One of our successful angles is our “dichotomous ATS and SU game”. We discount 98 percent of trends, but this has proven to be the exception to the rule. Basically if a team has a great SU record but horrid ATS record or visa versa, you ride for that to continue as it is the sign of which teams are most under or overvalued.

We also speak of our “competitor consensus”. If we do not have a lean towards one side but it does not rise to the level of premium play, but get a strong play or consensus from the few other handicappers we respect, we pass it as a “competitor consensus”.

Combining the two tools, we have one area which proves to be extremely nice to our client’s bankrolls.

In our endless brainstorming with other professional handicappers and VIP gamblers, we believe the “dichotomous angle” not only overlaps with some of their procedures but in trading intel with our outsourced contacts combines the best of all of our worlds.

A technique used with those who are crackerjacks in this approach is dissecting margin of cover. Notice we said margin of “cover”, not margin of victory.
 The patriarchs on this prescription have slightly different wrinkles on how exactly to apply it. However the baseborn premise is that if a team’s spread win-loss record is at a high percent, its handicapping value is verified or nullified by how close the spread wins and losses were.

As an illustration, let us say a team is 15-5 to the Vegas odds for the year. The mere trendmeister would say that is a team to bet with. Those who research margin of cover, the much brighter gambler in fact, scrutinizes much deeper.

If for example the five ATS setbacks were by a combined 43 points and the 15 wins were by a collective 38 points, the 15-5 trend is fool’s gold. However if the 15 covers were by an average of 10 points per game and the setbacks by 2.5 points per game the trend becomes an angle.

Sure the 15-5 team would be the “better” spread team but I’ve yet to find a place in which you can bet retroactively. In foreseeing the future the fact their “margin of cover” was a negative seven tells us they are not a “strong” spread team and their record is not a symptom of being undervalued, just having had fortuitous covers.

We strengthen, weaken or cancel plays based on whether our information trafficking enhances or contradicts our own findings.
Both the dichotomous and margin angles ensure that trends pass the litmus test of rising to being an “angle” before application.

Having an information trade treaty with other masterminds safeguards there will be systematic checks and balances.

And getting big checks with nice balances from offshore is what it’s all about.

Duffy’s plays are part of the Dream Team at Godspicks at OffshoreInsiders.com He is perhaps the most published and respected author on sports gambling theory and has been featured as a regular guest as the handicapping expert on the Rick Ballou Show on Sporting News Radio, Gamblers Zoo national radio show, the Meat and Potatoes gambling show, Gridiron Gamblers, Pro Fantasy Sports Internet radio and Grogan’s Fantasy Football show.

Well I had an English professor in college who despised clichés with a passion. Hey I just realized that was a cliché. I do not know if Professor Mc Vie was a betting man though, because with apologies to my English mentor the old saying applies to money management in sports betting: it is a marathon not a sprint.

While some scores and odds gamblers may fall prey to the assurances of boiler room scamdicappers maintaining to have inside information and hitting 95%, I have a surprise for you. No gambler, handicapper, wise guy, nobody is slump proof.

For that matter even Joebagofdonuts making his hunch plays for his $10 parlay card will go in streaks. The recipe is to find a handicapper or invest the time yourself to insure that the winning steaks outnumber and outlast the losing streaks.

Frankly the formula to winning in sports is well-informed handicapping and money management. Even if somebody can win consistently, if one’s betting amount is haphazard one can lose a lot of money.

Bookmakers drive around in new Porsche’s not just because most of their clients grapple to hit 45% of their plays, but also because a preponderance of gamblers use the “panic” or “greed” methods when deciding how much to wager.

Any sports betting links player who increases his bets when he is down to try to win it back in one bet is destined to live in a box by the river. That is why Monday Night Football is the greatest thing to ever happen to a bookie. The bookie’s second best friend is the Sunday night game. Both are considered “bail out games” by the uneducated risk taker.

But even worse is the player for stakes who presses his luck during a hot streak and increases his bets. I have seen so many suckers go 15-5 for example and still squander capital.

The quandary is a $50 bettor for example when he is hot has the attitude, “Could you imagine how much I would have made if I bet $200 a game?” Even worse is the guy who goes 5-0 and realizes how much he could have made if he put money on a parlay. Yes 20/20 handicapping is great but I do not know a sportsbook that takes those types of antes.

Any bookmaker will tell you with 90% of gamblers, the more they win one week, the more the bookie looks forward to the gamester’s phone call the next week. Too many gamblers always find a way to give the money back and then some.

Even I have had nightmare days, but because of money management the Wise Guys and I have no idea what a losing month or season is.

The recipe is to stake the same amount based purely on how much one likes a game, not how much one is up or down in the short run. However there are actually two adaptations of acceptable money management.

One is the Godsey Theory, which is the most straightforward and the other is the Kelly System, which the units are equal but always relative to the bankroll.

The Godsey Theory is a fundamental as it gets. The way to divvy the units can be different as long as it is constant, but the key is not change the rating system or units per play.

Personally I only bet plays in two different units. Wise Guy plays are my top play and majors are .75 units of a Wise Guy play.

So as it applies to a $100 player, he would bet $100 on my Wise Guy plays and of course, $75 on my majors. Much like putting the same amount every month into the stock market, this method must be bet religiously.

However the Kelly System is similar but is based on a set percentage of one’s bankroll, not a set amount. Generally the maximum bet is 1/20 of the total bankroll.

Using the same one unit and .75 unit rating procedure, if one’s bankroll starts out with a $2,000 bankroll, Wise Guy plays would be $100 (5% of 2,000) and a major would be $75 (3.75% of (2,000).

Let’s say the gambler goes on a huge losing streak and his bankroll drops to $1,325. Then a Wise Guy play is still 5% of his bankroll, but is it $66.25, while a major is still 3.75% at $49.69.

When his bankroll is increased to $3,330 for example a Wise Guy play increases to $166.50, while a major would be $124.88.

Accurate handicapping and great information is the heart and soul of sports gambling. But without a responsible and thus concordant money management modus operandi it will all go for naught.

With both the Kelly Theory and the Godsey theory, your amount or percentage as the case may be never varies according to your streaks. I have never heard of a progressive betting system that works long-term. I know many in sports are based off of questionable betting procedure in blackjack or other casino games. The funny thing is the blackjack players who I know who swear by these methods always seem to forget when they lose and remember when it wins.

Now that is a degenerate gambler indeed. Somebody has to pay for those fancy chandeliers and ostentatious creature comforts at those multi-billion dollar casinos. Let us just make sure it is not you or me!

If one considers any game a “bailout” game, that is the first sign of trouble. Gamblers love to add up the wins and losses before deciding how much to bet on the Sunday night NFL game and Monday Night game. If a gambler had a horrific Saturday and Sunday, he starts betting parlays or coming up with schemes on how to win it all back with the two remaining prime time games—big mistake. Whether you are up 10 units or down said amount, the amount that you bet if at all on the Sunday night game should be based purely on how much you like that game. The Monday Night Football game is no different.

I cringe or at least wish that I was on the other side of the window when I hear a gambler who is down a few sheckles figuring merely how to get his debt below his “square up” amount with his man. Do not get me wrong, the goal of course is to not pay your man, but show me a guy who says he collects from the BM 52 weeks a year and please give me a chance to sell you stock in the Brooklyn Bridge.

Just like the stock market gambling has its ebbs and flows and to accept that one will not turn a profit 52 weeks a year is the first step on avoiding the endless pitfalls that make the bookmakers filthy rich.

The point is that with proper handicapping and money management you will collect from the man much more than he pays you, but there are some weeks that if you are down late in the week that you have to accept that it is going to be one of those periods where he collects from you.

Conversely the gambler often does the opposite. If he enters the late Sunday card significantly up, he may often get conservative just to insure a profit for the week or perhaps worse press his luck and increase his bets. Both are stupid. Anyone who lives and dies off of a one game or one day is destined to subsidize his “man’s” lifestyle.

“When you believe in things that you don’t understand, you suffer. Superstition ain’t the way, yeh, yeh,” Stevie Wonder. Those are words to sing and gamble by. I realize that there are times that it seems like everything is going right for you and there are times when no matter how hard you handicap the games, you just feel like in the final minutes or innings of a game if it’s close, you will lose.

I know the feeling. I have gone in some slumps and I will have three games on the dish going down to the wire. I just know I am watching heartbreak in progress. It boggles the mind how when things are not going your way every backdoor cover goes against you. But never, ever let such superstition affect your betting. The same is true when you are in a run where every late break goes your way. Pressing one’s luck is every bit as dangerous as panicking.

Never vary your bets based on the feeling that you are snake bitten or in a hot streak. As someone who sells picks for a living I am more than aware how gamblers love betting someone’s hot streaks. Finding a quality handicapper is much more important and profitable than worrying about who is hot and who has the big plays.

It is harmless if superstition affects your rooting habits, such as wearing your lucky shirt on an NFL Sunday. Buy never cross the line of it entering either your handicapping or the amount that you bet.

Joe Duffy generally considered as the greatest scorephone handicapper ever joined Internet guru Mike Godsey to form the most powerful handicapping alliance ever. Known as the handicapping’s “Dream Team” their plays are as little as less than $6.00 per day at OffshoreInsiders.com

Get 107 juice at Canbet if you tell them JoeDuffy.net sent you!


See the Changes Made to Make Some Change
Joe Duffy (www.godspicks.com)
With apologies to the androgynous David Bowie, if you don’t want to be a richer man than don’t face the strain. But if you do want to profit when handicapping basketball, your “gonna” have to be a changed man.
With the top high school players more likely to enter the NBA draft and if not stay in college for a cup of coffee, the sharp player has to recognize the complexities that it brings to handicapping.
There are many reasons why Young Turk handicappers have surpassed some old school prognosticators. The obvious reason is so many of the moth-eaten soothsayers use out-of-date handicapping techniques ignoring the Internet and various computer programs. However less obvious but even more importantly is also not acknowledging that once tried and true theories have become obsolete.
Among the examples:
Senior leadership: the great seniors of the past are now third and fourth year NBA players. Maryland was the exception in 2002 not because of experience but it just so happened that Maryland was a throwback—two superstar seniors. Lonny Baxter and Juan Dixon did not lead Maryland to the Promised Land because they were seniors, but because they were two NBA prospects that actually stayed around for four years. Plenty of teams could compete with them as far as veterans on the roster, but none were in the same league talent wise.
Unlike the recent past, never handicap so-called leadership ahead of talent. Perhaps an academic school like Duke or Stanford will combine both, but if a teams four-year players are not going to be found on a lot All-Conference or All-American teams, don’t be counting on their birth certificates to compensate for lack of height, muscle and speed.
Talent will overcome lack of experience, but you can keep your bookmaker in business waiting for the reverse to happen.
If the opposite were the case, mid-major teams would wear the glass slipper every year, as they are the schools that have more four-year players than the big boys.
I will put my back-to-back great recruiting classes of sophs and frosh ahead of your senior laden team whose top player is a mid level Australian league back-up prospect.
Preseason publications: I use to quietly giggle at those who said preseason publications were worthless once the season tips off. Related to what is stated above, the supermarket year books used to be very valuable as the squads with the most returning starters always got out of the gate the quickest, while teams with the most new quality talent would peak late. However once March came it was time to go back to betting on the vets.
Street & Smith’s and the many worthy imitations used to be ideal reference books for such. Of course one would have to make adjustments for injuries, but I successfully used my endless pile of storehouse arsenal throughout the year.
Up until the mid-90s I would compile the consensus predictions of all the publications. I would weigh each conference’s official coaches’ poll 50/50 with the hacks’ cumulative opinion as I found these to be good power ratings.
When a team with consensus preseason conference rating of say 5.6 (average predicted finish) was a big favorite to a team with a rating of 2.4 and the teams were healthy, but the “5.6” team was playing much better, the comparative consensus ratings were a gold mine in sorting out overachieving and underachieving teams.
More times than not, the hypothetical situation said look for both teams to return to their talent level and bet the “2.4” team.
With such turnover on the rosters, teams are much streakier and so much harder to predict than 10 and 20 years ago. Looking at a team’s recent three and five game performance is more valuable than ever. College hoop squads don’t “rise and fall to their level” like they used to.
Bigger homecourt advantage. Don’t take me out of context. I never said there is no difference between a freshman and sophomore-laden team and one with a bunch of third and fourth-year starters. Lack of maturity shows up on the road a lot more than at home. Home court advantage, especially in the first 15-20 games is as big as it ever was. Home dogs and small favorites, especially when playing well, deserve a longer look-see more than ever before.
In 1985, those theories that worked in 1980 and even 1970 often held up. No only has the game itself but thanks to technology the way sharp players handicap has also been greatly altered. Hence so had the way the lines are made and moved.
Too many dinosaur diviners are estimating today’s outcomes with yesterday’s attitude. So handicappers, time better change you, because you can’t trace time.
Duffy’s plays are part of the Dream Team at Godspicks.com. He is perhaps the most published and respected author on sports gambling theory and has been featured as a regular guest as the handicapping expert on the Rick Ballou Show on Sporting News Radio.

JoeDuffy.net has researched the best sportsbooks for you and we choose the ones we use and think you should use for line shopping. BetUs has the best reload and sign up bonus UP TO 50 percent—and they pay on time.

Rotisserie Experts Need Not Be Chicken When It Comes to Betting Baseball
Joe Duffy (www.godspicks.com)
Within the last year, I wrote an article about how sports investing and fantasy sports know-how can have common characteristics, but I declared how it is ten carats on the baseball diamond. There is no doubt that evaluations specifically on the alleged
America’s pastime warrant an essay in and of itself.
If one can distinguish there are both differences and similarities between winning with your MVP fantasy team and winning at MVP sportsbook, a great roto GM can be one heck of a prognosticator as well.
Our favorite rotisserie site Rotowire.com has injuries and analysis of such that is of great worth to the gambler as well. They give diagnosis of players’ slumps, injuries, the injury replacements et al in their “recommendation” section. It has a lot of nuggets that make food for thought for my daily handicapping.
They are also my favorite source for the scoop on starting pitchers coming up from the minor leagues. Ah, starting pitchers coming up to the Show. There is the biggest comparison and contrast from gambling to roto managing.
In fantasy sports you are projecting his long-term worth, but in gambling the “long term” is his next nine innings or less. This is not to say that one not need to envisage what he will do longer term. In fact it is quite contrary.
So often top prospects come up from the minors and have a few good outings before running into some bumps in the road. The general school of thought is that once they get around the league the scouting gets better.
This is perhaps somewhat true, but more times than not teams bring up players when they are in a nice groove. It is rare that a blue chip prospect is brought up to the bright lights when they were struggling on the farm.
However necessity can be the mother of rushing guys to the majors. Therefore the handicapper more than the fantasy guru is not worried how the touted fireballer will be down the road, but in his next outing.
Was it injuries or just plain bad pitching that forced the parent club to bring him up or was it clearly the opportune time? A pitcher’s last three or so starts in the minors is much more important to the ‘capper than the roto geek.
Few things are more of a crapshoot (not even a crapshoot) than pitching prospects. Even those who do pan out rarely do right away. You can throw out your Todd Van Poppel, Rick Ankeil, Lance Dickson and Willie Banks rookie cards. Do not even get me started on Brien Taylor.
Often the square handicapper outsmarts himself thinking he is so far ahead of the curve knowing the in vogue pitching prospects. Because of the previously stated tendency to bring the star up when he’s in the proper “zone” going with the Young Turk can often pay off in the short run.
But with each win comes higher expectations and the true test comes when adversity strikes. That’s when we exploit the Johnny-come-lately not being able to live up to his press clippings.
Even those who do pan out are often late bloomers.
What does this mean from a handicapping standpoint? Knowing the square player outfoxes himself, the hotshot who has proven nothing more times than not proves to be overvalued. However often they get out of the gate quickly before fading.
That is why it is so important to retrace the recent starts preceding his call-up. Of course the last 3-5 starts at AAA or as can be the case AA should not have the same credence as we weigh MLB starts, but they certainly must be weighed accordingly.
Like we said, the fantasy sites often have the best relevant scouting report. But remember Rotowire and other sites are more concerned whether or not the pitcher in question becomes the latest flavor of the month. We just want to know if he has the hot hand and for how long.
Once the chic media’s latest phenom hits his first bump in the road, we fade him hard. Bucking the flavor of the month club has made us a lot of money of the years, but the fantasy information has greatly aided us in not jumping the gun too soon.
As far as other sources in the fantasy sports realm, ESPN’s Fantasy Power Picks are excellent, though their actual ratings very flawed. For example they only compare bottom line ERA over a period when computing their power ratings and give no consideration to innings pitched. A hurler whose ERA in five innings of the previous month is 1.50 is given more weight than one whose ERA is 2.09 in 32 innings.
We as handicappers break down the numbers, but ESPN’s Power Picks at least displays and parses them very well.
Don’t make too much fun of the rotogeek in your office who is living and dying off of the boxscores. If he is perennially at the top of his league standings, he may be able to help make your investing fantasies come true. You can bet on it.
Duffy’s plays are part of the Dream Team at Godspicks.com. He is perhaps the most published and respected author on sports gambling theory and has been featured as a regular guest as the handicapping expert on the Rick Ballou Show on Sporting News Radio, Gamblers Zoo national radio show, the Meat and Potatoes gambling show, Gridiron Gamblers, Pro Fantasy Sports Internet radio and Grogan’s Fantasy Football show. His daily news and notes are at www.joeduffy.net
His Wise Guy Plays available exclusively at www.godspicks.com where daily sports handicapping information is available to crush the sportsbooks. Godspicks.com has daily sports betting free winners, news, notes and trends. Media inquiries and all questions: godspicks@bellsouth.net

JoeDuffy.net has researched the best sportsbooks for you and we choose the ones we use and think you should use for line shopping. BetUs has the best reload and sign up bonus UP TO 50 percent—and they pay on time.

Read Between the Lines to Beat the Line, That’s a Quote
Joe Duffy (www.godspicks.com)
No matter how inferior his foe is, Lou Holtz’s subsequent opponent is always the paramount team in recent football history. His own team is always overrated and fortunate not to be winless. So says he anyway. A first-class handicapper can differentiate between “coachspeak” and legitimate handicapping information.
The most indispensable bit of information that I look for is when coaches evaluate how his team executed in practice that week. Coaches have demonstrated very trustworthy and impartial for such tidings that have proven priceless in foretelling the ATS outcome of games.
Anytime a coach has expressed either glee or disenchantment in how his team has functioned on the practice field the week preceding a game, this handicapper sees a gargantuan red flag.
Coaches are legendary about blowing smoke, but I have found when it comes to evaluating his team’s frame of mind as game day approaches, such pertinent specific quotes to be invaluable bits of handicapping information.
Player quotes are also magnificent gauges of a team’s mindset. This is especially the case in college sports when a team faces a potential letdown or revenge situation. Too often uneducated gamblers choose to conjecture when a team will overlook an opponent or when for example a large favorite will be motivated or unmotivated to run up a score.
Thank goodness the media needs some fodder and helps us by spotting such potential situations. While the scribes can often write worthless claptrap, when they center on motivational mindsets, I find infinitely meaningful articles covering such angles of consequence to handicappers.
Steve Spurrier is of course the antithesis of Holtz. Early indications are that the Visor has not toned down his trash talking for the NFL. However back in December of 2001, Spurrier was conspicuously low-keyed before his traditional rivalry against a Tennessee team that he had beaten seven consecutive times and in many cases quite soundly.
Sirens went off as far as I was concerned. The biggest trash talking coach in contemporary times gone by was quite the diplomat against a team and coach who he never failed to dis’ until that time. His unspoken works said more than any that he could have uttered. Thanks to such, we unloaded on one of our largest plays ever and the Vols not only snapped the jinx, they did it in Gainesville, winning outright 34-32.
So often it is the subtleties that separate the winners from the losers in sports handicapping. You can quote me on that.
Joe Duffy is General Manager of Freescoreboard.com, the premier hub of world class handicappers. Duffy’s handicapping prowess is now part of the Dream Team with Mike Godsey at www.godspicks.com, widely considered to be the most powerful handicapping alliance ever.

JoeDuffy.net has researched the best sportsbooks for you and we choose the ones we use and think you should use for line shopping. BetUs has the best reload and sign up bonus UP TO 50 percent—and they pay on time.

God’s Tid-Bets, Vol. 16
Joe Duffy (www.joeduffy.net)
This is the latest in a series, a Godgepodge of sports gambling discussion.
Toot Our Own Horn
We have happily given credit where it is due to competitors as we openly admit we utilize the databases of Jim Feist, Covers and Foxsheets in our daily handicapping. We also enjoy Scorephone.com to which we are affiliated because they carry some of the best syndicated content from the Sports Network and Sports Databases.
But I honestly believe our new blog at www.joeduffy.net fills a major void. We share our clipboard of daily news and notes as applicable to the gambler. We noticed a lot of fantasy sports sites led by Rotowire.com have valuable daily updated information for the rotisserie/fantasy sports player and wondered why there isn’t one for gamblers.
Now there is and it includes advanced news and notes available before the opening line comes out. Objectively I think you will like the 100 percent free information at www.joeduffy.net
Yes We Are “Series-ous”
I often hear handicappers say they disregard series stats beyond the current season. On the surface their argument would pass any of those truth tables that we were taught in Philosophy class in testing logical conjunction. Players and coaches often change, so the make-up of one or both teams can be significantly and even completely different than when a cycle of dominance started.
This truth is amplified in college sports where even redshirt athletes’ careers are spread out over a maximum of five years. In top shelf basketball conferences often the stars have a one or two year cup of java before turning pro. Take for example the 2005 NCAA basketball national champion North Carolina, which lost all five starters.
One could present a lucent argument that anything North Carolina did even the previous year was irrelevant in forecasting the near future. Certainly any college team that has nine-year dominance over another even if not justified in talent match-ups would seem immaterial. After all, some players on each team were nine years old at the commencement of the streak.
But such a simplistic view brushes off the mental aspect of the game. In sports there is no shortage of strange superstitions, so completely disregarding that one team can have a certain mystique even if it’s not warranted by players currently wearing the uniforms, can be costly.
Oh trendmeisters who blindly bet series stats, oblivious to the fact the status are no longer in quo are at the other and admittedly more naïve extreme. But don’t outthink yourself. Series stats should be handled with great caution and kept into their proper perspective. But the confidence level in each team or lack thereof that history can bring should not abandoned.
Those who ignore history in handicapping are doomed to not defeat it.
Not Just History, But Chemistry Too
It happens often in the NBA, but applies in every sport. Often a star player will miss a significant number of games because of injury, but a team will play well without him. In virtually all cases, getting the star player back of course is a positive in the long term. However we handicap that if a team prospered without him, more times than not they do take the proverbial step back before moving forward.
Of course when a stud returns to the line-up the pointspread will move in that team’s direction causing further line value. The window of opportunity is rarely longer than two games. However never fail to think likely that a key player returning to the line-up for a team streaking in the positive direction does more times than not rattle a harmonious situation. Anticipating this and the temporary nature of it will turn several frowns upside down in each sport.
Duffy’s plays are part of the Dream Team at Godspicks.com. He is perhaps the most published and respected author on sports gambling theory and has been featured as a regular guest as the handicapping expert on the Rick Ballou Show on Sporting News Radio, Gamblers Zoo national radio show, the Meat and Potatoes gambling show, Gridiron Gamblers, Pro Fantasy Sports Internet radio and Grogan’s Fantasy Football show. His daily news and notes are at www.joeduffy.net

The disparity is even more explicit in college sports, but it is colossal in professional sports handicapping as well. Rankings are just that, teams are ranked in specific categories first to last. Ratings have teams “rated” in various categories comparative to a mean number. For example, let’s say Clemson is playing Maryland in football. This is explained in more detail in the Gospel eBook of sports betting.

Clemson runs for 252.4 (raw number) yards per game to rank (rankings of course) No. 7 in the country. Maryland as an illustration averages 239.8 to rank 18^th. According to those “rankings” and “raw numbers” Clemson has a better rushing offense.
However rankings and raw numbers don’t scratch the surface. Conversely a rating would say the cumulative average of Clemson’s previous opponents’ defense allows 232.2 rushing yards per game.

That would mean Clemson rushes for 20.2 more yards per game than their opponents normally allow (+20.2).
If Maryland’s cumulative foes allow only 197.8 that would put them at (+40.2). The inferior raw numbers make it look like Clemson is the better run offense by 12.6, but in the much more telling ratings, it’s actually Maryland by 20 yards per game.

So again, using the hypotheticals, here is a comparison (all illustrative rushing totals). The “advantage” numbers are ALL CAPS:

Raw numbers: CLEMSON 252.4; Maryland 239.8

Rankings: CLEMSON No. 7; Maryland No. 18

Ratings: Clemson +20.2; MARYLAND +40.2

Furthermore rating both offenses and defenses is most accurate using yards per play, yards per pass and yards per rush. These are much more telling as to whether teams outplay or underplay their stats. In short, games in which the proverbial “they have dominated them everywhere but on the scoreboard” are priceless to the handicapper.

The more deceptive a won/loss record is, the more opportunity.
Team stats in those categories are a much greater precursor of future performance than points per game.
Maybe Maryland runs the ball 16 more times per game than Clemson. Yards per rush puts the raw numbers into better perspective, but yards per rush relative to the cumulative average of their opponents makes the stats rise to the level of truthful for handicapping excellence.
In basketball, shooting percentages offensively and defensively are more accurate than points per game.

This is true in no small part do to the fact that half court teams will have lower scoring games than up-tempo. This is in no way to imply that ratings under this circumstance are flawless. Slow down teams will both get fewer easy baskets and give up fewer, but in also weighing points per game, the flaws of each statistic can cancel out some of the deficiencies of the other.

In short, pro betting picks ratings put raw numbers into perspective much more so than rankings. By no means whatsoever do we disregard rankings, but the square player is shockingly oblivious to the value of the more judicious numbers.
Yet again we must emphasize mere statistics are only part of the equation. But only a small percentage of handicappers are acute enough to use more precise ratings rather than the not to be trusted rankings.
Everything though we said about the strength and weaknesses of power ratings applies here. The learned player must make adjustments for injuries both for a team and that of their previous opponents.

Statistics can be used and statistics can be abused. But knowing the right valuations to use is just as important as knowing how to adapt them.

Get 107 juice at Canbet if you tell them JoeDuffy.net sent you!


Clichés About Pitching and Defense Are So Offensive to Real Handicappers
Joe Duffy (www.godspicks.com)
We recently wrote an article on WHIP versus ERA in handicapping. Despite the fact that baseball in the interest of the gambler is predominated by football and basketball, the questions we got in regards to that article exceeds the response of even our most popular NFL writings.
The prevailing area under discussion was inquiring how to weigh offensive statistics relative to pitching.
There is an old cliché that pitching and defense are 80 percent of the game. A similar timeworn saying is that good pitching beats good hitting. Putting that to the test we find that Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez must not be all that good because they have a combined sub .500 record in the postseason. The two with the best winning percentage would be Clemens and Martinez who clearly had the best bats as support. All five have a higher ERA in the postseason than the regular season and 3-of-5 by .30 or more.
The supporters of this apocryphal footnote point towards how low scoring postseason games often are. This inductive thought process never analyzes why such is. They ignore pretty important facts such how managers can greatly shorten their pitching staff, but cannot do the equivalent offensively. A five man pitching staff becomes three, but a skipper cannot condense his batting order from nine to just five or six. It is commonplace for an ace to pitch three games in a seven game playoff series. How often do you ever see it during the regular season? Sans rainouts or in a very rare case of the All-Star break, the answer is never.
No question the pitcher is the most important player on the field, but to say he and his teammates gloves are four times as important as their bats is poppycock but a boon for the books.
Most importantly there are two supremely substantial components relevant to the handicapper that do not enter the equation when run of the mill baseball fans are arguing this point over a cold brew. The referenced “good pitching” does not always come from good pitchers. Likewise, good pitchers don’t always bestow good pitching.
It is well beyond semantics that there is a major distinction between the axioms, “good pitching beats good hitting” than uttering “good pitchers beat good hitters.”
I will seize investing on hot pitching from a second-rate pitcher against besieged bats from a great offense, just as I would lay a wager against a slumping stud hurler especially when encumbered with nose-diving run support.
The value is there. We have ridden the likes of Pat Rapp, John Snyder, Scott Sanders, Rick Krivda…the list goes on as far as big dogs while they were in “the zone”. No handicapper on the planet has had more success going against future Hall-of-Fame pitchers under the right state of affairs.
We have written several articles on how fantasy and gambling information often overlap. One thing the roto player gets a great sense of is how much pitching can be a total crapshoot. If one were to compile a list of the biggest surprises and disappointments every baseball season, there will always be a disproportionate number of pitchers on that list. Oddsmakers asymmetrically make their line based on this fluid dynamic, which gives sharp players wide-open opportunity.
All that leaves value for us. As Mike Foreman, Sports Product Manager for MVP Sportsbook.com points out, “books have had to offer ‘Listed Pitchers’ and ‘Action’ wagers because a pitching change can make such a huge difference.” However you can’t specify, “Bonds must play”.
We remind you again the basic math that makes a win-loss record almost irrelevant in baseball. You need only hit 40 percent of 150 dogs (your price after the juice) to break even, but 60 percent of 150 favorites. The difference between the sharps and squares in baseball is so often the sharps know how to win hitting 46 percent, while the squares often hit 65 percent and get buried.
The gambling aristocrats are those who anticipate when “good pitching” comes from inferior pitchers or when high society hurlers come up with bad pitching and/or get minimal run support. As one need not have an above .500 record to have a winning record in baseball handicapping, and the whiz kids know they must anatomize how the oddsmakers assay the varying factors.
Substantiating which pitchers and teams the oddsmakers over or undervalue has one prerequisite that the dumb bunnies disregard—how much the linesmakers evaluate each dynamic to begin with.
Ah, but how to specifically handicap offense? Guess what our next article is regarding?
Duffy’s plays are part of the Dream Team at Godspicks.com. He is perhaps the most published and respected author on sports gambling theory and has been featured as a regular guest as the handicapping expert on the Rick Ballou Show on Sporting News Radio, Gamblers Zoo national radio show, the Meat and Potatoes gambling show, Pro Fantasy Sports Internet radio and Grogan’s Fantasy Football show. His Wise Guy Plays available exclusively at www.godspicks.com where daily sports handicapping information is available to crush the sportsbooks.

Get 107 juice at Canbet if you tell them JoeDuffy.net sent you!


Nothing To Spare In Striking it Rich Going Bowling
Joe Duffy (www.godspicks.com)
The bowls are soon to be here. A lot of money is to be made, but let us make sure it is not the bookmakers! One of the first mistakes that so many gamblers make is that they feel they “have” to bet larger amounts on bowl games or bet every side and total.
Do not get me wrong; there are true harmless “recreational” gamblers. By that we mean people who are couch potatoes and bet only “entertainment” money to insure that they have someone to root for on that chesterfield with a Budweiser in his right hand and a Vegas Offshore schedule in his left.
While this practice defies money management, if one can objectively assert that they are not realistically expecting to make a profit, but just adding to the excitement of the game with the chance of making money along the way, there is really no harm.
The bookmaker will thank you, but there are some Joeybagofdonut guys who will bet lunch money on the bowls then regardless of how poorly or well he does not bet again until March Madness. To them, money management is mere gingerbread. But the serious player must bet postseason games using the same money management techniques mentioned in previous articles here.
The factors to look for and not to look for when handicapping are numerous. A classic gambler’s trap is believing that one should focus on teams that finish the season on winning or losing streaks and to bet those streaks to continue.
The truth is nothing can break a team’s momentum more than several weeks off. Conversely, not anything is more valuable to a struggling team than to have time to regroup such as which the weeks between the bowls offer.
In addition one must look at why a team performed the way they did down the stretch. Was a team really improved or just “in a groove”? Did injuries play a big part in a teams skid to end a year and did the time off help heal them? Or was it a case of several players improving as the year went on?
In 2001, Ohio State is an example of a team though that truly did improve as the year went on and that must be considered in handicapping. Jonathan Wells their breakout running back was arguably the most improved player in the nation. Chris Vance’s improvement at wide receiver was legitimate.
Everything must be considered when looking how a team did in September as opposed to how they performed in November. If there was a huge dichotomy one must instead of making the assumption that they progressed as the year went on—which may be the case but may not—do significant analysis and look further.
Keep an eye on injury reports, but not just of guys who return from injuries but also guys who played banged up late in the year. Did the time off allow them to return to 100%?
Joe Duffy is General Manager of Freescoreboard.com, the premier hub of world class handicappers. Duffy’s handicapping prowess is now part of the Dream Team with Mike Godsey at www.godspicks.com, widely considered to be the most powerful handicapping alliance ever.

Get 107 juice at Canbet if you tell them JoeDuffy.net sent you!


You Can Recover From Being Half Bad
Joe Duffy (www.godspicks.com)
We get a lot of questions about halftime lines. As our expertise is with game side and totals, we posed the question to Leo Shafto of Scorephone.com as to how such lines are figured. Leo the premier first and second half handicapper on the planet and is one of the few who have been on both sides of the window having been the head oddsmaker for several sportsbooks including MVP Sportsbook. What follows is his answer.
The first thing is you have to have an initial second half projection and work from there. For instance, let’s say a game line has San Antonio -8 with a total of 186 against the Nuggets. We see a posted first half number on the game of SA -4.5 and the total is 92.5. Thus we can mathematically conclude that the second half number projection is automatically San Antonio -3.5 with a total of 93.5.
Then of course, the first half is played. If it holds very close to form, then the second half number will likewise be very close to form as well. For instance if the halftime score is 47-44 in favor of San Antonio, you can be assured that the second half total will be 93.5 as it is very close to the first half projection. Likewise, San Antonio (originally projected -3.5 in the second half) will most likely be -4 to -4.5 in the second half to compensate for just falling short of the initial projection.
If the two teams combine for 100 points in the first half, then the second half total will not be compensated down, it will likely be compensated up because the pace of the game is higher than expected. You may see a second half total of 95 in this case.
One more thing that can influence a second half total is whether the game is a blowout (especially in football). If one team is drilling another at halftime, the second half total may be reduced dramatically to account for the winning team being more interested in burning clock than scoring points. The score of the game makes a huge different in totals. If San Antonio were winning 65-35 at the half, one may knee-jerk into believing the second half will be high scoring because they 100 points already. When in fact, by the 4th quarter, both teams will be looking to get out of the game uninjured and the worst offensive players will probably be on the court.
There is a method to the madness and you have to take many factors in to account. This is just one example of many.
Now with the knowledge of how they are made, a few of my long-term clients use my picks to bet second half lines and in fact scold me for not doing the same. The key is having a well handicapped game. Without that, nothing else matters.
Our picks are based on projecting the final score, not the halftime score. Hence it’s no surprise our selections generally look much better at the final buzzer than at the half. If there is some type of seemingly cataclysmic score at the half, say for example a three-point chalk losing by 11, our sharp customers use that to their advantage.
If the halftime line is -5, that means there is a ton of leeway that enables the team to cover the second half line even if they don’t come close to the game line.
In other words, the square player in that situation is more likely to panic and hedge a bet. The sharp player essentially buys insurance. In the perfect example of buying a game at bargain basement price, the prodigy gambler looks at it as buying the game line at a much cheaper price than he could have at the beginning of the contest.
For example in said illustration, the three-point chalk could lose the game and still cover the second half line. The rule for betting halftime lines is using well handicapped selections, if the aberrational halftime score enables you to essentially buy the game spread at a significantly reduced price, jump on it.
If the “right” team comes back and covers the game, you win twice. If they cover the half-time cut-rate spread but still fail in the game, it costs you juice. In well handicapped games, our sharpies assure us the number of times they go 0-2 is outnumbered drastically by the other two scenarios.
Duffy’s plays are part of the Dream Team at Godspicks.com. He is perhaps the most published and respected author on sports gambling theory and has been featured as a regular guest as the handicapping expert on the Rick Ballou Show on Sporting News Radio, Gamblers Zoo national radio show, the Meat and Potatoes gambling show, Pro Fantasy Sports Internet radio and Grogan’s Fantasy Football show. Godspicks.com is the top source for NFL picks, college football winners and more. There is no better source for sports handicapper free information to crush sportsbooks than Godspicks.com.