Handicapping the NFL Part 6: Self-Analysis and Recap.

Hopefully the previous sections have given you a good starting point for making your own lines on NFL games. Of course, that's all they have been though - a starting point from which you'll want to improve.
The good news there is that we're in the same boat. I've mentioned many times that although I'm a winner, I'm not the best, so I want to improve too and have had a few years to work on ways to help myself.
 
It is important to realise that you really can't judge how well you're doing from your results. If you have ten biggish bets and thirty other bets in a season, you're almost entirely in the lap of the gods.
 
If you win at a 55% rate (which is very good and probably close to my true rate) then if you have forty bets (which is quite a few), you'll win 68.4% of seasons.
 
If you win at 60% rate (Which is accepted as about the maximum possible) and have twenty bets, you'll have 75.5% winnings seasons.
 
This means you're going to need a better way to decide if you're improving than how you did last year.
 
My notebook
 
Me, me, me. Yet again I'm talking about myself in an article, how nice for you all!
 
Anyway, in case anyone's interested in my week to week layout then I thought I'd give you a look at my notebook.
 

 
At the top is the week number, and then the teams (in highlight pen to appear professional) with their records.
Next to these I write the projected wind speed and chance of rain.
 
Now I do some work. I check any important injury news. (If a random linesman is injured I tend not to research it too hard, if the site that I find the injury on says "blah blah is injured, blah blah to replace him" without any comments about it being a blow, I neglect it. I shouldn't but I do. If two random linesmen from the same line are injured, I assume it'll have an impact.) I note down any injuries that may have an impact.
Under this, I go through my folder and find any notes on teams (been unlucky, been beaten by more points than the real difference, improving young Quarterback, etc, etc, etc)
 
The layout in my folder (posted some weeks ago) helps me spot trends within teams performance (not results, trends here are pretty meaningless) and so I can allow for players getting better and even spot undeclared injuries sometimes. It's at this stage that that work comes in handy.

Finally I consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of the teams as discussed before and write down my line for the side and total.
 
I repeat this until all the games are done and then I write the real odds (taken from odds comparison sites... USE AMERICAN FACING SITES!) and see how things match up.
 
This allows me to see quickly which games I need to look at again and which games I might be betting.
 
The keen eyed amongst you will have noticed that my total for WAS/DET was miles out. I don't recall why this was but I did look up the result and Washington won 25-17, so the Vegas line was spot on.
Given that you are never more than a couple of points better than the books especially when crossing so many key numbers, I must have missed an injury or something massive in that one.
 
You'll also notice that my ATL/PHI line looks a long way off. It's further off than it should be, but 9.5 comes up a lot more than it should at the better bookies and you'll usually find the 9.5 side is a bigger than 1.91 favourite. If you want to know why this is you'll have to corner me when I'm not on a public place. The real line was likely 7.5 in most places.
 
Analysis
 
The good news with keeping a written record (as long as your writing is better than mine or you use a computer) is that you can go back and look at your predictions.
The very best time to do your betting is the start of the week, this is when you should do your capping and place your bets. I actually tend to do it a bit later in the week and miss the very best value. This is simply because even though NFL is my strength in terms of straight betting, I just don't have the time to follow things all week. I would probably increase my ROI by 2-3% if I did, but I'd miss five extra days gambling on other things.
 
Anyway, if you're an absolute beginner it should be enough to simply keep an average of how far your odds are out with the bookmakers at the time you made your lines. Each week just compare your lines with the bookies lines and score points for the difference. Try to lower your average score over time.
At this stage you can assume the bookies are always right. It's very close to a good assumption for everyone let alone a learner!
You'll find ways to "cheat" that will help you a lot. You'll use key numbers more to lower your average error (It's harder to be very wrong using 3’s and 7’s than 5’s and 11’s) and you'll pick up some good habits.
 
If you're a bit more experienced then you should still do something similar, but you can weight it a bit. You can count double for any errors that miss a 3 or 7 (so the difference between 3 and 4 is 2 points etc) or something similar that feels right to you. As long as you keep the same rules you'll see yourself getting better.
 
Finally, a great way to see how you're doing is to price up the games at the start of the week and have an imaginary bet on any games where you have a different line to the bookies. Check the odds again just before kickoff (or search for closing lines after the game) and see if the odds moved in your favour or against you. If they moved in your favour, you effectively won on the game.
The reason for this is that lines get more efficient through the week. They still change due to weather and injuries, but they also get sharper as more and more good players place their bets.

Well, as you can see, I'm pretty much out of material for this series now. I'm going to take some time off and have a think what else I can write for you before the season starts. Thanks for getting this far with me and I hope that everyone learned at least a little that they can use to help them. Unless you're a bookmaker that is, in which case a big "boooo" to you!

Lori