///
/// /// Check these other pages: ///
/// ///
|
A GOOD HANDICAPPER...BANKRUPT There's more to sports betting than calling winners /// The first book I ever read on sports betting was in 1983. I got lucky. The handicapping information in that book on pro football is among the best ever written. I still use some of the philosophies in that book. There's never been a doubt in my mind that the author really knew his stuff when picking pro football winners. Trouble was, even though the author’s advice on handicapping was excellent, his advice on money management was absolutely suicidal…..And I do mean suicidal. One of the things this fellow advised was, if you begin the NFL season risking $50 per bet, and if you can call 60% winners, you can be risking $500 per bet by the time the playoffs come around. …..Whew! This man must have spent 100% of his time learning to handicap, but no time at all understanding money management. Never mind the name of the book or the name of the author. There's no reason to embarrass him here. You'll see why we're reluctant to mention his name when we get to the end of this story. .....And to jump right to the end of the story, in the late 1990's – 15 years after reading that book – I was at the Gambler's Book Shop in Las Vegas. I was at the shop signing my own new book, How Professional Gamblers Beat the Pro Football Pointspread. During the course of my book-signing event, I asked about that author who’d done so much for me. Was he retired and still beating hell out of the NFL lines? …..As it turned out, he still lived in Las Vegas. He was a server, waiting tables in a downtown restaurant. The man’s ignorance of proper money management had obviously ruined his sports betting career, and his life. His ignorance of the dynamics of binomial distribution had wrecked him. There's no telling how many men he helped with his book - including me - but he, himself, wasn't one of them. While others got successful with his handicapping advice, he ended up waiting tables. It's a sad story. I can guarantee you that acceptable money management is essential to success. It is every bit as important as being able to predict winners. One of the most important things a beginning gambler can learn from me is this: The size of your bets cannot be used as a pry-bar to make more profit than you deserve, nor to catch up when you’re behind. I don’t expect most beginners to believe that last sentence. Just remember where you found this article.....You’ll be back. Think about this: A gambler always loses his biggest bet. To win at sports betting over the long haul, you must keep your bets ‘flat’. Successful sports bettors rarely “jiggle” the size of their bets. You can’t go wrong with this advice: If you’ve got $1,000 tucked in your sock drawer to risk on sports betting, risk no more than $20 (2 percent) per bet, and don’t keep moving the size of your bets. Keep risking $20 until your stash grows to $1500 or shrinks to $500, then readjust your bet to 2% again. Another way to handle it is to readjust your bet size to 2% at the end of every month, then keep it 'flat' for the rest of the month. It's the 'jiggling' that will kill you. Forget such silliness as a "1-star, 2-star, 3-star" system, or the deadly "Kelly criterion," or any other progressive betting system. My friend, Jack Painter, used to say, "If you like star-betting, you'd better like stars because you're going to be sleeping under them." 'Star betting' is a tell-tale sign of an amateur...And a loser. Progressive betting systems – all progressive betting systems – are nothing but relatives of the old Martingale system, which is the granddaddy of them all. On paper, the Martingale system absolutely guarantees you will be a winner. It's true. On paper, it cannot possibly lose. In the Martingale betting system, after you lose a bet you’re supposed to double the size of the next bet, and keep doubling until you finally win a bet. When you do finally win, of course, you’ll end up with a profit of one unit. Then, the plan is to start over with your basic single bet size. So long as you finally do win one more bet before you die, you simply cannot lose….What can possibly go wronkkkkkk...? ...What goes wrong is, you will sooner or later lose 8, 10, 12 or more bets in a row...Check it out for yourself. (And you definitely will sooner or later lose 8, 10 or more bets in a row. I regretfully can guarantee it.) There are several articles on this web site concerning money management, written by successful sports bettors. You can find them on our Index page. Be sure to read them. - J. R. Miller /// |
![[Image]](images/pict21.jpg){kind=small}