[suicidekings]

Question for anyone who does actually think that SBR posters are hitting 60%. Suppose, I start with a bankroll of $1000 and proceed to hit at 60% over 1000 plays at -110. If I wager 5%* of my bankroll on every play, how much would I have after those 1000 plays? We'll assume that I can get 5% down without having to worry about limts. * According to Kelly Criterion 16% of BR is the optimal wager size based on my edge.

60% is an unnecessarily lofty goal.

For a $1000 original bankroll, winning 55% @ -110 and risking 5.5% per play (via full Kelly), on average you would double your money after 231 plays. After 500 plays, you've increased your bankroll to $4500. After 1000 plays, you'd have accumulated almost $20,000 in profit.

Make it Half Kelly and you'd double it after 460 plays and have a $4500 bankroll after 1000 plays. Still very impressive, and much more attainable than 60%, however I think the problem with either approach for the vast majority of bettors is the notion of having to make 1000 bets in the first place... If you only bet NFL, there are 256 regular season games plus 11 playoff games. There's maybe 900 college FBS games (including games vs FCS opponents and bowl games), so call it around 1200 football games a year. I would guess that an average person putting in the time to handicap in their free time could bet 15% of those games with confidence. Call it ~10 games a week between NFL & NCAAF and you're looking at 5+ years to make 1000 bets. Betting more games than that, and I would think the winning percentage would drop quite a bit.

Branch out into other sports and you significantly increase the time required to handicap, but also give yourself more opportunities with 1230 NBA games in a regular season, over 5500 NCAAB games, 2430 MLB games, 1230 NHL games. Someone that puts in the time to handicap multiple sports could make 2000+ plays a year, but for most bettors we're probably talking about half-assing the research and extending outside their comfort zone in the pursuit of action. Chasing losses, varying bet sizes, forcing plays on perceived advantage instead of staying objective and disciplined.

So I think there are probably a lot of SBR members that are capable of being highly profitable in terms of game selection when they're following good work habits, but the vast majority of them derail themselves with bad money management and unreasonable expectations for ROI and time frame.

The thing that makes the NFL so tough to beat is the small number of opportunities available (267 games) and the amount of attention given to every game by the betting masses, creating the ridiculously efficient market. Long term success would be much more attainable if bettors spent more time on other sports.