Originally posted on 11/02/2010:

There is an expression that goes "Don't believe everything you see on TV."

Well "Don't believe everything you read on SBR."

The plain truth is that the vast majority of sports bettors are losers. People postulate about their greatness for whatever warped psychological reason all the time here. They rejig their records or start again from scratch. They only post winning plays yet ignore all the bets they have running at the same time. They use a myriad of other tactics as well but sadly reality is constant. The sportsbooks could simply not exist without the losers. In fact SBR would not exist without the losers because they get a % of every loss every affiliated punter makes at a book and get advertising revenue from the books themselves. This is why the illusion of hope exists implicitly here. Everyone achieves the American dream right?

So where does that leave you the beginner? If you want to be recreational just acknowledge you will lose long term and treat it as a hobby. You will occasionally catch the good side of variance but don't let it fool you. You are a loser. Some people just want something to make watching sports more interesting and there is nothing wrong with that.

If you want to make money scalping/bonus whoring is the simplest form to do it. To make it worthwhile however you will need a large bankroll. There are other money making avenues as well but you would be best learning about them from reading books and through posts on this forum by Ganchrow. Suffice to say but there is a learning process that requires hard work. Brushing up on statistics and your high school algebra is never amiss however.

At that point you will be able to sift through the sea of misinformation for yourself but don't expect any edge to be handed to you. Information that grants an edge is largely proprietary and the reason it is not common knowledge is because it would not exist otherwise.

Good Luck.