Terrific timing on Friday puts the 50x trial in its best position in more than a month, within reach of turnaround. For 5x, another red number day.

_
Some of you are going to say it was just luck that lined up yesterday's three right picks out of seven with the biggest three bets in the 50x column.

Truth is, it was a statistical inevitability.

The DWR (currently at 42.9%) applies pretty much equally to each of the seven series or lines in the 7-dog trial, and each line sees an equal amount of so-called "luck."

It just happened to be 50x's "turn" yesterday, and it is an ancient truism that everything comes eventually to he who patiently waits!

The difference between the 50x and 5x results is the difference between stepping out in luck's path so that it will run into you when it comes by, and hanging back cautiously.

Whenever I am in a casino (a rare event these days thanks to the online alternatives - twice a week is the most I aim for) I will see at least one player failing to sensibly exploit a winning streak.

One regular at my local plays so badly that if I run into him, I will switch to another table if I can.

He plays perfect blackjack basic strategy, so he's not a danger to other players, but he bets a woefully tight spread in the 21 circle and frequently matches his main bet in the "Royal Match" death trap.

In town, RM pays 3 to 1 for a 4 to 1 proposition, which is all the reason a sensible player needs to avoid it.

In some casinos, the payback for two first cards of the same suit is 2.5 to 1, giving the house an even bigger edge.

Now, I accept that every man has the right to flush his money down the toilet if he wants to. I just don't have to watch him do it.

I am gearing up not just for a full-bore assault on baseball come Monday, but also for more online play at 21 and baccarat.

I have simply reached the point where playing at crowded tables, sucking in other people's cigarette smoke and having to get out of my pajamas for the privilege is getting a little old.

If I lived in Las Vegas, I might feel differently, but Sin City is more than 450 miles down a lonesome road peppered with speed traps, and my part of Nevada is a whole lot prettier anyway.

Here's current data. Come back tomorrow for more about the database queries I have been running this week.

I am often accused of being obsessed with statistics and models, perhaps even preferring game analysis to actually playing.

Not so. What I like to do is to learn as much as I can about the risks I face in any game before I put good money on the line.

It has been more than six months now since my pal Peter Punter lured me away from table games into the then unknown world of sportsbook betting.

I do not regret a moment of the time I have spent on studying archival data and betting the 7-dog trial each day (it actually takes more work to post this blog than to place and track the bets!).

As I said, I have been tiring of casino outings for quite some time, and popping in for just a few minutes to visit the sports book - or, better yet, staying home and placing bets - was a welcome change of scene and pace.

Thanks, Pete!





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.
_

The 5x 7-dog trial took another hit Thursday while 50x got lucky from just one win out of five picks. The week's really good news is...

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Thursday was not a great day for the 7-dog trial, but the more aggressive (and practical) rules set is only 25% away from its best win to date, and perhaps the weekend will bring the long-awaited turnaround.

Meanwhile, I am much more excited by the combined results of tests I have been running using all the games in the database to date (or to March 24, at least).

I wanted to know what the effect woulda been if every qualifying selection within three different sets of odds ranges had been been bet day by day, with target betting rules applied.

The data broke out into 15 series - twice the number in the 7-dog trial, and keeping track of that many has been driving me nuts.

The query produced more bets for series one (as many as 500 vs a max of about 150 in the current daily trial) and as expected, Series #2 had fewer bets, Series #3 had fewer still, and so on.

The template for this whole experiment stopped a series in its tracks regardless of whether or not it was still "in recovery" or attempting to climb out of a slump with bets gradually increasing per the target rules.

I have said before that generally, the best dog win rate (DWR) we can hope for is around 45%, which puts us at a -10% disadvantage based on flat bets, but in far less trouble when paybacks higher than even money (all paybacks, in other words) are factored in.

The summary below contains final outcomes for target betting from +100 up, +105 up, and +110 up, indicating both the "floor" and the "ceiling" for qualifying bets.

Check out the hold percentages, which are derived by dividing the result by total action.

Then look at adjusted actual values, which tell us how we would have ended up if every bet had been for the same amount.

DWR is for the dog win rate within each range, and to the right of that is the average EOS, indicating how long, on average, it took a recovery series to get out of the hole (4.05 bets, 4.12 and so on).

Perhaps the most important piece of information is the win/loss column, since the whole purpose of target betting is to ensure that we win more when we win than we lose when we lose.

Average win values are shown, then average loss values, and the relationship between wins and losses is shown on each line: 1.19 tells us that the average win value was 19% higher than the average loss value, for example

The red column indicates the combined value of unrecovered LTDs (losses to date) when all of the 15 series were cut off and our assumption has to be that had each interrupted series been completed, those red values would be turned to black.

I admit I am surprised by these numbers, which is why it has taken me more than a week to double- and triple-check them.

I did not anticipate that wide spreads, such as +100 to +180 in the first block, would do as well, especially given that the wider the odds range applied, the lower the DWR.

The target betting rules are shown in the topmost line and they confirm that a minimum wager of $25 was applied, maxing out at 100x or $2,500.

Average bet values fell far short of the permitted maximum, naturally, and can be deduced from the win and loss columns.

Generally speaking, the wider the odds spread, the greater the total number of selections and ergo the larger the average bet value.

The note at the bottom of every post to this blog makes it clear that I really don't care whether or not readers try my methods, and I certainly don't expect anyone to pay me for information that might conceivably make them a lot of money.

The point of this exercise has always been to use accurate, verifiable math to demonstrate that contrary to the conventional wisdom, losing is not inevitable.

It most certainly is inevitable if bet values are randomly or arbitrarily chosen, but disciplined betting can be seen to be as dramatically effective in sports book betting as it is against casino table games.

It is simply a matter of learning the rules, testing them until they prove trustworthy to the tester as well as to me, then sticking with them through thick and thin.

It takes guts and it takes money, but most of all it requires discipline and commitment.

No one who gambles "for fun" will ever try target betting. I know that. People who want to win and do not feel obliged to lose (in Las Vegas they call it "making a contribution") have something really good to work with here.

If they ignore it, that's their right.

Here's the odds range summary, followed by the latest betting info:-




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.
_

Good dogs! OK, Tuesday was more about good timing. Four right picks out of seven gave both trial rules sets a much-needed boost. More, please...

_
Given a little downhill motoring and a following wind, the 50x rules set is now just a day or so away from regaining the best win achieved a lifetime ago on February 10.

After that, it's all about setting new highs as often as possible!

Tuesday's wins lifted 5x by more than $1,000 but the red ink is still sloshing around our ankles and it's going to take more than a few good days to get the original trial back in shape.

For the benefit of casino table games players who check in here now and then, I want to stress that the target betting rules that apply to sports book wagers are quite a bit less aggressive than the ones they are used to.

On the one hand, even a 45% DWR amounts to a negative expectation of (-)10%, and that's six to ten times the NE for baccarat or blackjack.

The big difference is that dog paybacks routinely exceed even money, especially when the +110 to +145 range I talked about yesterday dictates the selection process.

For example, my database of 6,000-plus games returns a DWR of 45.2% for all selections in the optimum +110 to +145 range, which is a bookie edge of (-)9.57% n flat bets.

But when payouts are added up, the negative number turns into +1.31% player edge.

Again, that's for flat bets, and target betting is not about pushing the same amount across the bookie's counter every time you make a bet.

I should add that against those numbers, target betting scores +18.15%.

I am counting down the days to baseball's start next week, and will open a separate fund to put the 110/145 range into action.

I will keep posting 7-dog trial results until the end of April or when both rules sets turn around, but will not do the same for the baseball bets.

When the trial is over, this blog will revert to its original casino games focus, reporting my local adventures and experiences and mentioning my sports book progress (or the very unlikely lack of it) just in passing from time to time.

Here's what's new...





Thursday, April 1 at 3:45pm

It would be great if a winning streak could last just long enough to put us back where we were a few weeks ago, but patience is an essential part of this gambling thing.

Without it, you're liable to do something daft.

Wednesday was not an up-the-ladder day.

Today, there were only five qualifying bets, and rather than sit out the schedule, I have backed them and applied them where wins can do the most good.

Here's the latest:





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.
_

Monday's underdogs put on a great showing, but we had no hounds in the hunt. The 7-dog trial resumes today, mostly on ice.

_
Monday's 50% DWR is a number that does not come along often enough, but I have no regrets about sitting the day out.

Most days bring one or two really surprising upsets - upsetting and surprising to everyone but the bookies, probably! - and there's no sense in lusting after long-odds paybacks.

But each day I become more convinced that risking good money on propositions that return less than even money (or less than 110% according to my most recent analyses) is not a good plan.

I updated the InvestaPick summaries today, and note that the service's selection method has win rates ranging from 47% to 51.5% to date, all of them much higher than my 45% target.

Trouble is, many of IP's bets are at -110 or less and so returns are not as dramatic as they need to be, in my opinion.

Not that there is anything wrong with a relatively safe investment option that pays "interest" exceeding 100% a year, mind you.

I am just not happy with a method that pushes bets all the way from $25 to $1,700 and then accepts a slump-ending win that leaves $170 in prior losses unrecovered.

That said, someone must be making money the IP way - someone other than the operators of the service, that is - or presumably there would be no IP for me to study and learn from.

I will post more information about InvestaPick and my ongoing "range-finding" efforts later this week.

In the meantime, here's the latest on the 7-dog trial front:-





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.
_

Slim pickings again today, so the 7-dog trial gets another day off. Right now, something to think about before the 2010 MLB season gets under way.

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Once again, odds were just too funky today to enable me to make seven "dog" selections that were not too risky, but Tuesday looks promising and should put us back on track.

In the meantime, as we count down the days until the Boys of Summer stop messing about and get serious, I'd like to take a closer look at the spread range topic I have touched on a few times recently.

I am not talking about spread as in the difference between the winning and losing score, or spread as a target betting ingredient, but the odds range within which underdogs "qualify" for our consideration.

As readers who have been with me for a while will know, I opened the 7-dog trial last November 1 with a qualifying range from +100 (even money) to +180 (a payback of $1.80 on the dollar).

As the months have rolled by, I have tightened my net somewhat, occasionally making bets at less than even money to back spreads or totals - lowering the floor - and dropping my ceiling to +130 or less most of the time.

That was a mistake.

I know that not just from the 7-dog trial's current struggles, but from running tests using all the baseball, basketball, football and hockey games I have in my ever-growing database.

When it comes to betting the underdog as a matter of course, the math is as math tends to be: pretty simple.

Our goal is to hone our selection process so that we can achieve a long-term dog win rate (DWR) of 45% or better along with a rate of payback that does more than simply offset the damage done by a negative expectation of (-)10.0%.

To break even with a 45% DWR, we need an average payback of 55/45 or +123 in bookie-speak.

We are not in the game to break even, naturally, but target betting will take care of providing a profit so long as we do our part and make underdog selections that are not dachshunds (long dogs!).

It makes sense, therefore, to be as picky as we can without being so selective that we can only place a bet once in a blue moon.

I have said before that on the basis of careful study of past outcomes, I favor a minimum of +110 and a max of +145.

Here's why:


Dognostics will spout their usual guff about past results being anecdotal and irrelevant and blah, blah, blah, and the database reflects how wrong they are.

It is absolutely (and obviously) true that future outcomes can never precisely mirror what has gone before.

So absent crystal balls, we have to use archival data to be as sure as we can be that trends that seem favorable are not just meaningless anomalies.

The ALL in the table above refers to almost 6,000 games dating back to the beginning of 2008.

The biggest slices of the pie come from major league baseball (MLB) and hockey (NHL) and in order to be sure that one of those sports did not deliver patterns that wildly differed from the other, I tracked them separately as well as collectively.

The column on the far left looks at the DWRs reported on each line and indicates deviations between the maximum win percentage achieved and those for MLB and NHL.

As you can see, the 45% DWR optimum is met from a very narrow range (+110 to +125) all the way up in steps to +110 to +145, and after that, the drop-off gathers speed until I stopped the analysis at +110 to +175.

Let's be clear: target betting will deliver profits from a DWR below 45%, but we want to maximize returns while minimizing risk, unlike most of the gamblers who keep casinos and bookies in business.

Happy as I once was with paybacks as low as even money (+100) I now see the error of my ways and will bet smarter in future.

I did however extend the test to +105 and up, with the following results:


Again, consistent results from component data sets that comprised the ALL.

All of these numbers are entirely consistent with commonsense expectation.

The longer the odds, the fewer the wins. Surprise!

But it all comes down to the fact that underdogs must win consistently (but not constantly!) in order for the bookies to pay for their luxury lifestyle.

More about this later.

And tomorrow, hopefully, back to the 7-dog trial!

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.
_

Saturday's results were less than stellar, and today's a wash because there are not enough short-odds options to make up seven dog picks.

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It happens that way once in a while, and with the 2010 baseball season less than a week away, I'm happy to take a breather and lick my wounds from yesterday!

It wasn't that bad with three right picks out of seven, but for the 50x set, it was a disappointing day because none of the wins matched up with big-money bets.

Again, that's just the way it goes sometimes.

On days like those, a case seems to be made for spreading the load and not permitting resolved series (those whose targets have been achieved) to fall back to a minimum bet as long as other series in the set remain in the red.

The downside of that is reflected in the 5x trial summary: Once you hit your maximum bet value, you are at the mercy of the actual value (AV) of outcomes, meaning that unless paybacks offset the certainty that dogs will never win more than 45% of games overall, you are in Trouble with a capital 'T' (and a red one at that).

This mathematical reality also highlights the need to stay in the even-money-plus zone, and to bet within a controlled odds spread.

Querying the 6,300 games in the multi-sport database, which includes two seasons of baseball and pro football and (almost) one each for basketball and hockey, gets me the indication that +110 to +145 is optimum, with an increase in the ceiling tending to be more productive than a decrease in the floor.

In other words, if you want to widen the net in order to "qualify" more bets, it's better to look for longer odds than shorter ones, however counter-intuitive that might seem.

I have more work to do on that, as always, but as I open up an assault on baseball in a week or so, I will be sticking with the +110 to +145 range until cautious and error-proof analysis tells me otherwise.

I accept that past patterns are not a cast-iron matrix for future outcomes, but they are for sure more useful than picking bets on the basis of loyalty, regional preference or any other quirky human emotion.

I learned last week that I have readers from New Zealand to Norway and from Israel to India, and it's possible that American baseball, in spite of its grandiose use of "World" in its series finale, will have limited appeal for them.

It shouldn't. The Internet makes betting easy almost anywhere on the planet, and it's not necessary to know or care anything about the teams and their players or even the game itself.

All that matters is how the bookies rate each game, which in turn gives us a chance to use even-plus payouts to turn an expected -10% overall disadvantage into long-term profit.

But as with blackjack and baccarat, no one should look to score big bucks from little ones: risk is inevitable, and it is foolish to go into battle without adequate ammunition - in our case, money.

I'll catch up on current stats tomorrow.

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.
_

Another good day, another few dollars - a fistful, in fact, from four right picks out of seven on Friday. More, please...

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It's frustrating that wins can't be more evenly spread out so that we punters with high blood pressure don't put our health at risk during slumps.

But that is wishful thinking, of course.

If winning at any form of gambling were as easy as we would like it to be, there would be no gambling!

I'm right up against today's start times, so with no further ado...





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.
_

That's more like it! Five right picks on Thursday brought a bright spot to a bleak week. Ice dogs won 7 of 11 games, and we backed 4 of them.

_
Until last night's finals were in, the only good news to come my way on the betting front was that my little local casino has re-opened its table games.

The old wide-open single deck blackjack rules have gone, though, and double-deck is the new take it or leave it option.

Doubledown on any two cards is still allowed, but local purists who were so proud that our tinpot town had the best 21 layouts in northern Nevada are not happy punters.

Me, I'd rather take multiple decks than a single-deck game any day.

I avoid double decks usually because in Reno and Stateline, they add insult to injury by restricting doubles and splits.

Single deck is a definite no-no because almost everywhere these days, the payback on a natural has been slashed by more than half to 6 to 5, and there will be ice-skating in hell before I accept that rip-off.

Funny, but there seem to be more and more people who don't bother to do the math when it comes to insurance or the 6 to 5 trend.

They take even money on a natural without thinking twice when the dealer has a fat card showing, so maybe they don't care that the bonus has dropped from 50% to 20% without a single added incentive to enjoy the game.

I don't buck the consensus just to be ornery: I have been playing blackjack for 45 years now (in spite of the fact that I am not yet middle-aged!) and I know for sure that I make more money against shoes than at single-deck.

This blog saw a recent flurry of interest from baccarat players thanks to a friendly post on a website created for that august fraternity, and that's another table game that I play somewhat unconventionally.

My general rule is not to put money on Banker, especially when the stakes are high, and that gets me into all kinds of trouble with the "experts" out there.

The commission, they say, is "only 5%" and they are entitled to delude themselves if it floats their boats.

The commission is relatively negligible for players who bet a tight spread, but a target bettor can see overall wins become losses thanks to the "five percent" vig.

Bet $1,000 on Banker and lose, then repeat the bet and win, and you didn't break even: You're out $50 because you always lose 100% of your bet and win only 95%.

That's bad, bad math in my book.

I will chase a streak on Banker if the bet level per the rules is low, but otherwise I keep plugging away on Player and take my lumps, or take my money to another game.

There is a way to modify the target betting rules to cover the gouge, but in all honesty, I have to say I can't be bothered.

Alas, the flurry of baccarat-lovin' readers departed like quail in a gale after a few days, probably because of late this blog has been firmly focused on sports book betting.

Speaking of which...

Yesterday's showing grabbed back two days worth of losses and then some for 5x, and the 50x column did better still in spite of the fact that there are now three series betting well into four figures every day, and one of those biggies went belly up.

Here's what's new:





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.
_

If I had any hair and it wasn't the color it used to be when I did, I'd call yesterday's screw-up a blond moment! It was a nuisance, for sure.

_
Don't know how it happened, but four of yesterday's seven picks had nothing whatever to do with any sports schedules I know of, and I'm just sorry I wasn't smoking something interesting when it happened.

My transparency rules prevent me from claiming the proceeds from errors that are all mine rather than my bookie's, so all I can do is apologize for any confusion and be grateful for the fact that none of the picks I should have selected actually won.

I am having a busy time at pursuits that do not involve thrashing the sports book, so posts for today, Wednesday, are late.

I try to avoid that, but the bets go down well before game time, and I have yet to hear squeals of protest from anyone who relies on my choices to make their own wagers.

Picks are made on the basis of pre-game odds, remember, not on what slender advantage might be gained by posting them here an hour or more into the action.

Hopefully, I will have time for a more detailed post tomorrow...



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.
_

What was I thinking! Maybe the bug that had me enthroned for most of Saturday worked its way to my brain? Then again, I coulda been a hero!

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As I keep saying - and I know you agree! - winning is all about timing.

It really wasn't a smart plan to effectively double my bet on two teams yesterday, hedging a straight-up wager with another on the spread.

But if those two dogs had delivered, I would today be a gambling genius (in my own mind, at least).

The sad fact is that Monday's games dragged the 5x trial to its lowest level to date, and dealt a body blow to the 50x column too.

The "aggressive" alternative rules set has been bouncing up and down like crazy for seven weeks now, but the good news is that just a couple of good days in succession could turn it around.

It's going to take a minor miracle for 5x to win $14,000 and reach the giddy +$6,000 heights of yesteryear, I concede. But I'm not giving up.

I also have to concede that I am cooling on the over/under spread idea, primarily because of those crappy <100% paybacks.

I will keep plugging away with research, but I do know that major league baseball and hockey, with their wimpy spreads, aka the run line or puck line, look a whole lot less attractive than basketball or pro football.

And since in a while there will be hardly anything but baseball to bet on, that discovery has given me pause!

Here's the latest data. Shed a tear or two, please...





Wednesday, March 24 at 3:00pm

Maybe the less said about Tuesday the better!

Finding the ideal odds range for underdog bets is proving a challenge, and all the time I am working on it, I hear nagging little voices reciting the mantra, "It's past, it's history, it's anecdotal."

I am cheered by the fact that the bookies too, like most humans, use what they have learned from past to create a plan for the future and then adapt, modify and improve upon on it as new data become available.

I know that the 7-dog trial is getting killed by too many wins with too tight paybacks, and the latest analysis of all potential bets since the trial began last November 1 says +110 to +145 is the optimum range.

More wins would solve that problem, you might remark, and I would agree with you.

But it is a fact that the 50x rules set peaked on February 10 at +$60,000 and the average daily dog odds to that point was +126.

Since February 10, dog odds have averaged +115. Quite a difference.

The 5x rules set hit its high point at +$6,000 on January 18, and from November 1 last year to that date, dog odds averaged +128, dropping to +118 since then.

My fault entirely: I became more risk averse, and it's an ancient Las Vegas truism that scared money never wins.

I haven't crunched the +110 to +145 numbers for the entire database, but I will, and I will tell you what I find.

Here's today's update:



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.
_

Dogs as a pack had a good day Sunday, but long-shot wins did not pay off for our trial (too risky!). Lesson learned: Try again on Monday...

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My growing multi-sport database confirms what common sense suggests: Long shots are great when they pay off, but backing them day after day is a losing proposition.

Well, duhhhh...!

Sunday's NBA schedule had a couple of nifty dog winners in Indiana at +180 and Sacramento at +170, but I long ago began to tighten my range to between +100 and +150, and I tend not to put money down on anything above +130 unless choices on a given day are limited.

The whole point of this exercise is to reduce risk.

Eliminating it entirely would be nice, but even the bookies have not found a way to do that - and if they did, we would not be having this conversation!

Spread bets continue to look promising, except when the NHL is in the picture. The "puck line" is the same +/- 1.5 that applies in baseball, but the odds stink in comparison.

Back to plain old straight-up bets (with some mostly unsuccessful exceptions yesterday) and the sad news that both the 5x and 50x rules sets suffered setbacks.

Here's the skinny...





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.
_

In the bookies' world, what goes down must always come up - so if we keep hanging on to their coat-tails, we'll do just fine!

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When underdogs take a beating for several days in a row, I am sometimes inclined to forget that the guys who take our bets don't like it when favorites win more than their fair share of games.

By fair I mean expected, and expectation based on a sturdy faith in the numbers is what drives gambling in all its forms.

(Note that I didn't say gamblers, who often dance to a tune that has nothing to do with anything sensible, but gambling, which covers both sides of the equation!)

It's the reason that often, the odds on the strongest team in a given match-up are so short that they become unpalatable.

And that is when punters who feel they have to make a bet no matter what turn to spreads and totals rather that a straight-up outcome in their endless quest to make a buck or two against the book.

Simple-minded as I am, I much prefer to stick with backing the team I think is going to score the most - but I am slowly being tugged in the direction of more exotic bets so I can stay in the game when the money-line odds become downright silly.

My study of the three InvestaPick "sports funds" is to blame for that, I guess.

In spite of some betting pattern anomalies that will only be explained if I become an IP investor (when hogs become airborne!), the online service's computer-aided selections have a pretty impressive record going back far longer than my 7-dog trial.

The numbers the bookies came up with for Thursday's NHL schedule saved me from having to get unduly creative, and once again we had four right picks out of seven.

Hallelujah!

Yesterday's profits put the 5x rules set back to about where it was on March 7, which was a long way short of the best win to date (+$6,000 in mid-January) but better than we have seen in a while.

The 50x column ended Thursday's games at +$44,300, below the number for March 10 and $15,000 shy of its best ever - but all of a sudden, a full recovery actually looks do-able again.

Not that I ever doubted it...





Sunday, March 21 at 11:00am

Saturday turned out to be a pretty good day for underdogs (DWR 39%), but a lightning tummy bug turned me into a kicked underdog myself and I couldn't even crawl to Lapzilla to get my bets down. (No pants jokes, please).

Friday was a lousy day for the 7-dog trial under the 5x limit rules, but 50x caught another nice boost because one of the few dog wins coincided with the day's biggest bet.

Again: timing, timing, timing!

I'm feeling better - enough to get my job done, at least - so let's hope underdogs manage to put on a good show while the rest of us think about why we're not in church!



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.
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It's about time: Tuesday's six winning dogs out of seven gives 5x its biggest boost to date, and 50x cashes in bigtime with a tail-wagging +$10G.

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Sports book punters are not the most patient of people, which is presumably why they bet pro games rather than riding the stock market rollercoaster.

As I have said before, one good day proves nothing - but it sure as hell beats a bad day.

Staying with the over/under topic for a moment, yesterday saw six out of eight NBA scores top the spread, and another six come in under the total.

In eight of 11 NHL matches, eight scores were over the spread but just three were under the total.

The OS (over the spread) part of my UTOS formula is supported by an analysis of 6,101 games in the sports database, with 67% of all scores (4,081) topping the spread.

Under the total, at 3,059 or 50%, edged out 2,854 overs (47%) but only just, suggesting that betting the total is much more of an even-money proposition, made less attractive by the 10% vig.

So OS still looks good...

None of Tuesday's wins paid back less than even money, but today's NBA and NHL schedules are short on short odds, so there are a couple more funky bets in the lists below.





Thursday, March 18 at 1:00pm

We're on a roll!

Wednesday brought four right picks and gave the 5x rules set a $650 boost.

Keep this up, and we'll be back in the green before long.

Dogs did not do well overall yesterday (21%) but our timing was enough to make up for it.

The bottom line barely blipped in the 50x column, but at least there wasn't a setback in the wake of Tuesday's surge.

I am getting some flak for the UTOS posts, the gist of it being that I am making it all look too simple.

All I can say to that is that readers who choose to explore my ideas should be ready to use common sense and good judgment to tailor them to their needs.

Betting OS willy-nilly won't work. Bookies are not as dumb as the rest of us would like them to be, and they have devised all sorts of canny ways to limit their exposure.

Keep that in mind when you are going after their money!

Here's today's update:



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.
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