winner

Fifth in a series on betting football written for www.enterbet.com
BETTING STRATEGY PART ONE: BETTING WITH YOUR OWN BRAIN
OK...over the last month we looked at what lines mean, detailed types of bets, talked about choosing bookies, and discussed using the Internet to gather information. Now let's win some cash. If I put all my betting strategy into one article, the two-minute drill would become the two hour root canal, so I've broken it up. This week, it's "use your own handicapping skills to make dough on totals and sides".
The following is my betting strategy for my own picks on side and total plays. I don't discuss "how" I make my picks in this article (maybe another day) – this focuses on what I do with them once I've made them.
Oh yes...at this point I should trumpet how successful I am. I hit 94% of my picks. Yeah. Sure. Well, I guess not: In eight years of taking this seriously I'm hitting at about a 56% clip. Most years I bat in the mid-to-high 50s; one year I was actually 62.6%; and two years, well, I was in the high 40s but let's forget about that just like we try to forget about Barbra Streisand's Christmas Album. I wind up making 70-85 sides and totals plays a year "on average" and end up 5 to 8 units to the good in a typical year.
ASSUMPTIONS: You have at least three outs, and when you get different numbers you always play at the best number available at any given moment. You have a bankroll to start the season for betting football sides and totals with your own picks (we discuss a second bankroll next week) consisting of 20 units...each unit, "obviously", 1/20th of the bankroll. So if your bankroll is $1000, you have $50 units, if your bankroll is $500 your units are $25, etc.
STEP ONE: Sunday Late / Monday / Tuesday
NFL–Handicap the games of the coming week to the best of your ability. How you do this (stat cruncher? Feel? Both?) Is your call, but you're living and dying by your own wits. Determine the winner and by how much. Take an early shot at the totals on Tuesday, with an eye on the extended weather forecast. DO THIS BEFORE LOOKING AT THE LINES!!
College–Choose a conference or two (three?) that interests you that you will follow closely. With a lot more games on the college board it is in theory a lot easier to find soft lines, but few of us have the time to be experts on 90 teams in eight conferences, especially with player turnover what it is. People tell me that lesser known conferences usually offer better betting opportunities, and they're likely right, but as a trade off it may be harder to find timely team info to use in your handicapping, and you may not find the Fighting Schnauzers of Prussian Valley on the board for betting every week anyway. Strike a happy medium, and choose conferences you're interested in and can watch on TV. Handicap the games like you did in the pros. Once again, estimate the totals ‘round Tuesday for teams in the top 25 (many other games have no total), and DO THIS BEFORE LOOKING AT THE LINES!!
The reason why you do this before looking at the lines is you don't want the line, which is only an estimate of public perception, NOT an attempt to predict the result, to influence YOUR perception at this point. [If this definition of the line is foreign to you, or makes no sense, please check out Article #1 in my series.]
STEP TWO (ASAP after Step One)
Dig out the lines from your best source (newspaper, Internet, tv, whatever) and note the discrepancies between the handicaps you've assigned and the lines. (With luck you also have current run-downs of lines for each of your outs.)
SIDES:
NFL, Bowl games, and games between two top-25 College teams: Bet one unit on any game where your handicap disagrees with the line by at least three points. Obviously, place the bet to your advantage...If you make the Packers a 9 point-favorite and the biggest discrepancy you can find is the Packers -13, bet the underdog and grab the 13 points. Similarly, if you make the Seminoles -7.5 but you can find them -4, bet them ‘Noles!
Bet two units if your number disagrees from the line by a touchdown or more –but make sure first you've done your homework. Don't bet 10% of your bankroll on the Seahawks, turn on the tube on game day, and find out Joey Galloway is holding out. OUCH!
College games not in the above category: Bet one unit on a 6-or-more point discrepancy if the published line is below 20 points. Bet two units on a 10.5 point or more discrepancy if the published line is less than 20 points. If the line is more than 20 points, my system only allows for a one-unit bet, and it should only be placed if the difference between your handicap and your best price is 7.5 points or more.
Two points to remember:
1) We separate some college games from the higher-profile ones and the NFL because the NFL and big-game college lines do tend to be more accurate. Why are they more accurate? Because the uneducated public does a better job betting these games than they do betting lesser-known college teams. Information is more readily available about bigger games for the casual bettor. So a three-point differential (especially something juicy like your number being 4 and the line being 1) in the NFL or the Tostitos Bowl is, in my opinion, worth a six point difference in opinion when Army lines up against Bowling Green.
2) If you limit yourself to a couple college conferences (as suggested) along with the NFL, your two unit plays should occur infrequently –less than one a week for sure! If you're making more than six two-unit plays in any month, step back for a minute and make sure you know what you're doing as a handicapper. (If you're winning, beautiful.) Some people advise never betting more than 3-4% of a bankroll on any play. My one-unit plays are 5% and my two-units are 10%. If you're a good handicapper this works fine, and if you're a weak one, at least you'll be under no illusions to the contrary after a couple months. (There is a solid mathematical underpinning within the Central Limit Theorem and Tchebychev's Inequality that says standard bets of 5% of bankroll, over a year of more than 50 bets, should ruin no one who is even moderately sharp –someone who in a thousand plays would hit between 500 and 530).
TOTALS
I play fewer totals in football, partly because there are fewer college games with many bookies covering totals, and partly because I'm just not as confident playing football totals as I am playing sides. Not once have I broken 60% for a season in football. If I hit 55% with my totals I'm happier than a pig in poop until Presidents' Day–and I'm not even American.
I play one unit on any total when my handicapping differs from the total line by seven points or more–and I try to make darn sure if there is such a differential, there's no obvious reason that my first wave of research missed why this is so. Because I insist on such a discrepancy between my projection and the line, I might average one total play a week.
I'm reluctant to say "I won't bet totals, period", because I know some people do make money on them and I figure as long as I'm hitting 50-54%, basically getting my money back, I should keep at it in hopes the light comes on someday. [I do refuse to play first-half and halftime lines because I've won the Lewinsky Award on those since I suck so bad...again, people do make money on these things, but I am certainly not one of them!]
What I find so hard to handicap about totals is allowing for weather (which, even two days before the game can be a complete crapshoot) and trying to factor in turnovers. So a team turns the ball over lots. If they cough it up inside their own five, there's points on the board. If they stall in the red zone, seven points becomes three, or zero. Further, just as some big underdogs can "back-door cover" a side after the game is out of reach, you can get both "back-door overs" (leading team happy to trade touchdowns, or gives up soft scores late) and "back-door unders" (with the score 35-7 and the total 46, both teams are content to just run out the clock in the last ten minutes, letting it finish 35-10).
Check out our posting forums, but you won't see me trumpeting scores of totals. I just don't rely on them too much.
STEP THREE All Week Long
We make most of our plays early in the week to try to be the first to capitalize on what we consider to be line-makers' mistakes from a handicapper's point of view. Nevertheless, check the lines at least once daily and a couple times on Saturday (college) and Sunday (NFL) morning. Watch what lines are moving, and try to figure out from newspaper stories and gambling sites on the Internet why the lines are jumping. If the reasons seem valid to you, adjust how you handicapped the game and make yourself a new number. If the reasons seem invalid or there seems to be no reason, maybe you can make a bet now where you could not before (You capped the Dolphins at +3.5, say, and they opened +5.5...only a two point difference, so no play. If they then become +6.5 or +7, and after checking around you've no idea why, plop down a unit and grab the 7 points!)

IN SUMMARY: Does this system guarantee you'll make money? Absolutely not...you cash in if, and only if, you're an astute handicapper. Your success or failure is in your hands.
NEXT we look at cashing in based on the Joy of Numbers –whether you handicap well or not. Some people just bet on their handicapping knack...some just bet the numbers. I'm of the opinion one ought to do both...so next week, to counter this week, it's equal time for scalping, middling, cranking stale numbers and other little ideas that try to turn the bookies' theoretical advantage against them.

Millions of people play the famous and popular game of blackjack in different parts of the whole world and with different results, but few know about the blackjack betting system and even fewer know how to use it in the right way. Well, there exists many such systems and all of them can help the player to become a real winner and expert in blackjack betting chart.
Betting system if someone does not know is the system how to get more money while playing, for example when playing blackjack. As any game blackjack has its own secrets, approaches and methods. Of course there exists one or another blackjack betting system which allows the players gain their own way of becoming the winners. Well, I think nowadays there appeared even more betting systems for playing blackjack but there exist three so called 'classical' blackjack betting systems.
The first two ones are for people who prefer to start their game with certain amount of money and leave it unchangeable from game to game. The third one is recommended by so called experts in the affair of playing blackjack. This system is called to be progressive and the whole process here is divided into two levels. The user of the system is only to decide about the minimum and maximum. Minimum means the amount of money you will get if you loose and maximum - the amount of money if you become the winner. The system is rather simple: you place for example 10 dollars and decide that 10 dollars will be your minimum and 30, for example will be the maximum. There can be countless variations in amounts of money, in max and min, in the whole blackjack betting system and it depends on the person, without any doubt.
It will be worth remembering and note one more popular system but a little bit more difficult as it contains five levels. For example with a minimum of 10 dollars then 20, 30, 40 and 50 on the last round, you can successfully win or lose $150.00 at least. Well, you can play for several times in the same progression and become a winner or an absolute looser nearly in one second. Risky, is not it? But people say: "Those that do not play do not drink champagne". Of course there are others that say, "It's better to gamble on the stock market". And there are STILL others who say, "If it hurts when you pee, go see a doctor immediately". What does all this have to do with gambling? Who knows, maybe it is really worth to make a challenge to your destiny and fortune and of course nobody knows if they will smile to you.
Of course there exist many other betting systems which are more individual and it will not be a surprise that in some days we will get to know about a new one. Besides many systems are the secret of people who play for themselves and do not like to share their discoveries with other people and take part in blackjack betting chart. There exists also one theory of playing blackjack based on a five-leveled betting system when the player should always bear in mind and remember: if he is looser for some times he should wait a little bit, it means that in some short period of time it will be his term to get money.
Also it is important to feel and to know when to stop the game. It is so because some eager players are very lucky for several times and get great sums of money but their mistake is that they are sure the period of luckiness will never stop and they play with all the won money and loose it in one second. A sad fact, friendly speaking. But everything happens. So always remember that the blackjack betting chart is not such a simple thing, it is rather hard and very interesting to play this game and blackjack betting systems can help to gain the greatest satisfaction and profit from the game.
Blackjack slots and desks can be found probably in any part of our planet as well as the players of the game, it is really very popular. The most concentrated place of the players is probably in Las Vegas - the famous centre of games and casinos. Well, blackjack is constantly available for anybody, for any player who is ready to try his fortune or on the other hand to show his professionalism in such difficult affair as playing blackjack. In this case with the help of their mind such people can get great amounts of money and do it for many times.
Everything is possible in our life and much is in the possession of our wishes. Why not to try playing and winning the real money?