NFL Handicappers and Dumb Luck
A thought crossed my mind the other day about sports and NFL handicappers. I was thinking that even if they proof their results to a proofing service and those results are good, can you really be sure that the handicapper will be profitable in the long run.
Well one way of course is to look at turnover of bets. If the handicapper is having 1000 + bets a season and is continually profitable season after season, then it is likely that he is a 'long term' profitable capper. If they are only having 100 bets a season, then it could take 5 to 10 seasons to really know for sure if the guy is profitable.
Of course even the best handicapper can go 'off the boil' and maybe have a 'zero year' or a negative year. He may lose a lot of clients, especially those that have joined him recently. But what about bad handicappers, could they conceivably string together a few years of profit through sheer dumb luck?
Let's take 1000 handicappers of all shapes and sizes in terms of their record. We'll discard the unprofitable handicappers each year. In the first year 500 are profitable and 500 are unprofitable. In the second year, of the 500 profitable bettors, 250 are profitable and 250 are unprofitable. In year three, 125 are profitable and 125 are unprofitable. In year four, 60 are profitable and 65 are unprofitable and in year five, 30 are profitable and 30 are unprofitable.
Now it is possible that a few of the 30 'profitable' handicappers that we are left with, that have been profitable over 5 years, are not actually any good at what they do (especially if they do not have big numbers of bets each year). They have simply been lucky. You join the service in the hope of big profits only to find that the 'run' has come to an end and the handicapper loses each year over the next 6 years.
Also spare a thought for the handicappers who have been discarded in the above example. They may have had their losing year and go on to make profit in each year for the next decade.
This is one of the reasons that it is so hard for the good handicappers to stand out. How do you know if a guy is good, bad, lucky or unlucky? The only way to be sure is to stick with a handicapper, who has a strong record over many years, and commit to him for many seasons.
The reality is, however, that most casual bettors do not have the discipline to stick with their own bets or those of a sports handicapper. At the first sign of a losing run they dump the capper and try to find another who can deliver what they want. This leaves the unscupulous handicapper plenty of 'outs' - 'You should have stuck with me, we went on a hot streak right after you left!' Yeah, right.
If you do want to use tipsters or handicappers, then choose carefully by doing your research and stick with your betting for the long term.
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