UPDATE (1/6/08): There's one salient pattern in my 2 years of handicapping NFL games: most money is made during early/mid- season. Interestingly, I saw the same pattern with other handicappers on thepredictiontracker.com. I'm not sure where it is now, but the site had a file that displayed all games from 2004 to 2006 and the handicappers' predictions. I don't think it's that our predictions get worse as the season goes on, but rather that the lines become tighter (better, although not for us). I'm following the playoffs as a fan, but as far as I'm concerned, NBA's where the money is now.

UPDATE (1/3/08): NBA predictions.

UPDATE (12/26/07): You'd do alright (4-2) last weekend if you picked only the best bets who still have something to fight for. The NBA predictions can be found @ http://cover81.com/nba.html starting next week. Happy holidays.

UPDATE (12/17/07): Kinda disappointing weekend. 8-8. Top 4 picks went 2-2. I recall having so-so last coupla weeks of the season last year--I checked the archives for 2005 (test data) & 2006 and yep, the winning percentage for week 15 & 16 was a bit lower--about 57%. I have a feeling it's due to crazy weather and changes in motivation (varying from fighting to be in the playoffs to being out of the chase, from playing spoilers to fighting for home field advantage, slacking off because all goals have been reached, and so forth.). The sample may be small, but best to be on cautious side and not bet too much at this point of the season.

MISSION: to improve on my best bet predictions until they're correct over 80% of the time, hence the name of this website.

The formula takes into account teams' strengths and weaknesses in different categories based on past performance, as well as other factors. I'm continually improving on it and currently trying to figure out how to precisely account for injuries.

Last year, I beat the spread 64% of the time (best bets: 70%). So far this year, I'm doing even better. Starting in week 10, my predictions will be recorded at thepredictiontracker.com so they can be compared with those from fellow handicappers. To see how I stack up against them, click here.

CONTACT ME

If this website helped you have a good week, please kindly donate $5. Think of it as buying me a beer. Thanks. :)

NFL Playoffs Week 2

How to find best bets: Each row contains the home team, the expected margin (if plus, the home team is expected to win by that much--if negative, lose by that much), and the away team. Add the vegas line to the predicted margin to find the difference. It's where it can get confusing. I follow thepredictiontracker.com's format: plus margin = good for the home team, negative margin = bad. But with Vegas lines, the favorites (regardless if home or away) get negative points, and the underdogs "get" points. But that's fine as you'll see with the example below:

Example: "Oakland -10 Denver". Meaning, here Oakland is predicted to lose by 10 points to Denver. Which one will beat the spread? If the betting line says Oakland +3.5, meaning it's an 3.5 point underdog (conversely, Denver -3.5 = favored by 3.5 points), calculate this way: Oakland -10+3.5 = -6.5. This means Oakland will fall short of the spread by around 6.5 points (only about 24% chance of covering, according to the odds chart below). Therefore, you should pick Denver (Denver 10-3.5 = 6.5, about 76% chance of covering).

10 = 84%
9 = 80%
8 = 77%
7 = 74%
6 = 70%
5 = 67%
4 = 64%
3 = 60%
2 = 57%
1 = 54%
0 = 50%
-1 = 47%
-2 = 44%
-3 = 40%
-4 = 37%
-5 = 34%
-6 = 30%
-7 = 27%
-8 = 24%
-9 = 20%
-10 = 17%

As you may have figured, if a home team has 10% chance to cover, it means its away opponent is 90% likely to cover.