against the spread, you’re betting on a proposition that is theoretically 50-50. Toss a coin and call heads or tails and it won’t be long until you hit a cold patch. When doubling up, you’re never that far off from getting into scary territory. If your starting bet is $100, you’re just small handful of losses from being in super-scary territory with gargantuan bet amounts.
Then there’s another version of the same principle, but rather than taking teams against the spread, you’re betting favorites. If one bet loses, you compute how much will need to be bet on the next one to wipe out that loss. This might work a little better than the ATS double-up technique, being that it’s harder to get on a bad losing streak when betting on teams that are supposed to win and are favored on the money line. But when betting more than you stand to win, a small handful of losses can really devastate you and you have to have a super-deep bankroll to absorb a bad run. Then again, there are people who have sort of been able to make this work. It’s just that you’re never that far from total ruin. A small amount of quirky results can pretty much wipe you out.
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The bottom line is that if something works for you and makes you money–do it. It’s just that for every “guaranteed winning system” you hear about–most of them are pure garbage. And also consider that it’s going to be extremely difficult to make it in NFL football betting when you take the human-element out of it and reduce it to a robotic adherence to a system. At some point, whether or not we succeed in this will come down to our own merit as betting men.