The most important lesson from the ongoing 7-dog trial is nothing new: If you don't spread wide, all the luck in the world won't save your bankroll!

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Readers who have been paying attention will have noticed that most days, the screen shot that supplies current bets along with results from the past few days comes with a "mirror" summary with the same bets but different numbers.

I have been saying since the very first blog entry on March 6 last year that casino table games demand a very wide betting spread without which consistent negative expectation (aka the house advantage) is certain to exact a long-term toll.

When I fired the starting gun on the 7-dog trial on November 1, I deliberately set the maximum bet at a piddling 5x the minimum, and created an alternate tracking spreadsheet that permitted a variable upper betting limit.

As all of you who have studied the mathematics of gambling are already aware, the standard caveat applied to any betting method is that when it fails, the response is always to push the upper limit higher and higher until it eventually reaches heights that no one could possibly afford.

In my posts discussing blackjack and baccarat, I have said time and again that 1,000x is the narrowest spread that should be considered, usually adding a reminder that table limits are irrelevant (only the house limit matters, and then only if there is not a higher one available next door or across the street!).

My assumption has always been that no one hoping for long-term gains against the house edge would be foolish enough to tackle the task without a very large bankroll, and I admit that I was surprised to see a 5x max performing pretty well all the way from last November 1 to January 18.

As I have said here many times, the 7-dog trial will continue with the original limits until we reach a new best win to date.

But from now on, daily posts on that topic will include a mirror or alternate summary in which the top limit for the same selections is set at 50x the minimum at the very least.

I have a little crow on my plate today, and it involves my repeated assumption that results would be improved if instead of falling back to a minimum bet when any one series achieves turnaround, a maximum bet should apply.

I did that almost from day one in the mirror tracker, then realized (dohhhhhhh...!) that whatever the maximum bet might be, once it applies to all seven series in the trial, the collective outcome is completely at the mercy of the dog win rate (DWR) on any given day.

That is exactly what happens to table game players who set their maximum at the standard 5x the minimum, and it's the reason I chose 5x for the dog trial in the first place.

Spend a few minutes watching players at a full blackjack layout, and you will see that very few of them risk more than $25 if their opening bet is $5, and $25 bettors tend to top out at $100.

The only exceptions are suicidal fools whose variations in bet values are mostly arbitrary (believers in a technique that is widely known as %$*t or bust) and strategy players whose sole aim is to recover prior losses before reverting to a minimum bet.

The latter are in such a tiny majority that you may never see one of them at work. The former are the folks who fund the building of casinos and keep the lights on and the tables open, so be grateful to them.

Yesterday brought an epiphany of sorts when it comes to combining series bet values in sports book betting, or keeping the lines independent and apart from one another.

My assumption about maximums, I now realize, had more to do with frustration than with common sense or mathematical pragmatism.

Monday's results offer a perfect example of where I went wrong (or would have if I had not locked in the rules for the 7-dog trial and prevented myself from trusting to hunches rather than playing the numbers!).

We scored just two right picks out of seven yesterday, and one of them won with a minimum $100 bet.

Frustrating? Of course. But "the math" shows that keeping each of the seven series independent from the others is the right way to go.

If the "fall back" regulation is not applied when a series achieves turnaround, then max bets become the rule rather than the exception, and in turn they become subject to the prevailing underdog loss percentage of 55% or more.

The same applies to every bet, of course.

But if the bet value is related to individual rather than collective win targets, the flexibility that makes target betting consistently successful against the odds is maintained.

You mess with it at your peril, and I should have known that.

So, it was mea culpa for breakfast for me today. I will try to do better in future.

Monday was another losing day for the 7-dog trial, as you can see below.

Also below, comparative charts for the 5x trial and for the shadow or alternate spreadsheet (I guess it's not technically a mirror, since it doesn't show the original image in reverse!).





The big question, let's face it, is whether or not even a 50x ceiling will eventually prove too low, given a few more deadly days like Monday.

Dognostics (the folks who say there's no long-term way to win against any gambling option) will sit back and wait for the trial's certain demise.

A quick update on those InvestaPick "sports funds": One of the three funds on Sunday suffered its sixth successive loss, making today's bet (there wasn't one yesterday, for some reason) a big fat $2,462.

That's the highest bet I have seen since January 1, 2009, and I have to say I'm on the edge of my seat!

I don't subscribe to the service, so I will not know the February 9 pick for the IPE fund until the result is posted tomorrow.

What I see is a bet that greatly exceeds 50x the IPE opening minimum of $27.50.

Naturally, I have no problem with that. It is what's needed to turn this slump around.

What next? If today's bet goes down, $4,924 in play tomorrow or the next day, I assume.

Watch this space...or visit InvestaPick and see for yourself!

The funds would be tough to "fix" because each day ahead of game time, the website indicates whether or not selections have been made for the three separate lines or series.

For example, we know that we can expect a result tomorrow for the IPE fund, win or lose, and that the same applies to the IPW series - also that, for whatever reason, there's no pick today, Tuesday, for the IPC fund.

Wednesday, February 10 at 9:45am

Tuesday brought three winners out of seven picks, along with a dramatic example of the difference between the effects of a 5x and 50x max bet.

The primary trial, with the $500 bet ceiling, moved ahead just $50 on Tuesday's results.

The alternate tracking worksheet was boosted by $9,600 from the same set of selections, taking the win to date to $46,600 or 12.6% of total action to date (not to mention 80.0% of the best win to date).

There has to be a flipside to larger bets, of course, hence the bigger red numbers on bad days, and the difference between fall-back minimum wagers when a series has turned around and maximum risk on lines still "in recovery" is huge.

Still and all, the math is very clear: a 1 to 5 spread can do fine for a while (for 75 days in our case), but with the edge always on the bookies' side, it can slow down recovery to a pace that is almost unbearable!

As always, today's updates are attached.

I'm still waiting to discover whether or not the InvestaPick IPE fund has slipped further after yesterday's selection.

The website indicated that picks had been posted for the IPE series on both Monday and Tuesday of this week, but Monday's was not confirmed in the lineup yesterday, and still had not been listed until about 10 minutes ago (as I type this, it's 10am Wednesday in Nevada).

Here's what's odd today: The Feb 9 bet (a loser) is shown as negative $32.50, not $2,424 as suggested by previous losing streaks - although as I said yesterday, I have never seen a bet (win or loss) higher than $1,025 in any of the three IP series to date.

That means that Sunday's Super Bowl surprise brought InvestaPick its first four-figure loss in any of its three series in 13 months.

Ouch!

I can only speculate on why IP chooses to cut its losses by reverting to a minimum bet this way, and I suspect the idea is to safeguard the starting "investment" of $2,500.

The arithmetic does not support this plan, which will require 4-6 months to recover the recent losses, assuming another prolonged losing streak does not take another big bite out of profits.

I'm tempted to open an account with InvestaPick but will resist the urge for now. I feel I need to know more...



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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