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How Much Action is Too Much? - Scott Spreitzer 10/14/2009

This is one of the biggest questions sports
wagerers have to ask. It’s arguably the single
biggest contributor to the high losses suffered by
the general public in general.

They play too many games. In fact, many keep
betting until they make sure they lose!

How is that possible? It’s kind of like the “Peter
Principal” in business. You’ve probably heard about
that. People get promoted up to the spot where
they’re in over their heads. Nobody wants to stand
pat in a job they’ve mastered. Employers want to
try to get their best people in the most important
jobs. Ironically, that leads to a phenomenon where
many workers are moved one spot too high. They
were qualified to succeed one step below, but they
“found” the level where they were in over their
heads.

Sports gamblers do that all the time. If they’re
winning with their favorite 3-5 picks every day,
they start to play a few extras because things are
going well. If they manage a winning record with
their best 5-7 picks every day, they press on
further. They also press up the amounts because
success is giving them more confidence. But, at 10-
12 plays per day, disaster! They start losing games
they didn’t used to even bet. And, they’re losing at
bigger amounts because of the prior confidence.

Suddenly, a winning bettor is down for the year.
They found the level where they were in over their
heads.

What’s worse, sports gamblers refuse to “demote”
themselves back to what was working! Instead of
saying, “Well, I’ve been playing too many games, I
need to cut back down.” They say, “I’m a winner!
My earlier record proves it. I can make this work!”

Sportsbooks succeed largely because of human
nature. And the knack winners have for turning
themselves into losers.

What a bettor needs to do is to think very carefully
about the best action level for their own particular
style. I’ve found during my years in Vegas that it’s
really different for everybody. There are guys who
would be best served by just betting their top 1-2
opinions every day. If they are really big on
something, it’s got a good chance to to win. The
stuff they just “like” isn’t worth the energy. But with
others, particularly professional “advantage”
players, more action is better because it grinds out
a large profit over time. They can hit 54-55% over
100 plays, or 1,000 plays, or 10 years. That’s
better than the break-even point with the 11/10
vigorish. If you can hit a winning percentage over a
large number of plays, you’re costing yourself
money by not betting.

Start logging your opinions each game day in
college and pro football (and in basketball when it
starts next month if you like handicapping the
hoops). Either rank your games from 1-20, or put
them in categories such as "five,” “three,” “one,” and
“leave alone.” Make this a habit so you’re doing it
all the time every betting day. Don’t get
discouraged if you find out you’re not as smart as
you thought. That’s actually a lesson most
gamblers need to learn! Be excited about the
chance to truly find where your strengths lie.

If you’re like most people:

*You’ll find out the games you “love” (fives) aren’t
really that much better than the others in terms of
week-to-week performance. You’ve been betting
too much on these, making them have way too big
an impact on your bankroll. A few of you will have a
great percentage on these. Most won’t.

*You’ll find that you “like” (threes) too many games.
There’s a tricky difference between “like,” and
“lean.” Most gamblers need to get a firmer grip on
that.

*You’ll find that you “like” or “love” a lot more
games after a good day than you do after a bad
day. This tells you that you’re not really thinking
about the matchups and angles that are in play
coming up. You’re being overly influenced by what
just happened. This is a very bad sign for
handicappers. The influences that will determine
who wins and covers Sunday’s Ravens/Vikings
game are completely unrelated to whether or not
you won Saturday’s Southern Cal/Notre Dame
game. The Ravens and Vikings couldn’t care less
about you! Base you’re opinions on the upcoming
games themselves, not on your mood swings.

This exercise will help you develop a keen sense
for how to properly rate your games, and where
your cutoff point needs to be. That by itself will put
you on the winning side of the equation. Then
you’ll be taking the sportsbooks money when the
games are over instead of pouting because they’ve
got your's.

Maybe you’ll find out you need to be conservative,
and just focus on your very strongest opinions. Or,
you just might get confirmation that you have what
it takes to be a true advantage player in Las Vegas!

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