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| | Author: MasterBets
| Handicapping the NFL with NFL Trends - A Bad Idea
You've seen it from countless NFL handicappers as they try to convince you to buy their latest NFL Picks, usually at exorbitant prices: "This NFL Pick is based on an NFL trend that is 18-0 ATS over the last 12 years". This NFL pick will doubtless be a "5-star lock", a "can't miss winner", and all the other hyperbolic crap that NFL handicapping services like to spew at you. These NFL handicappers are using past trends and situations to attempt to predict future patterns in NFL results. But is there any solid logic behind their NFL Picks, or is it more akin to reading tea-leaves and Tarot cards?
Unfortunately, most NFL trends belong in the category of superstition. The trouble with superstitious belief is that it is excellent at explaining the past but lousy at predicting the future. That's the angle used by all psychics, fortune tellers, and the majority of NFL handicappers. They look into their crystal ball and tell you "that road dogs coming off 3 home losses have an 80% chance of covering ATS against a home favorite that plays in a Dome." This stat may well be true but that is not the point. The point is that it is meaningless in terms of predicting future outcomes. These NFL handicappers confuse their clients by finding irrelevant situations that they claim to be extra-ordinary, when they are very ordinary indeed.
In the world of statistics there is a concept called "binomial distrubution", and if more gamblers had a clue as to what it meant there would be a lot less record-keeping by roulette players and sports bettors. If you flip a coin millions of times you will see that the % of heads and tails will eventually even out. BUT if you look at any grouping of 20 flips you could easily find Heads winning 15-5, followed by Tails going on a 17-3 run. These "streaks" are a normal occurrence of nature, and are expected to occur in random distributions. A run of Red numbers at the Roulette wheel does not mean that this wheel is desperately trying to tell gamblers that it prefers Red to Black. So, if you look at every NFL result over the past 40 years, and include enough conditions to narrow down the sample to 20 games, especially if your conditions are cherry-picked as you work backwards to get the exact results that you want, you will find a Trend that is 20-0.
The human mind cannot help but be impressed by this kind of information. We're weak that way. When a fortune teller tells you something about your life that has already happened: "You were involved in a dangerous accident when you were younger", "Someone you loved has passed away", you are inclined to believe that they could know about your future (this works best if you are a girl). NFL handicappers want you to believe the same kind of nonsense. It is false logic, people, clever sophistry that is sadly often believed by the people producing the argument. They may well think they have found a valuable trend, but chances are it will be 50% effective going forward.
The problem with NFL trends, is that most of them are random occurrences with no impact on the future. The guys playing for the Browns in 2004 are not the same guys who were there a few years ago. They don't care about the historical records of the organization - technically, they're not even the same franchise. You're dealing with human beings who have good Sundays and bad Sundays, who make mistakes, and who can also rise up and surprise themselves with a huge performance every now and then. NFL Picks cannot be based on trends or angles. The only way to handicap the NFL effectively is to understand current form, and to apply your perceptions to the betting markets for that coming week.
NFL trends are meaningless, but the way an NFL team plays from week to week is crucial. There is no substitute for hard work and this is a truism in NFL handicapping and sports betting in general. You need to know how teams match up against one another, and how well they are playing right now. You then need to be able to apply that knowledge to the latest betting markets and deduce where the value lies in the spread. There is always value in an NFL spread, because the nature of the line is simply to divide the betting action. You just have to know where that value lies, and if you can find it 60% of the time you will become one of the best NFL handicappers on the planet. In short, you will become a lot like MasterBets. We don't offer trends and angles and situations. We are not interested in the history of the NFL. We do all our work in the here and now, and we do it better than anyone else.
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| Last Updated
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 | | |
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