From Deadspin today we have an interesting piece that confirms what many people who have tried betting on NFL games have probably suspected. The picks suck, with the only source claiming a 53%+ winning percentage that might overcome a sports book's vig not releasing a list of picks that could be used to verify their claims.
Deadspin's a little low on the why though. I'd probably suppose it may go back to the talent spread between NFL teams being much narrower than in many other sports. I rather prefer NCAA betting because the talent spread is more varied and early in the season much of the ranking and rating seems to rely heavily on the team's previous performance with players who have since left the school.
A lot of people try to seek profits from sports betting which is a questionable endeavour on its face. Betting to make games you already want to watch more interesting is probably the way to go about things. It may accentuate the sting of your team losing, but maybe start liking better teams?
I was really happy to see this article when you posted it in the chat, because it made me feel much better about my results this season. After a win on Thursday night's game I'm now only down 0.04 BTC, which is very close to even considering my bet sizing, though my wins as a percentage of my total bets is still far below 50%. I size my bets to some degree based on my confidence in the outcome of that bet, so it seems that I have actually made this confidence level work in my favor to offer bigger returns on my wins than losses on average. That said, I will often take bets because of higher payouts that have less than a 50% chance of hitting, and one of my winning bets paid out +340 this year, so that's a factor as well.
Anyway, knowing that the pros have been sucking as much as I have makes me feel like I'm still in the hunt, and hopefully things will level off a little bit going forward, displaying a little less volatility and fewer unexpected upsets.
Well, as more games get played more information comes out. The thing about the NFL is that aside from the franchise players who get name recognition, turnover for the rest of the players isn't much slower than for the NCAA teams.