So...I've been spending a lot of time lately trying to figure out how to handicap games. I wanna know how professionals make a living by gambling on sports. I mean, there has to be some sort of method or system that they use to place wagers in their favor, right? Right now, I feel as though I'm blindly picking games when I place a wager. For instance, the line for the Pittsburg vs. Philadelphia game on Monday night was -3 and with an over/under of 35. I wanted to place a bet, but I had no idea which side to pick. After pondering a for little bit, I decided to pick the over. It looked like a good number. My only logic was that TO (Terrell Owens) was missing from the game, so most bettors were probably picking the under due to him being M.I.A. Not only that, but the line opened at 36, which means that most bettors were definitely picking the under. And we all know that MOST people always lose. The final score ended up being well over a total of 35, so I won my bet. But was there really any method to my wager? Nah...not really. I was basically gambling. And you know what happens when you gamble...you always lose in the end (because of the juice). In poker, it's the rake that gets you. In sportsbetting, it's the juice or what's better known as the vig. That's the 10% that the sportsbooks make for accepting your bet. Well, instead of blindly picking games, I want to learn how to accurately handicap them, so that I can make wagers based on proven winning systems versus random selection, otherwise known as gambling. I've done some research, but I haven't been able to find too much information on this subject. Here are some websites that I've found: Sportsdatabase.com - GREAT Stats Database Procappers.com - Handicappers League Quickstats.com - Historical Stats in Text format Wagerline.com - Another Handicappers website I like all of the sites above because they allow me to take a look into the historical stats of all games. Like the stock market, I think that handicapping games should be based on historical trends that have proven to be successful. If Pittsburg always puts up a lot of points at home based on the historical stats over the past 10 years, then they'll most likely continue to put up a lot of points when they're at home. Base on this fact, we can say that the over/under for each home game should be higher than most of the away games. So, if the line is set at over/under 33 for a Pittsburg game, then it might best to take the over. I'm just using Pittsburg as an example, so don't take it as fact. I'm not even sure if they put up a lot of points at home or not. The above example is just the thought process that I think is necessary to eventually become a professional handicapper...even though I know very little about the subject right now. Anyways, enough about handicapping. Once I have it all figured out, I'll post my findings here. If anyone knows of a professional handicapper out there, I'd like to meet them, so that I can pick their brain a little bit. Please let me know. I haven't played any poker since Monday night, so there's really nothing new to talk about there. I'm enamored with this sports handicapping thing now, so that's where all of my focus lies right now. Let's see, what else, stock check: I bought TFSM at 5.09 yesterday, after it made a daily low of 4.8 and closed at 5.13. A stock is pretty strong when it can break the high put in place after the first 30 minutes of trading (from 9:30am to 10:00am EST), which was 5.08. As of 1:23pm EST today, it has broken yesterday's high, which is also a good sign. My initial target is 5.4, then we'll see what happens from there. Boogster

Source: Boogster's Poker Blog