Internet Sports Betting

Tip Sheets

I'm often asked about the value of tipsheets.  For football handicapping they have some value as a starting point. Sports Reporter, the Gold Sheet and Northcoast are among the best and Doctor Bob has some good technical angles but I still rate them light years behind the hometown newspapers. First of all the hometown papers have writers who cover the team full-time and specialize.  Secondly the tipsheets still make a lot of money from their hard copy publications. This requires early week deadlines as they don't have the circulation efficiency of the daily rags to get their publication to the newsstands within hours of going to press. The sheets have their place, and have value for midweek bullet points, but a quality handicapper has so many other more ripely and particularized informants.

Be the Prosecutor, Defense Attorney, Judge, Jury and Executioner

I had a debate class in college.  In said classes you are given an obscure resolution and are instructed to argue on its behalf.  You then have another debate where you argue against it. Who said I was wasting my time?  Okay I did.  But little did I know that many years later I am using that same mechanism to consistently pick winners.

I've heard inferior gamblers claim intense research is a waste of time because if you look hard enough "you can find enough reasons to justify either side".  No kidding.  If it were not true there would be such things as a "sure thing".  Hence using the legal analogy above I can't argue any of my plays are "beyond reasonable doubt" but I absolutely apply the civil law standard of proof "preponderance of evidence" or as it's often called "more likely than not".

If a good handicapper could not present at least some type of evidence for each side, there would be true locks and in reality there would be a few teams that would go undefeated and I'm not just talking in a 14-game NFL season ala the Miami Dolphins. 

But what we do is objectively present facts supporting each side.  Any play in which the prevalence of facts points towards one side, it becomes a premium play.  But anytime we can make a strong argument for both or neither side, we must pass on making a bet on that game.

The best handicappers are their own devil's advocate.  The only exception is our "competition consensus plays".  I will be blunt. There are only a very small number of handicappers whose opinions I respect.  But if one does have a very strong play on a side that I leaned towards but could did not pass our empirical test, I will make a play on it.  However these plays are few and far between as I must at least have already had a preference for said selection and the list of elite handicappers who can influence my opinion is very short.

Oh and one other thing.  You must be a little more open minded than Nancy Grace.

Poker a Sport?

Clearly the line just keeps getting fuzzier between sport and game.  While we agree with anyone who says the WSOP is not a sporting event it certainly is sport more than the dog shows, spelling bees and hot dog eating contests that are televised on the so-called sports channels. 

But Texas Hold 'em making a  screaming ascension into the mainstream I believe will continue to allow gambling in the US to go from taboo to a vice and now to the accepted form of entertainment that is should be. For gambling to gain full legality closed minds must first be opened.  The WSOP is a huge step in eliminating ignorance. When that happens then elected officials like John Kyl can stop worrying about controlling where you invest your money and worry more about oh say protecting our borders. 

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