Looking for people to share handicapping costs. Please read.
David James
60% of my bets - but I want to step up my win rate and number of bets per
day with some higher quality picks. I'm looking for some fellow gamblers
with whom to share the costs of some professional picks. I've been
monitoring a number of handicappers in the $50 a game range. What I'm
looking to do it put together a pool of people who will rotate in paying for
the picks. I know many of you out there have probably gotten burned on
scams and on betting shitty picks. Please do me the favor of reading this
entire posting (which I put a lot of time into) and send me a response even
if you are still a little dubious. Even if I just get one or two people
interested, our options will broaden and our costs per pick will drop to
reasonable levels. I don't want to spend more than around $30 a day myself
alone, and with a lot of players our mutual costs will drop well below that.
I realize that screwing the handicappers this way is ethically a little
dubious, but fuck it. Just so you know, "Dave James" is not my real name.
I don't want to get in trouble with SportsWire and lose my privileges there.
Please reply to me directly, rather than on the newsgroup. The
daveja...@yahoo.com email that I am using is forwarded to my real
address.
((Note: if you want to be anonymous, just set up a yahoo email account and
set it to be forwarded to your real email. Hotmail won't do this, only
Yahoo.))
I'm very serious about this pooling concept, since it represents a really
effective way to cut handicapping costs and still play a lot of games each
day, which tends to even out some of the speed bumps of chance that get
dangerous when you only play one game a day. By betting more games each day
at lower dollar amounts you markedly decrease big losing days, instead
having a more stable expectation of more break even days, some big winning
days, and very few big losing days. With a lot of games each day, the
chance of two losing days in a row gets really small.
I've invested a lot of time in this message, which I'll probably post on a
few newsgroups. I hope to get going with a pool of 3-10 fellow bettors.
What I propose is that we purchase picks (from the handicappers we'll
select) on a rotating basis, ideally so that everyone is paying for at least
one pick or less each day. We'll keep track of the exact amounts spent and
stay tight with respect to evening up payments so that when, for example, a
handicapper has two picks that day for, say, $100 total, then that person
would maybe be able to take a break for a day. These are all details that
we can work out once we get a serious group together. I'm willing tohassle
most of the bookeeping since I'm not really working right now.
I would like to sign people up who will stick with this for at least 1 full
week in a row - every single day - once they committ. I'm committed long
term, needless to say, but I respect someone's request to drop out for
personal reasons. Obviously I can't control what they buy with their credit
card. Part of my point is that I don't want someone who only wants to bet
on the weekends. For this to work we must stick with the handicappers for
every wager they recommend.
I've done some math, and with a win rate of 60-66% it is not unreasonable to
pay 10% of your daily wager total for handicapping. This means that if we
have a pool of three players, for example, and we each pay $50 for one pick,
we will have paid an average of $50/3=$17 for each of the three picks we
share. If you can bet $200 a game you should end up significantly ahead,
especially if our win % is close to %66, which is what I anticipate (more
about that later). With 10 people in the pool we'll really do well, since I
estimate the average daily number of picks to be about 5 at a maximum (we
can go with less), so that the total cost with 10 people and five picks
would be very low: about $25 per day per person (i.e. we would each buy one
pick every other day), which works out to only $5 per pick. Then a $50
bettor could work with the pool. And it doesn't take long with good
handicapping to become a $500 bettor, even if you start with only $50 bets
in the beginning. The point of this example is that even smaller bettors
should contact me, because if we get a big pool together we'll really save
some money and small players will be able to get in on the action.
Listed below are the handicappers I've noted as being excellent. They are
all within Sportswire for two reasons:
1. SportsWire handicappers usually post their picks early in the day, so we
won't have to frantically email each other at 6:45 pm, as with sharing late
phone service.
2. I have been buying picks there for some time and have verified that the
system of monitoring is honest. Losses do get posted as losses, and most of
the handicappers are good about recapping the day before, even losing days.
If you aren't familiar with SportsWire, check it out. Go to
www.sportswire.com. Click on the "search engine" button. Then scroll down
the search screen and click on "view the league's top performers." You will
quickly see that handicappers have a lot of discretion about the type of
streak they post. This seems sort of bogus at first, and obviously is a
marketing ploy, but the stats are honest within their streaks, and you can
still separate the good handicappers from the shitty ones. If you play
around with the site for a little while over the course of a few days,
you'll see that handicappers can list up to five streaks of any length in
any number of categories. Even the good handicappers will change their
streaks often, usually putting up streak history to help sell their games
that day. Some will even pull their streaks if they don't have a game that
day. So if you don't see one the handicappers I'm about to list, go back to
the main search screen and pull up "view all professional cappers."
The handicappers can choose between making their plays a Top play or a
Regular play. The results is then reflected in their performance in that
category. Play around on the website and you'll understand all this pretty
quickly. It ain't rocket science.
Here is a preliminary list of picks that I propose we purchase each day they
are available. For all cappers I recommend that we only purchase and play
their "Top" plays, in both NBA and NCAA. These tend to hit at the 66% mark
or better, with most cappers' overall plays hitting around %60. Now 60% is
fine, but 66% is worth the extra expense since it means many fewer losing
days.
No hockey for now, and we'll deal with baseball later.
This list of cappers is roughly prioritized, so if I find fewer people to
pool with, we'll go with fewer picks. Remember we'll be buying and betting
on the Top plays only. Not all the handicappers report streaks with Top
plays every day. Follow USASports for a few days and you'll see what I
mean. When they don't have a Top play to sell that day (like today) they
don't post their Top play record, which is much better than their Regular
play regular.
Sports Investors
HSW
USA Sports
Brian Gabrielle
CompuPicks
Pinnacle Sports
Bear in mind as you check out these cappers that I have been following them
for a while. One or two may have had a bad day yesterday, but overall they
are all excellent. Additionally, some of them may be pouting because they
had a "bad" day losing all their regular picks and winning only their Top
pick. We will never be in that position because we would only have played
their top picks. As a note, when our handicappers are on opposite sides of
any game we'll just stay out (you can obviously do what you want, but I'll
stay out).
I've read this over now and it's gotten quite large. Please take this
seriously and email me at daveja...@yahoo.com to start a dialogue. I
want to begin ASAP as February and March are probably the best times of the
year for good handicappers with NCAA-Basketball in full swing and some good
history behind the teams. I've been betting now for only about 6 months,
but I've been careful with my bets and have been winning 60% of the time,
betting around 1-2 plays during the week, and 3-4 on the weekends when the
board is bigger. I want to increase both the number of bets I place (to
around 5 per day), and my win percent (to 66%), but I can't yet afford to
spend the hundreds a day that would cost for top quality picks. That's why
I want to share these costs. If you've gotten this far in the email and
still think I might be full of shit, please send me an email and let's talk.
Many of you have probably gotten burned betting shitty picks, but there are
normal people making money betting games.
By the way, please forward this as an email to anyone who you think might be
interested. Thanks.
-"Dave"