BrewBrain Sports Investing

So, secretly I’ve been keeping a couple blogs going.  I’m going to just go ahead and start posting my sports stuff here too.  I mean, if you like brewing and drinking beer, you probably love sports, amirite?

I’ve been posting poker and sports betting stuff over at blogspot - a little blog I started recently called 1000 Hours Of Poker .  I’ve been posting some poker stuff and custom college and NFL football spreads and picks for this season.  I’ll likely stay away from poker posting here as it is pretty boring and does nobody any good.  However, I’ve developed a football handicapping strategy that appears to be working quite well.  I’m quite profitable so far this year.  I won’t re-post entries from that other blog, but feel free to check it out if you’re interested.  I’ll just pick it up here.

My handicapping strategy is computer based.  I’ve been a lifelong sports fan and think I have developed a unique way of looking at the games from a handicapping and wagering perspective.  I really believe the key to  success is finding a way to use publicly available data differently than anybody else.  I take the available data and create my own comparative statistics that I use to evaluate the relative strength of one team against their opponent.  The end result is my own custom point spread.  I then compare my spread against the “Vegas” spread and place my bets accordingly.

Using this methodology seems to give me a different strategy than that of the people yelling at you from your radio on weekend mornings.  I don’t have any Blue Plate Specials or Five Star Games or Million Dollar Games Of The Century, and I cannot “guarantee” that you can turn $10,000 into $60,000 risk free in five easy wagers.  I don’t even have any mysterious inside information on any of the games.  I don’t have any doctors as clients, and I’m not fat enough to have a self-deprecating weight themed nickname.  I’m just BrewBrain, and I hope we can gradually make some money and have some fun doing what we love to do.

As I run my calculations and create my own spread on every Division 1A College Football Conference game and every NFL game, I have an opinion on every game.  My opinions are all of equal strength at this point.  I compare my spread against the “Vegas” spread and place my wager where my spread gives me an edge on the Vegas spread.  My goal is to consistently play all of the games and win enough of them to turn a profit.  By playing so many games, I spread my risk capital among a whole bunch of investment opportunities, reducing risk to my capital in the process, while also reaching my long-term expectation in fewer calendar days than those who cherry pick a few opportunities here and there.  I’m not saying the cherry picking strategy is wrong.  If it works, it works.  It just isn’t for me.  I could never gain that much confidence in one single game to put enough money at risk on it to make the risk/reward profile work for me.  I’d rather bet small on a whole bunch of games with an overall nice edge than bet big on a few games with a larger (supposedly) edge.  If those few games go wrong, the bankroll really gets smacked.

My stats so far this year:

College Football through Week 4 Against the spread: 27-22 (55.1%)

NFL through Week 3 Against the spread:  31-13 (64.58%)

So, I’m working a nice profit so far this year in football.

Let me also note that I’m in testing mode right now.  I am placing paper wagers only.  Assuming my handicapping tests out, I’ll be using real cash money next year.  It looks good.  I backtested the 2008 NFL season and turned a profit betting every single game.  So far this year is very solid in college football and a blowout in the NFL.

I’m also working up a strategy to use on the NBA and MLB, so I’ll be testing each of those during the next seasons - NBA starts in just a few short weeks, and baseball testing will begin next April.

Let’s have a little fun, shall we?