Expert: bryan bartman - 8/16/2002

Question
I am interested in finding serious articles (research type) on football (NFL) and hockey gambling to lower my losses for the next season. Where can I find some ? Who's the reference on the subject ?  

Answer
Hi Patrik:

A book that I have read and re-read from time to time is call "the book on bookies" by James Jeffries and Charles Oliver.

This gives a straight forward look at how bookies profit.

I have used this book to give me a basic reminder of what the profit drives of sports betting are.

In addition, you may want to take a few hours to review a basic statistics book.  I also refer to this from time to time to keep the following points of view in mind.

The first is what is the probabilty the team A will win.  This is determined by various methods of guessing outcome of a various event.  In the major sports, the odds makers are very good.  There goal is to attract equal amounts of money a team to win a game.  This is very true in NFL.  If one assumes that the point spread is fairly accurate to make the game appear to have a 50% chance that either team wins, then you could flip a coin and you would be fairly close to winning half of the nfl bets you make.

Of course, you will lose money with this method, the example is to prove a point.

The second statiscally issue is that of variation or deviation from an expected norm.  Simply put, what aspects of the game will cause it to deviate from a normal outcome.

Is a team more turnover prone, will a good run defense limit the scoring of a heavily weighted run offense, are there emotional factors, player records, team records, etc.

Lastly, there are numberous writings on gambling bankrolls.

I sugguest that you reveiw a few of these theories

Best of Sucess

Bryan Bartman
Statfox.com