Six right picks out of seven! Again! And all I can say about that is...It's about bloody time! The bad news: 5x needs a lot more days like Feb 10!

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The charts below say it all, really.

Or almost.

What they may not communicate is the inevitability of underdog rallies like Wednesday's, and why the long-term success of this whole concept is guaranteed not so much by the buoyancy of underdogs as by the gravity-like downward pull on favorites.

The bookies of America need underdogs to "surprise" us the way the Saints did last Sunday.

They also need us not to learn any lessons from so-called upsets and keep on doing what most of us are doing, plonking our pennies down on the shorter odds option in every game.

I admit that even after yesterday's 6/7 rally, which gave underdogs 11 wins out of 18 games in the NBA and NHL schedules (61.0%!), the chances of the 7-dog trial climbing all the way back to the January 18 high of +$6,000 are pretty slim with a 1 to 5 spread.

As you can see below, it's a very different story for the 50x spread.

Today, there will be only one max bet (go Panthers!) and Wednesday's monster boost - long overdue, but entirely expected! - pushed outstanding LTDs all the way down to $2,330 from more than $27,000 at the beginning of the week.

Naturally, there is no guarantee that today's bets will not widen the gap all over again.

But the numbers achieved after 99 days of slavish devotion to dogs tell us that favorites are fated to fail in the long run if bookies have any hope of making a profit.

It is a fact that anyone backing favorites all the way since the start of the 7-dog trial last November 1 would today be $3,420 or -4.9% in the hole in spite of an overall win rate of 57.1%.

This compares with today's -$3,990 "dogs" number (-2.8% vs. a win rate of 42.9%).

I get regular reminders that a substantial percentage of sports book bettors who back favorites improve their odds by choosing wagers on spreads or totals, and I of course do not deny that.

But those bets are, at best, a 50-50 proposition made unwinnable in the long run by the bookies' rake, which is only very rarely less than 10% and is frequently a whole lot more.

Those numbers apply equally to backing underdogs to beat the spread, making "safer" alternatives to moneyline bets actually more costly in the end.

On the topic of InvestaPick and the ongoing losing streak suffered by its "IPE" series, I remain puzzled by the fact that on Monday, Feb 8, the website confirmed Pick Posted for the threatened line, but the update the following day showed no bet for the 8th.

This does not prove that a bet was placed and lost, then omitted from the daily chart because of its profound crash-and-burn affect.

It does, however, leave me wishing that readers of this blog included someone who received a selection for Monday via e-mail and can tell me what it was!

Interestingly, the 50x spread and attendant rules applied to the alternative 7-dog trial woud have done wonders for all three of the IP series dating back to January 1 last year if the clock could be re-wound and all 650+ changed to match the target betting method.

I have mentioned that here before, and in my next post, will provide detailed data that includes the slump suffered by the IPE series.

Here's today's 7-dog 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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