Me and My Ways

I'm Mark, been dabbling in sports betting for a few years now. I don't gamble for/with any amount of money that will make a difference to my lifestyle...what I am is a guy who really likes challenging games, and sports betting is one of the toughest of em' all. Billion-dollar Vegas versus us, the little guys. It's like sitting across the chessboard from Bobby Fischer and still really wanting to win.

I make my picks in a number of ways. I'm a big believer in numbers and statistics...so many things on this planet that can appear to be somewhat random you realize after observing for awhile that it can all be quantified...and so it is true with sports.

But that's only one angle, and a weak one at that. Vegas can afford much better statisticians than I'll ever be. So predicting that Team A has a 30% chance of winning a game is one thing, but more importantly is figuring out whether that 30% chance is more likely today than other days. Not easy to do.

Another important aspect of picking to me is to disregard a team's overall record; if a #1 ranked team is playing a #2 ranked team, who cares how either fared against the #15 through the #30 ranked teams? I almost entirely disregard that useless data, and I feel a lot of people do too, to some degree, but not enough.

Finally, I make my picks by reading, by borrowing from those who know better than I do. I don't watch every NHL game...but some people do. A big part of my gambling day is finding out who the ... [More]