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Strategy, Commentary, Ramblings & Wagering
Good morning!
Tomorrow begins NCAAF! It’s an exciting time and as of right now…not a single person has lost $1 betting the 2023-24 football regular season. So, before many of you dive in head first into wagering this football season, I want to say one thing…
PLEASE…I know we are all excited about regular season football arriving in the form of NCAAF tomorrow…just try to remain calm. I know most of you are saying, “Calm down TSP, we get it.” Most of you do, but as the person on this side of the table who will receive messages this season of ridiculously stupid sized wagers and complete degenerate spirals…from people who are then asking for my help to get them out of the hole…I am hopeful to prevent a few from going down that road. It’s a road that starts Saturday and less disciplined bettors can get all caught up in the Week 0 excitement. So…
Don’t go into Saturday with 5 units to your name and put it on a bet hoping to have 10 units of bankroll for the football season. It’s a LOOOOOOONG season. There will be great weeks and awful weeks…it is inevitable. Who knows, maybe Week 0 will be awful! If you could just bet smart and disciplined you would have a ton of fun this season.
So, I do not know what, if any, angles will present themselves for tomorrow. Maybe there will be a Group Buy, maybe there will be a Book Position or a massive sharp buy. It’s a relatively short card, maybe there won’t be a damn thing of quality. Less reputable people in this business will inevitably have a LOCK OF THE YEAR or WEEK ZERO GAME OF THE MONTH…or some such bullshit to drive sales that will be backed by little more than flipping a coin. Don’t fall for the hype!
If there is something you like or that appears in the TSP content, be smart…bet it for 1 unit. If it wins…great. If it loses…you can handle it and be ready to begin the big run on the very next bet. If there isn’t anything tomorrow, don’t turn a TSP Live Radar reading of 62 into a “Lock of the Year/can’t lose bet” just because you NEED action for the first NCAAF games of the season! If you bet 5, 10, 20+ units…which could comprise your entire bankroll and then some…and you lose…what a mess!! You are already behind the 8-ball for the season and it is unlikely to get better. Your hopes and season for 2023-24 died before NFL even began! Yes, it happens more often than you know!
Yesterday is a perfect example of what I am trying to describe above. NOTHING is guaranteed in gambling. Yesterday the Most Interesting Action on Boston +130 won in a blowout, the Known Bettor Action on Indianapolis -4.5 won easily…moving preseason angles to a PERFECT 8-0 of reporting through the content. The CFL won easy, but the tennis lost just as easy and the Group Buy on Toronto blew the lead and lost as well. If you bet yesterday’s Group Buy for 5 units and didn’t use anything else, it was a rough day…but nobody should be betting an angle for more than 1 unit…there’s a mathematically justified reason for 1 unit wagering…and not 5 or 10 units on something. If you bet the Group Buy for 1 unit and played the preseason football, because it has been perfect this year, for 1 unit, you lost a little juice. Point being whether you bet anything beyond the Group Buy or not, if you kept the Group Buy wager to the standard 1 unit, there’s nothing more manageable in wagering.
Yes, Group Buys were hitting 67.9% lifetime coming into yesterday, so there is a natural gambler’s compulsion to see “67.9%” and for your brain to read that as “95%” or “100%”. However, 67.9% is not 100%. Until you have an angle that is 100% and guaranteed to always be 100%…which of course is not possible…you need to bet accordingly to weather the inevitable losses which will occur.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, ever! Even if all you bet yesterday was 1 unit on Toronto, it’s one loss…1 unit…you move on to today and hopefully get it back. If instead you bet 10 units or 5 units…now you are in a hole and have to go 5-0 on 1 unit bets just to get back to even. Perhaps you decide instead of trying to net five 1 unit bets to get even you’ll just bet another 5 units today…see how this can compound itself?? It gets ugly fast and a bet you should have wagered 1 unit on becomes a 20 unit bankroll loss through pressing and chasing to get even…over just a couple bets! Every gambler says they would never get into this sort of situation…and then they do. I have been there myself and you have too…you know it and I know it…it happens. It is up to us to control those compulsions.
I will undoubtedly get messages this season from multiple bettors who blew themselves out of the water, and are coming to me for bailout locks…but these things are preventable! I have been in the sports gambling industry since 1997 and was a bettor for years before that…longer than many of you reading this have been alive. I have seen a lot through my years and even fixed games do not hit 100%…more like 70-75%…just as Tim Donaghy.
Your football season could be a fun and profitable adventure…or it could be a house of horrors. Whether it is one end of the spectrum or the other is not because of me, your book, your friend, some handicapper, the players, the coaches, the refs, the universe, God, your parents…it is YOU! You control what and how you bet. If you find yourself down 50 units by October, it is likely not because KB Consensus plays went 0-2 that weekend…but because instead of betting 1 unit as is mathematically sound, you bet 15 units on a game.
Gambling does take time, effort and discipline to turn a profit, but it does not have to be as hard as many reading this make it. The season begins tomorrow. I am as excited for it as all of you. Let’s have a great time! We will celebrate the big wins, lament the vicious beats and grind all the way to another profitable season together! Thanks for joining me!
That’ll do it for me today. I hope you have a wonderful day and good luck in your action!