Whenever sharp action gets cold, even if just for a few days at a time, the messages on Twitter are awesome! The exasperation in the messages can’t help but make you laugh. Oh my God, sharps have been getting killed (for three days). Why don’t they win every day? Shouldn’t I just blindly follow sharp action and it will be a daily money machine??? These sharps suck! LOL!! As though the public is so much better. Let’s put aside the recency bias and see the reality of sharp and public action…
As of the day of this article, August 20th, 2020, the stats below are accurate for the previous 12 months (8/20/2019 to 8/20/2020).
Sharp action related records (Pro’s v Joe’s, “Known” bettors, Head Fakes and Sharp reporting) on the website (https://tsp.live/sports-records/) are +62.1 units overall and that’s without the big sharp performance in soccer. When you then add the +56.7 units from soccer alone, the combined performance for sharp content is +118.8 units.
HOLD IT!!! Didn’t I remove some types of sharp tracking from the website recently? Yes, sharp concentrations & Late Sharp Money (because the LJP will cover Late Sharp Money action moving forward). Those records removed only add to sharp performance…
Sharp Concentrations 240-236 (+1u)
Late Money 13-5 (+8u)
Not so fast!!! What about archived NFL, NCAAF, NCAABB that aren’t on the website any longer because the season’s are over?? OK, let’s check it out…
NCAAB
Sharp Concentration 51-42 for +5.6 units
Known Bettors 10-6 for +3.4 units
Late Sharp Money 3-7 for -4.7 units
NCAAF
Sharp Concentration 18-18 for -1.9 units
Known Bettors 11-6 for +4.4 units
Late Sharp Money 15-10 for +4 units
NFL
Sharp Concentration 12-7 for +4.3 units
Known Bettors 6-3 for +2.7 units
Late Sharp Money 11-13 for -2.1 units
Total +15.7 units
How did the public do during this same time period?
Public Concentrations across all sports 382-317 for -29.9 units (Those big moneylines make the record look good and feel like the public cashes a lot, BUT the performance is not there.)
Yes, the public did win in KBO, NBA totals and MLB sides so far, BUT overall they are negative. Whereas while sharps had their losses too, overall sharps are positive… by a large margin. Seems the difference is clear to me.
So let’s see, when we add all these sharp records over the previous 12 months, sharp action is +143.5 units. The +143.5 units averages out to 12.0 units of profit each month. Can someone please advise me what the problem is? I know, you are clearly profiting much more each month betting through your own handicapping. Yes, that’s why the sportsbooks are so big and such a high margin business… because betting is easy, consistently winning every day and everyone makes money! If you don’t expect cold runs or bad days/weeks from betting, even if you follow the sharp money, you have no chance at betting. You might as well burn your bankroll because the result will be the same.
Do note, that +143.5 units over the past year was not without plenty of cold runs too! Gambling is grinding small profits to get a big profit. It requires patience and discipline and few gamblers practice either of those, let alone both. However, if you can ride the waves up and down, keep your expectations reasonable (and not that bullshit all the touts and services sell you of 65% winners, 500 units a month and easy money) you can turn a profit year after year.
A key point to remember as I close things out is… Public bettors lose 50 out of every 100 bets. Sharp bettors lose 46 out of every 100 bets. Yes, there is only 4 wins of difference, out of every 100 bets, between the average Pro & the average Joe. It is also important to note that the difference between the average Joe and breaking even is only 2.4 games per 100. Break-even is 52.4% and the average Joe hits 50%… meaning an Average Joe is only 2.4 wins, per 100 bets, away from breaking even. It’s such a small margin and why you always feel “so close” to being a Pro. At the same time, while the the average Pro is 4 games ahead of the average Joe (per 100 bets), the Pro is only 1.6 wins above breaking even. However, that 1.6 games means a huge ROI long-term. It doesn’t seem like much, but a 54% winning bettor has a 3.1% edge against the house. Meaning for every $100 in action that the 54% winning bettor places on their bets, they will expect to get back a $3.10 profit! These margins are RAZOR THIN, but they make a huge difference when you stretch the math out. By comparison, the average public bettor would lose roughly $5 per every $100 bet.
Good luck in your action!
~ The Sharp Plays
Nowadays everyone wants to know where they stand on the socioeconomic scale. Am I in the Top 1%, 2%, 5%, top 10%, etc.??? How about looking at where you stand as a gambler. Using years of data and basing these stats just on performance of point spread selections over a minimum 1000 wagers logged, here are the win percentages you need to achieve to fit into the top 1%, 2%, 5%, and 10% of gamblers worldwide. The win percentages probably won’t be what you would expect based on being tainted by the false claims of the scammers out there. However below is reality…
Top 1% of gamblers hit 56.0% or better.
Top 2% of gamblers hit 54.5% or better.
Top 4% of gamblers hit 53.1% or better.