Thursday, March 11, 2010

Four right picks out of seven dog selections brought 50x a full recovery from Terrible Tuesday. But 5x needs more than one good day to get over it.

_
One frustrating consequence of a too tight spread is that while disasters are smaller, they take longer to get over.

That means that a lot more luck is needed in the wake of prolonged downturns.

And when you are trying to beat the house (or the bookies) at a game played by their rules, luck is not something you should be forced to count on.

Look back a few days in the 50x column and you will see confirmation of what's obvious: as bets get bigger, wins and losses do too!

Stating the obvious is made necessary by the fact that most table game players and sports book bettors hope to make big money with minimal risk, something they can only do consistently in their dreams.

A narrow 1 to 5 spread can work for a while, especially when wins pay better than even money, as they do backing underdogs in the sports book.

But over time, a "house edge" that averages out at quite a bit more than 10% (for us, it stands at 13.6% after 883 bets since November 1) will take its toll from a tight spread.

After Wednesday's games, six of the seven series in the 7-dog trial were in profit in the 50x box (see the screen snap below), and all we are pursuing at this point is unrecovered LTDs to take us to a new best win to date.

Before today's games, the 50x column stands at 75% of the peak achieved on February 10.

The 5x chart tells a dramatically different tale: three of the seven series are ahead, and the other four report red numbers ranging from $720 to $6,500.

The cliche says it all...you gotta speculate to accumulate.

That does not mean you have to bet recklessly. But if you go into battle, then decide to conserve ammunition or turn tail when you are under heavy fire, then you will get killed. It's really that simple.

The first two screen shots below show the current state of each of the seven ongoing series at 5x and 50x spreads.

The rest of the summaries follow the usual format.







An important reminder: The only person likely to make money out of this blog is you, Dear Reader. There's nothing to buy, ever, and your soul is safe (from me, at least). Test my ideas and use them or don't. It's up to you.
_