I've been dabbling a bit in basketball sports betting. I opened up accounts on both Sportsbook and Bodog, and made 49 plays over 5 days. I've tried to keep good records so that I can figure out if I'm good at this or not.
My strategy was basically to look for mispriced lines and bet 1 unit on each. Over the course of the 49 plays I made (48 where I bet one unit, one where I bet 0.2 units), so a total of 48.2 units wagered.
I went up +8.424 units on these 48.2 units wagered. Overall, this to me seems pretty solid, and suggests that I might be decent at this (though of course 49 plays might be too small a sample size to say this definitively.)
However, I then broke down these 48.2 units into prop bets and spread bets+totals. I spent 23.2 units on prop bets, and 25 on spread bets+totals.
On the prop bets, I went up +12.534 units (on 23.2 units wagered). On the spread bets, I went -4.11 (on 25 units wagered.)
So what did I conclude from the above? Two things:
1) I might be decent at NBA prop bets.
2) The -4.11 in 25 units probably suggests that I'm doing no better than coin-flipping, and thus should stop NBA spread bets.
Of course, the big caveat with the two above conclusions is that the sample size is way too small. I probably need to make 200 or so plays before I have enough data to conclude things one way or another.
At the same time though, I REALLY want to increase the size of my bets from $5/bet to like $50. Even if I suck at spread betting, I'm hitting enough prop bets for it to be worthwhile. +8.424 units in 48.2 plays, if I can keep up anywhere near that rate longterm I'll be in great shape.
What do you guys think of my reasoning here? What advice would you offer?
well, even if u hit 50 % , you can make the bet size on the next bet to cover all losses so far
when u hit, start over with 1 unit bet, not more
once your game selection improves you will be cashing more often
(i hit like 50 % but good money management has now kept me 11 units up over 50 plays)
but i am not good of a capper, check around sj/lakerboy and learn from their reasoning