The Hook
We talked about this in a previous posting, but we now have real data to show you why you should not wager real money on our picks. Last week, we hit a small bonanza, and we came within a few seconds of a major, albeit imaginary, windfall profit.
We issued four long shot money line parlays, each returning better than 2 to 1 odds. We won on two of the four and came within seconds of winning the third one. As it is, our profit from last week was 61% return on the investment. Had that third game that we lost in the last seconds been a winner as well, our profit would have exceeded 100% on the investment.
It’s the “last-second”, “one play,” “fluke play” stuff that hooks the investor to make him or her return the next week to wager more. We have no problem with this. We can wager “$500,000,” and it is the same as if we wagered “$1.” It’s just a fun exercise for a half dozen math geeks, four of whom are members of the fairer sex by the way.
What we have noticed so far this season is that our college picks are winning, while the NFL picks are not doing well at all. The 2016 NFL season has been too tipsy-turvy to hit on parlays. Sure, you can pick New England to win at -300, but that won’t help you much, because at -300, the Patriots basically have to win out to keep you from losing money. If they go 12-4, and you bet on them to win every week at a -300 average, you will invest $300 every week and win $100 12 times, while losing $300 four times. This would allow you to break even in theory, but New England doesn’t go off at -300 each week. They might lose at -450. They might win at -600 over a lousy team. Your invested amount won’t get you the profit to buy that new pearl necklace for that special lady in your life, or that new cell phone with the 16 megapixel camera to replace that camera that is best used to start a campfire.
Until otherwise determined to be safe, we are going to limit our money line parlays to college games only. The upset tendencies this time of year tend to be more conservative than the NFL.
For the season, our “just for fun only” picks have wagered on 31 money line parlay games, all at better than even money odds. We have won 10 of the 31 at an average of $283.25 (on $100 wagered) and lost the other 21 ($-100). This brings us a return of $-130 for the season, which is still a negative 4% return on investment. For what it’s worth, the college selections are responsible for 80% of the winnings, and those picks alone have a positive return on investment, which is why we are going only with college picks this week.
We are going to issue just three selections this week. All three are very long shots such that winning just any one of these three games will make our week an imaginary profitable one. One of the parlays combines two underdogs that we believe can win outright and return an incredible 6+ times what we are pretending to invest.
Look carefully at all three parlays. There is a reason they call them “long shots.” Chances are high that all three will lose, so be forewarned all you reading this with a URL from Las Vegas as well as all you that have figured out which two online books you can find to plug the numbers into a calculator and discover which book we used for each parlay. Remember this: just since we started this feature 15 minutes ago, three of the games that make up the parlays have changed the money line odds.
This Week’s Games
| October 27-31,2016 |
| 1. College Parlay @ +295 |
| Temple over Cincinnati |
| Indiana over Maryland |
| Memphis over Tulsa |
| Central Michigan over Kent St. |
| N. C. St. over Boston College |
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| 2. College Parlay @ +324 |
| Toledo over Ohio |
| Wake Forest over Army |
| Southern Miss. over Marshall |
| Florida over Georgia |
| Tennessee over South Carolina |
| Penn St. over Purdue |
| Washington St. over Oregon St. |
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| 3. College Parlay @ +607 |
| North Texas over UTSA |
| Kentucky over Missouri |
