[Football-horse84]

Hey I'm a newbie too handicapping I'm starting out with pro football. I am thinking of buying football handicapping software called winpicks by microbro. Has anyone ever heard of it and has any insight on the program. Also can anyone recommend any good pro football handicapping books to read.

Thank you for any and all feedback!!

[thegoal60]

http://www.amazon.com/Beat-The-Sport.../dp/B000SSR3UE

This is a link to amazon on a book I read last summer. Its extremely cheap and a good read. Its a little older I think around 10-15 years older but I promise the ideas still work. Its not as much a numbers book as it is a great way to look at the mental part of the game. Example it talks about coming off big wins or big losses and rebounding and what has happened in the past. Great start if you ask me. It also does go into a little math like how to set up a power ranking and what to do with that ranking week in and week out. Im actually going to read it again this summer just because Im a geek and do that sort of thing ahahaha

[Football-horse84]

Wow thanks so much this is a real big help!!!!!.....any options on pro football handicapping software?

[thegoal60]

No, just to be honest I haven't been willing to spend the money on someones spreadsheet. I actually started compiling data myself and have been working on this for about a year now. I went to a site called goldsheet.com which has data for the NFL back to 1993 when the two point conversion was introduced and college data back even earlier. I split the NFL up into conferences and went back 10 years on it and also split college into the power 5 and added the SUN belt and went back 5 years. It helped me in both this past year especially in NFL. I used the data I had built and the book I sent you to do ok around 53% which is right over breaking even (52.4%) now time to refine it even more!

[Football-horse84]

Wow that's some very good information your giving me, I do very much appreciate this.

Thanks so much

[thegoal60]

Absolutely, man I have been trying to find someone newer to this just like I am. Ive only got around a year headstart on you. If you want to throw some ideas at me message me, most on here seem to either know it all or are not willing to pass ideas back and forth. I am all about the analytics I just don't feel like spending a ton on someone elses product is worth the price and its more fun to me to build it myself or atleast with another beginner. For instance I found a site called bet labs a while back, they have a million stats on every sport and you can actually run a system to find different leans (google it to see how it works) but they want 200 a month to subscribe. If your a 100 dollar better betting 10 times a week (40 a month) you would have to win 22/40 a month just to clear 20 bucks profit while you subscribe. I just couldn't afford it. The best basic advise I could give you is 1.) always bet the same amount (units) so if its a 100 each time never bet more than that no matter how good you like the game. 2.) write it down, if you think of a stat and think thats the million dollar idea write it down and bet that stat a min of 10 times to see if it works or if its just a 50/50 lean. and 3.) dont take everyones advise even on this site. SBR is great and I like watching the videos but if you watch every video you will see that some games have multiple videos and a lot of times both sides will be mentioned and arguments why thats the right side. just take the advise and measure it against your data and your handicapping to see if you think their right. Even the best in the world dont hit more than 55-60% its impossible otherwise those casinos in vegas wouldnt be so big.

[NYEnvy109]

i compiled information from various sources and created a spreadsheet for NFL and NCAAB. I used the NCAAB this past season and so far i'm up 30 units (only betting 1 unit). I generally go off statistics, but recently started going off trends for each team and also trends for the specific point spreads (something like what bet labs and win picks do).

I wouldn't mind trying to come up with other models with you guys

[Artizan]

Try this software MicroBrothers WinPicks

[lisalisa]

Do you use this yourself?


QUOTE=Artizan;25531533]Try this software MicroBrothers WinPicks
[/QUOTE]

[Jupiter333]

Sportsdatabase and killersports have data going back 25 years, including stats. One thing that is big in successful betting is regression to the mean after game 7 for most stats.

An example is turnover margin. A team with a turnover margin advantage is about a 48% winning proposition. A very big predictable premise is that things won't continue to go as they have.

Good luck.

[gdon44]

I'm currently reading Mathletics which has a whole section on which stats to use and how to use predictability models. It's very mathy but not that hard to follow. I'm enjoying it.

[ace7550]

Thanks gdon. Just ordered a copy of Mathletics

[semibluff]

For what it's worth I offer these pearls of NFL wisdom. Home field advantage is underrated in the early part of the season and overrated in the later part of the season. Overall - favourites win more often than you'd think but it's especially true of marginal favourites. My advice is to back 1 - 2 point favourites to win at home in the early part of the season.

[thegoal60]

I started reading Mathletics but didnt finish it. I am reading the book I stated above(the one that I received an infraction for) and am trying to put together more data. Please anyone on here that wants to kick ideas off each other DM me or something. I hadn't checked this thread in a while and really appreciate the nominations guys!!!

[thegoal60]

I started reading Mathletics but didnt finish it. I am reading the book I stated above(the one that I received an infraction for) and am trying to put together more data. Please anyone on here that wants to kick ideas off each other DM me or something. I hadn't checked this thread in a while and really appreciate the nominations guys!!!

[a4u2fear]

read Conquering risk, attacking vegas and wall street.

[billgur]

haven't used software in awhile. Winpicks NFL is good for testing formulas and pulling up trends. The college football winpicks leaves quite a bit to be desired compared to the nfl one.

MrNFL and MrCFB is fun to fool around with and is free for the first 8 weeks.