Quote:
Originally Posted by George Lind III
The thing is, if you have 1000 people picking games randomly, one of them is going to end up being a 1000:1 outlier and look like the best handicapper ever, even though he's really flipping coins. You won't make money following people. In fact following people can be worse than flipping coins sometimes if other people are following them too and making the lines worse by the time you bet them.
Have you ever seen the "Gaming Today" battle of the bookies section? Basically, it takes the "inhouse expert" of each major casino and gives their picks against the line (there's about 65 of them). I've got the last 12 years of historical data and picks. Just as you said, some guys run hot, others cold, etc.
But if you take the consensus data, i.e. if 75% of the guys pick the same, then they win 61% of the time. if 85% of the guys pick the same, then win 64% of the time. I obviously wrote a program to analyze all of it and decide what % of BR to bet and if parlays should be used on different bets, and it seems unbelievably consistent. I've actually thought about releasing my results and picks, or start a "mutual fund" with the program.
Would you say that there is some merit to this concept or that the "ghost consensus" picks are just another picker that is on a hot streak?
Seriously, you gotta start trading stocks!