Survey Says....

[armyoflovers]

I was a huge square when I began betting, ONLY taking favorites (after all, favorites should win, yes?), but I have experienced firsthand that this strategy does not work.

My question is, what % of gamblers bet mostly favorites and what % of favorites actually cover? I know this varies on a year-to-year basis, but is there a hard number out there that suggests that dogs cover x amount of the time?

I know that I was reading articles in 2005 football season that said it was one of the worst years for sportsbooks in the history of accepting wagers since the faves were covering like an astounding 58% of the time, but whats the norm?

[ForgetWallStreet]

I was a huge square when I began betting, ONLY taking favorites (after all, favorites should win, yes?), but I have experienced firsthand that this strategy does not work.

My question is, what % of gamblers bet mostly favorites and what % of favorites actually cover? I know this varies on a year-to-year basis, but is there a hard number out there that suggests that dogs cover x amount of the time?

I know that I was reading articles in 2005 football season that said it was one of the worst years for sportsbooks in the history of accepting wagers since the faves were covering like an astounding 58% of the time, but whats the norm?

The norm is 50-50 ATS. You are onto some nice concepts here, but you can't win simply by playing every dog on the board. If it was as simple as playing ALL faves or ALL dogs then we'd have a lot more winners and a lot less books.

[armyoflovers]

Ive been thinking about taking dogs on the ML the entire season and seeing how I fare. I am talking about dogs who grade out at +150 or above. Oodles and oodles of dogs at that range and > pay so it might be an equitable venture to try this approach. I have seen weeks in the NFL season where 9-10 of the 16 dogs win outright so its not uncommon to see this happen.