Back to business after the holiday break! And for a while, posts will just consist of each day's bets...

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NBA: New Orleans Hornets +120, Minnesota Timberwolves +115, Milwaukee Bucks +120, Golden State Warriors +130; NHL: Carolina Hurricanes +100, Montreal Canadiens +120, St. Louis Blues +110.

Game starts are from 4:05pm PST to 7:35pm.

Sunday, December 27 at 09:20am

Something a little different, courtesy of Windows 7 (which makes my new laptop more like an Apple, at 1/3 the price!)...


I will use these snaps from now on, before and after the results are in. The numbers to the right of the pick indicates odds, followed by the spread and the total. On the far right is the bet value. The red number on the far left is the total wagered that day, and below that is the overall DWR (dog win rate), which shows 100% before scores are entered.

Below is an update of the win to date for the 7-dog trial that today began its 57th day with a profit of 44 units ($4,400).

Dognostics will no doubt protest that a win of two grand a month isn't enough - those among them who don't dismiss the data outright, that is.

What we see below is confirmation that a dogs-only selection method paired with target betting is reliable and viable.

As predicted, the DWR has settled at very close to 45%, although it took a while to get there.

Also as predicted, backing underdogs has proved more profitable than putting money on the favorite in the same games (up $4,400 vs. a LOSS of $3,600 to date).



Monday, December 28 at 01:15pm

Let's not talk about Sunday (today's another day).

The bad new is summarized below, and the bottom seven lines show today's bets:-



NOTE: The DWR for Sunday was 28% overall, and the red numbers on the far right under today's date will not count as a loss unless all of Monday's dog picks go south...

Tuesday, December 29 at 09:20am

Dogs bounced back Monday, but one of our three wins was a minimum bet, so the benefit was...minimal!

That's how it goes sometimes, and these things always even out over time.

We have now had three bad days after one so-so day, but there have been no surprises. Monday, I entered the wrong pick on the chart and the right one won.

But again, that's how it goes. Mistakes happen, and once a ticket is in hand, the bet can't be reversed (unless, of course, you spot the error while you are still at the bookie's window).

Today's bets:-


Wednesday, December 30 at 02:20pm

Five right picks in seven is becoming almost a habit!

As it happens, with a 37% win rate, dogs didn't do especially well yesterday.

But there were five underdog wins in 13 games...and we nailed every one of them.

Sweet!

Right now, we're at just under 83% of our best win to date in the 7-dog trial, and all of the ups and downs we have seen so far have followed the predicted pattern.

I'm not always right, but it makes me very happy when I am, especially when there is money at stake.

Here's the latest update, including today's bets:-


And here is a chart that tracks each one of the seven series to date. The red lines are for series that are a drain on the overall win/profit number. Four out of seven lines are ahead of the game, and unrecovered LTDs total about $6,900 before today's game times.



Remember that when dogs lose, the bookies lose, which is why those three red lines trending below zero will all be in profit in time.

It's just the natural order of bookie economics...

Thursday, December 31 at 03:20pm

Maybe the last day of the month and year will be kinder to us than Wednesday was!

Two dog wins out of seven might have been OK if both of the picks had not been $100 bets.

But having started out by treating each line as a totally separate entity, I'm stuck with that methodology, at least for this test.

Next time, I will probably spread the load so that if there is a substantial LTD to be recovered, minimums will not apply.

And the max should certainly be more than 5x the minimum, to better exploit winning patterns that have shown themselves as frequently in the past two months as I predicted they would.

I have no complaints about where we're at right now. What matters most is that we are still in profit, whereas a punter backing favorites all the way would be in a hole almost $4,000 deep.

Here's the latest summary, with today's bets in the lowest panel, as usual:-


Friday, January 1 at 11:50pm

Most of the time, I manage to get each day's dog picks up ahead of game times, but today I am allowing myself a little leeway in honor of the start of a new decade!

Pickings were thin today but as I type this, no games are even close to over, and in any case, dog odds dictate my choices, whatever mid-game scores might suggest.

In the next few days, I'm going to have to deal with the task of partitioning the hard drive on my new laptop so that I can run Windows XP and Windows 7 separately.

This is a process forced on countless thousands of folks with new computers, so I know I have plenty of company as I try to work my way through this.

I also know that I am not about to shell out hundreds more bucks to upgrade all my software, especially since my old files will mostly be inaccessible if I do that.

I can't imagine I will ever use up close to 500GB of storage!

My cranky old Dell Inspiron 1100 has 40GB and after five years of pounding away and creating thousands of spreadsheet files ranging in size from 0.5MB to 40MB, there is still a ton of room remaining (admittedly helped in part by my use of an add-on drive).

Today's bets:

(College FB) Florida State +125
(NHL) Philly Flyers +115 and Atlanta Thrashers +160
(College BB) Creighton +100, W Virginia +175, S Illinois +110, Illinois State +170

There are some longshots in there and I don't expect miracles.

Thursday set us back a little (-$315) but as always, I am confident that a rebound is a-coming...

Saturday, January 2 at 12:00pm

So far, I'm not liking January much!

Today's bets:-

(NBA) Chicago Bulls +135, OK City Thunder +100
(NHL) Vancouver Canucks +105, Tampa Bay Lightning +120, Colorado Avalanche +105, Atlanta Thrashers +120, Detroit Red Wings +115

It would be nice to see more than two dog wins out of seven picks, but if wishes were horses...

Sunday, January 3 at 10:00am

Five right picks out of seven again yesterday. Ho hum...

It means we're on an upswing again, thanks to a DWR that averaged out at 50% overall.

I will start a new chapter later in the week, with the usual charts and summaries, but for now here are today's bets:-

(NFL) Jacksonville Jaguars +115, Philadelphia Eagles +130, Miami Dolphins +135 and Tampa Bay Buccaneers +110
(NBA) Toronto Raptors +135 and Philadelphia 76ers +165
(NHL) Florida Panthers +125

Monday, January 4 at 09:55am

The NFL was a total bust for the 7-dog trial yesterday, but the remaining three picks were winners, reducing the overall loss for the day to just over five units.

When my anonymous friend "Peter Punter" was depending on so-called 'Cappers for his sports book picks, he and I had a standing disagreement about what I called throwaway wins to describe bets that were disproportionately small and had an insignificant impact on the long-term recovery goal.

That same problem is has dogged (!) the current target betting trial almost since it began on November 1.

Since I am not about to change the rules in mid-trial, I have created a "shadow" spreadsheet which allows me to assess the effect of keeping bets at or near the maximum even after an individual series or line has achieved turnaround.

The target betting variation that has applied to the 7-dog trial since the beginning now stands at 14 units ($1,400) ahead with $10,000 in unrecovered LTDs.

The win to date represents just over 1.0% of total action, which is no small achievement given that "dogs" have a win rate of less than 45% right now.

The win also represents a little more than five average bets.

In contrast, spreading the load to avoid throwaway minimum wins when unrecovered LTDs at any point exceed $700 or 7x the lowest permitted bet steps the total profit up to 3.0% of action and 13x the average bet.

Another significant contrast: Backing favorites throughout the 429 games in the trial so far would have resulted in a LOSS of $3,540 to date, or -8.25% of action given flat bets of $100 a pop.

In the next few days I will know how the trial would have done if all qualifying dog bets in the +100 to +180 range had been included.

For now, it's enough to know that we are still in the black and that we are poised for a comeback when nature takes its course...

Today's bets:

(NBA) OKC Thunder +125
(College BB) Drexel +120, Utah State +110, UC Davis +100, Idaho +110, Canisius +115, Rider +115

No screaming long-shots today, but college basketball is always scary territory to me!

Tuesday, January 5 at 03:45pm

I hoped to get a new post started today (who knows, I may yet manage it!) but the clock is ticking towards Tuesday game times and I need to get new picks up before the buzzer goes.

Monday was another day for five right picks (almost six but Idaho blew a solid early lead in college basketball and spoiled our fun) and almost every time that happens, someone warns me that I can't hope for that kind of "dumb luck" too often.

For the record, there is nothing dumb or fluky about days in which dogs win more often than they lose.

Monday was our 65th betting day in this 7-dog trial that started on November 1, actually #64 allowing for the Christmas break.

In that time, dogs have brought home the bacon in four games or more out of seven a total of 23 times or 36% of all days. Hardly a fluke!

There were 13 days with 4 right picks out of 7, 8 with 5 wins out of 7, and 2 with 6 out of 7. Sadly, no clean sweeps. Yet.

So how about keeping this whole dog thing in perspective and recognizing that we are betting with the bookies rather than against them, with long-term losses ergo being very unlikely indeed.

After cashing in yesterday's tickets, we are up $2,890 or +2.4% of all action to date, and the win now represents 10.5 average bets at $276.

We have done better in the past, and we will again.

Today's dog picks:-

(NBA) Sacramento Kings +125 and Portland Trailblazers +100.
(CBB) Rhode Island +100, South Florida +110 and New Mexico +145.
(NHL) Florida Panthers +110 and Edmonton Oilers +100.

Catching up after the holiday break may take me the rest of this week, and as soon as I can, I will post results from bets on all qualifying underdogs.

Wednesday, January 6 at 04:00pm

I have just a few minutes to go before the first Wednesday game times, and my plans to open a whole new post will have to wait another day (catching up from the holidays is taking longer than I hoped).

Tuesday was a disaster, although at least wasn't a skunking.

Our win to date was slashed in half, but given the hammering an all-favorites bettor would have suffered since November 1, being ahead $1,400 is something to be at least a little bit proud of, I reckon.

We now stand at just over 33% of the best win to date, which is disappointing but far from fatal.

I plugged in a new test today to continue the day-by-day win analysis that I started yesterday.

It turns out that 3 or more dogs have been winners just over 60% of the time, 3/7 being a few pips shy of a 43% win rate.

There have been two "skunkings" in the last 64 days, and on 3 days, the best we could manage was a miserly one right pick out of seven underdog selections.

We were right 3/7 on 16 days, 4/7 on 13 days, 5/7 eight times, and 6/7 twice. Clearly, a clean sweep is long overdue because we haven't had one of those yet!

Today's dog bets:-

(NBA) Miami Heat +110 and Golden State Warriors +140
(CBB) VA Commonwealth +105, Providence +145, Duquesne +120
(NHL) Dallas Stars +115 and NY Islanders +135

Can today be worse than Tuesday? Probably not...

Thursday, January 7 at 04:45pm

Today's best-laid plans ganged aglay (as a Scotsman with a mouthful of haggis might put it) because I had to spend an hour on the phone with an AOL tech support gent in India and the service is as crappy now as it was when I started.

I hate to post after game starts, but the truth is it makes no difference.

As I have said before, dog picks are made on the basis of odds, not of what may or may not be the score mid-game.

Yesterday was only a little better than Tuesday, with two right picks instead of just one, but the dog win rate was well below half the long-term average.

The good news is that things will get better. They always do.

Today's bets:-

(NBA) Charlotte Bobcats +145
(NFL) Boston Bruins +110, NY Rangers +105, FL Panthers +120, Col Blue Jackets +110, St. Louis Blues +135 and Detroit Red Wings +105.

I'm still working on a result for all qualifying dogs being bet rather than just seven a day, and have at least finished keying in all the games between December 16 and the start of the New Year.

One hard fact that has jumped out at me is that favorites won more than 65% of all games in the NFL season that is now winding down.

That suggests that either "Harrahs Dave" was indulging in chronic wishful thinking when he scribbed "Dogs 51.5%" on my betting schedule way back when, or he was callously leading me to slaughter.

I don't believe the latter (he seemed like a nice guy) but it really doesn't matter either way.

What does matter is that backing the favorite in every NFL game since August would have left a punter in a deep and wide hole in spite of that huge win rate.

More about that next time...

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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A funny thing happened on the way to Christmas: the 7-dog trial hit a new high, then slid back a few bucks. The only one who wasn't surprised was me.

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Something I learned about modern technology this year, with just a few days to go before we start a new decade, is that sometimes, things don't go as planned.

I figured that with Touch in hand, I would be able to read all the data I needed on www.freescoresandodds.com and stay on top of each day's bets that way.

Not so.

The service (which is excellent, by the way) is naturally set up for wide screens, so with a PDA, the choice is between illegible and inaccessible.

Then the WiFi went down at my son's house, rendering two Mac laptops and a Mac desktop and the Touch virtually useless.

By then I was cross-eyed from squinting at the small screen on my gizmo, and about ready to defenestrate it next time I hit the freeway.

The problem was solved when Santa came early with a new laptop that has an 18.4ins screen, plus six times the ram and 120 times the storage of my dying Dell.

Combine that with the blazing speed of the Wi-Fi at my friend Pat's gorgeous B&B in South Pasadena, and you have easy access to anything anywhere in the 'Net.

I won't have final figures until I get home, but the preliminary pre-Christmas bottom line for the 7-dog trial is a win to date of $3,720 or 86% of the new BWTD.

LTDs have dropped to less than $6,000 and that keeps us on target for an overall win to date (WTD) of a little over $10,000 when all the series are back to minimum bets after full recoveries.

Four of the seven series are substantially in the black right now, and we can be sure that the others will fall in line in due time.

It stands to sense that we're going to take it in the shorts on days when underdogs underperform.

But it also stands to sense that as the sample grows, the DWR will move closer to 45%, or the win rate at which a profit is inevitable.

A couple of updated screen shots:





The first shot above illustrates how target betting does much better than flat $100 bets against the same sample of underdogs, and the red line tracks the futility of betting a fixed $100 against every favorite in the same set of games.

There is, clearly, no money to be made from backing favorites.

If you were a bookie, your money would be on underdogs, but you would be perfectly happy to take bets on so-called sure things knowing that even if your customers win more bets than they lose, they can't beat the odds and walk away with a profit.

Christmas brings a two-day near shutdown to the world of bettable sports, so I won't be looking for more investment opportunities until December 26, or Boxing Day back in the old country.

We're also descending en masse on Santa Anita Racetrack for opening day that day, so there will be plenty to think about...

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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Why those LTD numbers matter: They tell you how far ahead you'll be when you hit all your targets - and while the wait can be hell, you will hit them!

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Sunday was a mirror image of Saturday, with two dog wins and five losses.

But one of the many benefits of backing underdogs is that you lose less when you lose than you win when you win...except when the "wrong" pick wins and you miss out on a maximum payback!

The 7-dog trial is now just one unit away from breaking even, which represents a trivial return on more than $50,000 worth of action and a month and a half of time and effort.

The good news is that unrecovered targets (LTDs) total almost $7,700 at this point, providing an encouraging glimpse into the future.

As I have said in many past posts, one of the great positives built into target betting is that the rules tell you when you should stop betting the max and fall back to the baseline.

Most punters will increase or at least repeat their bets when they feel they are on a winning streak, and that can be very profitable - for a while. Then what?

Downturns are a thin hair more probable and therefore more frequent than upturns, but you can't know you are in one until serious damage has been done.

Better to recover your losses, be happy with a relatively small profit on top of those losses, and reduce your bet values along with your level of exposure.

Today, we have four "max" bets in play, two at $200, and one at the $100 minimum.

I will be happiest if the maximum bets all turn out to be winners, but this long-term process is not about me getting what I want all at once.

It takes time, and although yo-yo patterns like the one we are in right now are frustrating and disappointing, the long-term prognosis is for profit, profit, profit.

Before today's games, dogs are $127 ahead in the 7-dog trial that began on November 1.

Favorites won 57% of all games, but flat-betting $100 on the "smart choice" every time would have put us in a hole $2,290 deep.

It's as well to keep that in mind as the trial goes into the second day of its seventh week!

Today, Monday, our money is on the NBA's Washington Wizards at +115, then six NHL teams, Florida Panthers +120, Atlanta Thrashers +120, Nashville Predators +110, Ottawa Senators +115, Philadelphia Flyers +125 and Montreal Canadiens +115.

Wednesday, December 16 at 2:15pm:

Monday had four dog wins and a day's profit of $555, then Tuesday delivered one dog win and six losses costing $1,970.

Talk about a rollercoaster!

One bit of good news is that I get to take a break for a couple of weeks, even if the 7-dog trial does not!

I'll be away from my home base at least until December 27, so posts and updates to the Google docs spreadsheet will be sporadic.

I will, however, keep track of qualifying bets every day, updating the files whenever I can from various family computers.

After yesterday's almost dog-free debacle, total LTDs now top $10,000 and we're about $1,300 in the hole.

The LTD number tells us where we will be after everything has come together the way the numbers predict.

Today can hardly be worse than Tuesday! Can it...?

Our picks are: (NBA) Charlotte Bobcats +135, LA Clippers +100, OKC Thunder +110, Washington Wizards +130, (NHL) Carolina Hurricances +105, NY Islanders +125, Phoenix Coyotes +115.

Whenever I can, given the perils of other folks' access, I will make sure each day's dog choices are posted ahead of game times.

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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Another day, another fluke. Or maybe underdogs really are supposed to win as often as the numbers say they should.

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Sunday brought five wins out of seven picks again, but no doubt there are people out there who will view this statistical correction (my interpretation) as a short-lived anomaly.

The 7-dog trial is now officially out of the hole, and hopefully headed back above its peak to date, which at this point seems like a lifetime ago.

The peak (+$3,065) actually came on November 19th after a week-long winning streak which would also be considered an aberration by diehard dognostics.

Here's the the state of the bankroll prior to bets for today, Monday, December 7, 2009:-


Today's selections are the NFL's Baltimore Ravens at +165, NBA's San Antonio Spurs (+115), then five puck picks, the New Jersey Devils (+120), Atlanta Thrashers (+105), TB Lightning (+115), Edmonton Oilers (+100) and Colorado Avalanche (+125).

Bets are high right now with more than $6,000 in LTDs in our sights, but not as high as they would have been with a max higher than the 5x I chose to apply at the start of the 7-dog trial.

I haven't crunched any numbers for favorites for weeks, because for the life of me I can't see why anyone would risk good money on a bet that returns substantially less than a buck for a buck.

I admit I'm biased, because for years I have been telling baccarat players to stay away from bets on Banker at all costs, since the house rake cuts the payback on a win to 95 cents on the dollar.

One day, I will gather together a few thousand real outcomes and find out what woulda happened if target betting had multiplied each LTD by the known payback to set the NB value.

For those who don't speak the lingo, that would mean that if after a win, the LTD was -$500 and the odds on a favorite offered -150, the next bet value would be 1.5x$500 = $750.

(Odds of -175 would multiply the target by 1.75 to get the NB, -200 would double the LTD value, and so on).

It would be great to see another "dog day" after a week's worth of painful losses, but as usual I'm not counting on anything other than statistical probability.

Tuesday, December 8 at 10:40am:

Yesterday was another treadwater day, with three dog wins covering the losses from four wrong picks, leaving $25 in change.

That's only the fourth time in 37 days that we have ended with a win of less than $100, and while I don't subscribe to the common casino mantra that "a push is as good as a win" I can certainly concede that a piddling profit is preferable to a punishing loss!

As before, this is a critical day for the 7-dog trial, with $2,500 in bets chasing LTDs adding up to $7,445.

Feedback I have been getting lately suggests that the $3,000 best win to date and the "hole" of about the same depth that was recently conquered, represent a floor and a ceiling that we will bounce between indefinitely until the wheels finally come off and we crash and burn forever.

The models based upon two seasons of outcomes for four different sports do not in any way bear out that dire forecast, but models can never be as revealing or relevant as an ongoing trial like this one.

Slumps are, we know, inevitable - but so are spikes like the one we saw last week (the best so far, netting almost $4,000).

Punters who secretly relish their losses, or bookies who rely upon the chronic innumeracy of their clientele, will never accept that "the numbers" hold the key to consistent profits from sports betting.

Bookies, of course, revere the arithmetic: they just don't accept that there is any way it can serve their customers rather than their own bottom line!

You can't win without losing.

That's what betting always comes down to.

But that does not mean that losses must always wipe out prior wins, resulting in an eventual, inescapable deficit.

Wednesday, December 9 at 10:00am:

There's just one word for yesterday's underdog performance: Ouch!

We didn't stand much of a chance with an overall DWR that barely topped 20%.

The NBA had three dog wins, and we caught one of them.

The NHL lineup had one and we picked it.

There were two underdog victories in the 17-game college basketball schedule, but our five picks all went south.

I'd take the NCABB skunking as a warning to stay away from college games, but they have been kind to us in the past.

All we can hope for is a better day today, from these picks: (NBA) New Jersey Nets +110, Minnesota Timberwolves +135, Houston Rockets (+125), (NHL) Columbus Blue Jackets +150, NY Islanders +135, St. Louis Blues +150 and Minnesota Wild +130.

If I believed in luck, I'd say it was tough luck that neither of Tuesday's wins were max bets, but I don't, so forget I said that.

Meantime, green ink is red again.

For now!

Thursday, December 10 at 11:20am:

Four wins Wednesday, although one of them leaves me with egg on my face. Again.

I had the Columbus Blue Jackets listed as a "dog" at +150 when in fact the team was favored at -170.

The last time I messed up on bets, it cost me dearly, but this time the "mis-pick" won.

As regrettable as they are, occasional errors are inevitable, and the reality is that yesterday's #52 went on to the next stage (the bookie's window) with money down.

Obviously, I won't be refusing today's payback and saying, "Oops, I meant to bet on the losers, so keep your money."

We ended the day recovering half of Tuesday's damage, and out of the red by less than one unit overall - a lousy return on 39 days of betting, but a lot better than staring up at distant daylight from the bottom of a very deep hole!

If we'd backed favorites, reversing every bet so far but putting down a fixed $100 each time, we'd be almost $2,000 in the red in spite of an overall faves win rate of 57%.

That doesn't seem to me a preferable option!

Perhaps a case could be made for backing favorites on a sliding scale, risking more on shorter odds, but I can't bring myself to embrace an arrangement where you lose 100% and win a small fraction of what you risked.

Sure, you get your original bet back (as in yesterday's mistaken win, which returned $790 on a $500 bet) but the big red -$2,000 that applies to the 7-dog trial so far is a powerful disincentive to backing favorites, don't you think?

Friday, December 11 at 9:00am:

A three-dog day yesterday, but we slid back into the red for a while because only one of the winners had a max payback.

No complaints: that's just how it goes sometimes.

Today's bets add up to $2,100 chasing LTDs of $8,680 (and they will catch them eventually!).

I crunched the numbers for scaled betting on favorites, and the ink on the bottom line stayed red.

There have been 271 bets so far, and betting a flat $100 every time would have dropped us in the hole to the tune of $777 to date, nice numbers on an old-fashioned slot machine but not when they're all in red ink on our bottom line.

Four of the seven separate lines or series are in profit, but the three that are not ahead of the game(s) are way behind at -$1,245, -$1,971 and -$3,915.

Time will take care of them.

Obviously, I would prefer to see green in all directions, but this is a long-term project and I am trying to teach myself patience.

They say it's a virtue, after all.

Today's bets: New Jersey Nets (+145), Philly 76ers (+125), OKC Thunder (+115) and Orlando Magic (+135) in the NBA, and Edmonton (+115), Minnesota Wild (+155) and Tampa Bay Lightning (+145) on ice.

Saturday, December 12 at 12:55pm:

We inched ahead by three units yesterday, halving the deficit and leaving us with $2,500 in wagers for today, chasing LTDs of just over $8,000 in all.

I usually mention LTDs in even the briefest of my summaries, because they are the essence of what target betting is all about.

The whole idea is to know when to stop betting large sums and fall back to the minimum.

The "stop win" rule is also critical to a simple Martingale, of course, but a Martingale could not be applied when the maximum permitted bet is only 5x the minimum.

Losing streaks that don't end until the 7th bet have occurred several times since the 7-dog trial began on November 1, and Line 3 suffered 11 consecutive losses at one point before turning its losses around.

A Martingale starting out at $100 would be betting well into six digits after 11 losses, so comparisons between target betting and a double-up progression are irrelevant!

When to quit may be the most important question any bettor has to face, although for most people the answer is simple: When the money runs out.

Quitting when you are ahead is always more profitable than cutting your losses, and giving up too soon, for even the best of reasons, is a fatal error.

Sure, target betting sometimes pushes bet values past the average punter's comfort zone, but it does so methodically and in strict accordance with statistical expectation.

When the target win is achieved, you either quit or start over with a minimum bet. Pressing your luck the way the casinos want and need you to is never an option.

Today's picks are all on ice: Toronto Maple Leafs +110, Montreal Canadiens +130, Buffalo Sabres +100, NY Islanders +105, Detroit Red Wings +115, Phoenix Coyotes +110 and Dallas Stars +120.

Underdogs are due for a boost and we are a long way short of our best win to date.

But as always, today is another day!

Sunday, December 13 at 11:30am:

Saturday brought us five right picks and just two wrongs, and as everyone knows, two wrongs don't beat five rights!

The 7-dog trial starts its seventh week today with all the dog picks coming from the NFL schedule, which according to Dave should not make me nervous, but according to history most certainly does.

The trial is back in the black by just over ten units after Saturday's great showing, and I have my fingers crossed that all those over-sized gladiators in suits of armor don't mess things up today.

It's always tough to make those early game starts on a Sunday, what with snow-shoveling and church-ferrying and other "Day of Rest" chores, and today I missed the starting whistles by miles.

It doesn't mean a thing because my picks are based on pre-game odds, not what the points tally is in mid-game, so here are today's dog selections: Chicago Bears +175, Miami Dolphins +110, KC Chiefs +125, TB Buccaneers +165, Oakland Raiders +110, SD Chargers +160 and NY Giants +105.

The sports book spreadsheet won't be posted until later today because I'm already late climbing back aboard the Sunday treadmill, so those of you who are watching it regularly will have to take my word for it that the bet selections are all pre-game and completely legitimate.

As I always say, what's the sense in cheating when there's no need (or even when there is!)?

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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Saturday is a dog day on ice, with 10 wins in 14 hockey games. Blind luck, or another sign that the math always corrects itself?

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This just in: "You can't take one good day, or even one bad one, and claim that it proves anything. What will happen to this daffy dog idea of yours is that over time, lucky days that put you ahead will be outnumbered by regular losing days, and you will end up so far in the hole that you will never be able to get out of it."

Let's first of all look at Saturday, December 5, which saw a 70% DWR on the NHL schedule and a more "regular" 44% (4/9) in the NBA lineup.

The total win in the 7-dog trial was $2,650 - not quite enough to get us out of the hole, but it left us hanging onto the edge of it by our fingertips, ready for the boost we need to pull us back into the black (pardon the mixed metaphor).

I have been saying for weeks that slumps in the overall DWR have to be rectified at some point because the bookies are counting on it, and those folk don't count on anything that isn't a copper-bottomed certainty.

When underdogs get beaten up, so do the bookies, and no one making book is doing it to put extra money in the wallets of punters who like to play it safe by backing favorites.

Since this test began on November 1, there have been 16 losing days and 19 winning ones, with the DWR exceeding 40% only 12 times in 35 sessions.

When target betting was first developed for casino table games, which have a generally higher win rate than underdog teams in American ballgames but very rarely pay more than even money on a bet, the whole objective was to recover losses in far fewer bets than it took to lose the dough in the first place.

That remains the paramount goal when the method is adapted for the sports book.

Yesterday, Saturday, we placed our bets hoping for relief from a slump in which we lost more than $4,000 after coming within a couple of hundred bucks of setting a new all-time high.

The damage exceeded $1,000 a day, slightly relieved that week by two days in which we trod water, winning a total of $650.

Target betting assumes that we are always going to lose more bets than we win, so bet values are geared to the need for a quick turnaround when the time is right.

It is quite possible that bets for today, Sunday, will all be flushed down the toilet, setting us back $2,800. But it's not likely simply because, overall, underdogs have maintained a win rate of around 40%, delivering an average of three wins a day.

Because "dogs" pay at least even money and usually better, each win recovers enough to offset one loss, sometimes with change to spare.

Three wins at average odds of +135 will offset four losses, making it a break-even day for the 7-dog trial, and four wins will push us up the ladder a rung or two.

There is nothing unusual (or "lucky") about days with five or six dog wins out of seven games, especially after several days in which underdogs underperformed!

The charts below should help add a little perspective to this never-ending argument in which dognostics keep reciting their mantra that losses are the norm and wins are anomalies.

The first summary tracks games from November 1 in which all dogs within the +100 to +180 range are bet, but the target betting rules (meaning bet values) are applied as if the games were consecutive.

Statistically, there is nothing wrong with treating the games that way, even though it would not be possible in reality.

We are simply treating the outcomes as samples from reality that are in essence random and objective, since we do not determine which team wins or the odds applied.

The second chart tracks the same outcomes in however many separate lines or series would have been needed to enable us to expand the 7-dog trial to cover all bets falling between +100 and +180 on any given day.

As always, these charts and summaries don't prove anything. They simply show what can happen, and probably (but not certainly) will.


Click on an image to enlarge it


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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"You should have taken the money and run when you were three grand ahead. You'll never see a number that high again!"

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The whole point of this project is to demonstrate that this is an ongoing process that does not deviate from a disciplined plan and is exempt from both panic and greed!

All the data so far collected from past and present MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL seasons confirms that while "dog slumps" are inevitable, recovery from them is equally certain.

The situation the 7-dog trial is in right now ($4,200 below its highest point with more than $7,000 tied up in unresolved LTDs) cannot be interpreted as proof of a permanent slide, any more than last week's high point was proof that the concept is unbeatable.

This is a long-term proposition, not a hit-and-run adventure, and only time will tell whether or not following the rules day by day is as effective a strategy as the arithmetic suggests it is.

It's really not that much different from a cautious long-term foray into stocks and shares: Some days you're up, some days you're down, and once in a while you have to dig a little deeper to keep the plan on track.

As I said last time, when underdogs get slammed across the board, bookies get slammed too, and their business is about as long-term as a business can be.

Working on today's dog picks highlighted what might be the bookies' response to the dearth of dog wins in recent days!

Odds on favorites seem to have shortened quite dramatically, with underdogs naturally becoming longer shots on the other side of each equation.

I don't usually pay much attention to odds quoted outside of my +100 to +180 comfort zone, but I will look into that question more closely when I have the time.

Meanwhile, yesterday's selection lopped just a couple of units off the current loss figure, and the day was made more complicated by a series of careless mistakes I made when I was marking up dog picks.

I had a couple of favorites in the mix, which is not permitted and certainly was not intentional, so even though they won (rats!) I had to delete them and replace them with the correct bets.

That meant that instead of climbing out of the hole by more than 5u, I had to settle for a lot less.

Let's face it, accuracy is more important than a few hundred bucks here or there.

The only good news is that the errors went all the way to the bookie's window, which means I get to keep the paltry winnings even though they could not fairly be reflected in the 7-dogs-a-day trial!

No one likes making mistakes, and I am no exception, but with all that's involved in an enterprise like this, occasional slip-ups are pretty much inevitable.

I will try to do better...

Here's the current chart summary for the sports betting file that is updated twice a day at Google Docs. I have to add viewers at my end before the file can be accessed, so anyone who wants to join the party should e-mail me.


Thursday, December 3, 10:35am:

O crappy day!

Great news for dognostics: Yesterday pushed us another 10u-plus into the hole as the dog slump continued.

There were just two underdog wins in 14 basketball and hockey games, and we picked both of them.

A 14% DWR could not possibly be expected to stem the tide of red ink, and all we can do now is wait patiently for the inevitable "correction."

Thursday's picks are: pro-football's Buffalo Bills (+145), Boston Celtics (+105) and Golden State Warriors (+115) from the three-match basketball schedule, and Vancouver Canucks (+125), Toronto Maple Leafs (+140), NY Islanders (+135) and Anaheim Ducks (+120) on ice.

Hey, how much worse can things get?

Good thing the slump is just temporary...

Saturday, December 5, 11:00am:

Thursday's picks gave back a little, Friday's took it away.

Obviously, things are not going according to plan right now!

It's especially frustrating when the smaller bets win, and the bigger ones don't.

But raising bet values across the board is not likely to make things any better when underdogs fall behind, as they have been doing these past few days.

Since the 6/7 win a week ago Friday, the DWR hit 50% just once, but otherwise has slumped as low as 14% and has averaged far less than 40%.

That's life.

Other than that, it comes as no big surprise that betting and waiting in real time is a lot more stressful than applying target betting rules to thousands of outcomes from the various sports databases.

I would like to make the selection process more subjective, confining max bets to options with the shortest odds.

But I made my bed when I set the rules before the start of this 7-dog trial more than a month ago, and now I have to lie in it...and sweat a little.

Today's picks are all NHL games: Carolina Hurricanes (+145), St. Louis Blues (+125), Detroit Red Wings (+110), Colorado Avalanche (+135), Washington Capitals (+120), New York Islanders (+100) and Chicago Blackhawks (+120).

The test is $2,750 in the hole right now, and today's bets total $3,100. That's a fairly scary situation, but there's comfort to be had from the probability (which of course is never the same as a certainty) that underdogs are due for a comeback.

Obviously, the red ink is flowing deep and wide for bets on all qualifying dogs, rather than just seven every day.

But ironically, betting every dog within the prescribed range would by now have dug a hole barely half as deep as the one we're in now.

That's because when the risk of picking the "wrong" bets, objectively or otherwise, is eliminated, every qualifying win counts.

The 7-dog trial has had several days when underdogs did well overall, but the selection process skipped more winners than losers.

There is not a whole lot to be done about that, outside of tightening the range of odds that determines where each day's money is applied.

Meanwhile, the waiting game continues.

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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A 7-dog skunking ends Month #1. But if dogs are losing, so are the poor bookies. And that means the slump can't last!

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The 7-dog trial has had a few bad days since it started on November 1, but none as bad as Monday.

Right now, we are just a little better off (by about $900) than we would have been if we had picked every qualifying underdog since Day One.

More importantly, we are only a little worse off than we would have been if we had backed favorites all the way.

What most sports punters overlook is that backing favorites can be a frustrating and expensive proposition.

There were 489 games on the 7-dog betting schedule last month, and favorites won 321 of them.

But in spite of a 66% win rate, a flat-bet punter risking $100 every time on favorites would have ended November $920 in the hole.

There were 291 qualifying dogs last month and 117 winners (40%) averaging $1.29 to the dollar...a whole lot better than the 49 cents favorites paid, on average, but not enough to stem the red tide.

Dog bets within the +100 to +180 range lost $2,303. The 7-dog loss at month's end was just over $1,400.

It is an absolute mathematical certainty that the current dog slump will end.

And nothing makes it more sure than the fact that a disproportionate percentage of favorite wins puts a big fat dent in the bookies' bottom line.

My heart doesn't bleed for the bookies and never will, but as long as their success means money in the bank for me, I am still rooting for them!

This is also as good a test as my dogcentric strategy will ever get.

Skeptics would have bailed out long ago, assuming they'd ever got started on this.

But the trial is a long-term test and better days are ahead.

It does not require genius-level computer smarts to come up with a simulation that tests the arithmetic that underpins the all-dogs concept.

First, you need a column of random numbers that sets the payback value between +100 and +180.

Then alongside that, wins and losses with a negative expectation around 10%, and next to that a column that applies the simple target betting rules.

There will be tough times, for sure, just like the slump that has us temporarily on the ropes right now.

But every time, the math will set things right eventually.

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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