What’s the profit goal we should have in mind the month ahead? Or perhaps the better way to say it would be, what is the average profit I hope to achieve on a per month basis in 2023? When I say the above, I am sure people’s minds go to +10, +15, +25 units average profit per month. Sure, that would be pretty sweet, but the math doesn’t work. The problem is, that’s unreasonable. My goal is 3 units of profit on average per month. It would equate to +36 units per year which would be a 36% ROI against a 100 unit bankroll. If this were a mutual fund, I would be the best fund manager in the world! Now I don’t expect to consistently make 3 units each month. Some months I will lose 5 units, other months I will make 11 units. Yet when you average these two hypothetical months (+11 units and -5 units) they equate to 6 units of net profit, divided by two months, equals an average of 3 units of profit per month. That seems low, right?!? Only 3 units?
Let’s say you are a 54% bettor, which is in the top tier of sharp bettors. Sharp bettors who wager on a daily or near daily basis average a win percentage around 53.5% (break-even in sports betting on spreads and totals is 52.38% based on 10% vig). The pinnacle for sharp bettors is roughly 55%. Anything above 55% is an epic year of performance, and unlikely to be replicated year over year. I know many out there are saying, “but I am going to hit 60% this year betting multiple games every day.” I admire the optimism, but you have a better chance of seeing a real and alive Tyrannosaurs Rex sodomizing a real and alive unicorn than you do of hitting 60% over the course of an entire year, betting 2-3 games per day.
So, let’s assume you hit 54% (nice job…you are pretty sharp and better than 98% of gamblers betting that same year). Betting 3 games per day is a total of 1095 wagers over the year. A 54% win percentage would mean 591 wins and 504 losses. When you add 10% vig to the losses, assuming 1 unit per wager, you have won 591 units and lost 554.4 units for a net profit of +36.6 units. That’s how I get to that total and target of 36 units of profit per year. A 54% sharp bettor, making 3 bets on average per day (some days 5, other days 0 or 1, shakes out to 3 per day), and betting to win 1 unit per play gives me a net profit of +36.6 units. It’s not me just making up these numbers, it’s all math! Perhaps it is eye opening too. If you are out there chasing 100 units of profit per year, betting 1 game per day, do you see why you end up blowing up your bankroll by pressing and chasing to achieve your goal? You are trying to achieve something that has a very low mathematical probability.
My goal with the Degenerate Club (a new feature of TSP Live subscriptions) is to show you ways of betting without putting a lot of bankroll at risk, using HIGH RISK and HIGH LEVERAGE wagers to see how much of that 36 unit profit goal we can earn. I will still be betting my normal 1 unit wagers as good situations arise, but I want to see what sort of supplement the Degenerate Club idea can provide to my returns. I have had success in TSP Syndicate doing the same thing…low risk, highly leveraged wagers. Now I will bring a little TSP Syndicate and twist it in a few key ways to TSP Live in the form of the Degenerate Club. At a minimum, the action for the Degenerate Club will not be high risk nor tie up massive bankroll. The worst case in any given month is -3.1 units…and as I discussed yesterday in TSP Live Insider, the odds of losing that -3.1 units (which is the worst case) is over 4 billion to 1 based on how the Degenerate Club will wager (one wager per day, 0.10 units). To lose -3.1 units in such a situation means I would have to go 0-31 for the month…of which the odds are over 4 billion to 1. So, the cover charge at the door of the Degenerate Club is likely going to be less than 3.1 units per month. At least initially, depending on success I am open to expanding the wagering. First things first though!
I know you might have been waiting for some earth shattering strategy discussion today. However, the biggest key to a successful betting strategy is managing your gambling urges. When the goal in a given year is +36 units of profit, we cannot give up 1.1 units here and 1.1 units there because the inner degenerate beast needs to be fed. At the end of the day, gambling is a drug. It increases the dopamine buildup in your brain and gives you a level of a euphoric high similar to that of cocaine! Given that body and mental high you get from gambling, it is tough to be a perfectly disciplined bettor EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE YEAR. You need to allow yourself a little release. That’s where the Degenerate Club and its 0.10 unit wagers will come in.
Prior to the conclusion of 2022, I thought about what direction I wanted to take TSP Live in for the year ahead. There has always been an educational aspect of The Sharp Plays. It’s been the cornerstone of everything I have done. For 2023, my goal is to take you to the next level. Not just providing educational lessons here and there. Not just discussing macro gambling and bankroll management topics here in TSP Live Insider on a daily basis, but helping you with the minutiae of betting. By now, if you have followed me for at least 2-3 months, you should have some good broad strokes in professional gambling. You should have a good feel for bankroll management and its importance. You should have a decent sense of betting reality. Now we have to put that all together. As we start a new year, my goal with TSP Live is not just provide you gambling content, not just provide you with educational tidbits here and there. TSP Live is going to be a daily betting boot camp using TSP Live Insider, the Degenerate Club and of course profiting through the use of all the TSP Live and public TSP content that you have come to know and love through the years. If the plan plays out properly, the Degenerate Club will be the best bit of content in 2023. The Degenerate Club is going to combine information from the Oddsmaker’s Report, analytics tables, etc. to come up with its wagers…using the same techniques that I use to create my parlay wagers. The 21-5-1 record on legs of the four team parlays in TSP Live this season is not luck…it is by design and based on the information and techniques I use to select the legs of my parlays. Sure, the 21-5 record is 80.7% winners…it’s not going to be 80.7% winners over 100, 200 or 500 selections using the same style. That’s not what I am saying. All I am saying is the performance is not luck. It is the result of proper planning and selection/information assessment. Long-term, that methodology will hit less than 80%, but even as the ups and downs shake out it should provide a positive win percentage and my goal is to use the Degenerate Club to showcase it to you!
So, with all that said…here’s to a great and transformative betting year in 2023!
Final side note, I was asked why I love fading public dogs so much. Here are some stats…
Fading public point spread dogs in 2022 hit 54.7%.
From 2012 to 2022, public dogs in point spread sports (NBA, NCAAB, NFL, NCAAF, WNBA) hit 54.1%.
It is equally profitable in moneyline sports with an ROI over the L10 years of +6.4%.
Sounds great, but that now begs the question…what is public dog?
I don’t really get into ticket and money percentages. As anyone educated in the sportsbook industry will tell you, those are useless numbers without knowing the bettors and prices for which that money/tickets are attached.
For me, someone who can look into the book’s system, it’s a simple procedure. I can run a search for markets whereby 65% or more of the public money in the market is on a dog (money line or spread) and whereby the volume in the market meets a certain level. For example if the market has $100 in it and $70 is on the dog…who cares, that’s nothing. If the market is $10M and $7M is on the dog…now we have something!
Sounds good and easy! Only problem is most people don’t have access to such data.
In TSP Live, I will look to see when a favorite shows up as a Book Need. It is a very good sign we have a public dog…but sometimes the chalk (favorite) is not a book need because sharp money on the chalk offsets the heavy public money on the dog. So, that doesn’t cover every situation.
What are ways that someone not connected to a sportsbook can locate public dogs?
Well, it is not as straightforward, but there are a few ways to give you a decent idea. The easiest, as many of you have done, is a simple consensus through social media. When you see every handicapper or bettor on Twitter talking about how the NY Giants +14 is way too many points, and nobody in that mix finds a reason to like Philadelphia -14…you are onto a likely public dog.
Another method is through the use of sports service consensus reports (reports that provide the selections of dozens of handicappers). Same thing as the social media method, if you see 28 services on NY Giants +14 and 2 on Philadelphia -14…you likely have a public dog.
Lastly are the media discussions on TV and radio. Did you ever notice when everyone on ESPN, Fox Sports or whatever network is all keying in on one team…usually it is a great fade? Well, it’s even better when all the pundits are keying in on the dog.
So, the methods are not as easy as running a search in a sportsbook’s database, but it is far better than nothing and will put you on public dog fades in most of the situations…especially the big ones. When you can get two or three of the above methods to all point the same way…it’s just further confirmation.
Good thing you have a friend on the inside to let you know the latest public dogs…
https://t.me/tsplive
https://Twitter.com/TheSharpPlays
https://TSP.Live/tsp-live
That’ll do it for me today. I hope you have a wonderful day and good luck in your action!