I’ve never been a fan of blindly tailing someone else’s picks. God knows there are enough people out there promoting them. It’s kind of nuts. Doing a search on any game in any sport will bring you dozens of “articles” of people making their picks ATS. Many times they repeat the same stats and provide a pick at the end; sometimes it’s just the pick. I guess if you read the same stuff over and over, and track it… that’s the key. None of these websites actually track their records. If you can begin to trust anybody, they would have to have their record documented, period. Because guess what? Even the best will still barely be above even. Sure, everybody goes on good runs, but if you can get around 60% correct, you’re doing great.
I don’t mind reading peoples’ picks, as long as they come with a write-up; there is where you can begin to gather information about the game. It’s all about information gathering… taking a little from here, a little from there, and then making your pick. The best information for me is from local news sources; quotes from players and especially coaches are gold too. But finding out the history, the story behind the stats of each matchup, the history, revenge angle, local kid come back home, etc… that’s the good stuff. It’s tough to get that though; you have to sift through dozens of websites just throwing out their picks. Plus, a lot of these local news sources require payment to read the full article; that’s some BS. I get it though… nobody is buying newspapers nowadays; they need to make their money somehow… speaking about money.
I think I have my favorite new show: Follow the Money on VSIN. I get the show on Marquee network every morning; I’ve started recording it… I still barely have time to watch it, but it’s there if I have the time, like on Thursday morning. It’s gold… pump it into my veins. Two guys sitting around talking everything sports gambling from the Circa in Las Vegas, talking with special guests/experts, etc. The best part about it, is that they break down the games, with rationale behind each pick. I love it. I caught a good segment with a college football sports bettor, Brad Powers today, and… decided to follow along with some of his picks. Not because of who he is, or because he was on some TV show (there are plenty of those too), but because of his rationale behind some of his picks; I agreed with it… it made sense to me. So yeah, I jumped on board with LSU -32 because the thought is LSU will run the score up to get their QB stats to get him the Heisman in a lost season for the Tigers. I took App State +9 vs James Madison after the official ruling came down about James Madison bowl eligibility coupled with GameDay being in town, and the pressure/spotlight amped up. I took Mass + 27.5 vs Liberty because based on his power rankings (a part of the game I need to work on), the line was substantially off… something he’s not used to seeing, so, he trusted his rankings, and jumped on it. I felt like he was on point with his decision making process, so I rode along… we’ll see.
Just remember, at the end of the day, these are YOUR picks; YOU need to feel comfortable with them however you arrive at YOUR decision. For me, I like to be able to explain why I made a pick, and not just because so and so said so. As long as I can have some type of rationale, I feel good about it. It may turn out to be incorrect, but that’s part of the game. Fine tuning this will slowly improve the results. Of course, a star NFL QB getting hurt at the start of a game certainly didn’t help my Bengals’ bets on Thursday night… oh well. Keep on grinding… Good luck!
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