The Coin-Flip Experiment

OK, I have decided to go ahead and do this for a week.  I am tired of capping games and being half right all the time.  Sometimes I sniff out the perfect contrarian play with Reverse Line Movement and I win.  Other times that crappy team that is an ugly looking bet is just simply a crappy team who gets hammered.  So in the end I go about 50/50 and pay vig all season long.  Some good weeks, some bad weeks....

SOOOO....I thought to myself.... Self, if you just flipped a coin and put 1 unit on every game, would you do better or worse???  Heads was Home Team, Tails was Away team. 

If anyone cares, I will post the picks and let everyone know how it went....  But I felt I had to post this for Posterity. 

Forgot there was a Thursday game tonight....So I better post these plays so they are out there....  Here is who the coin had me take....

Carolina +14.5 (Man was I pissed), Arizona +7, Detroit +3.5, Philadelphia -14, Jacksonville -7, Tampa Bay -6, San Francisco +2.5, Chicago -1, Buffalo +7.5, Baltimore -3.5, Kansas City -5, Indi -3, San Diego -7.5.

Probability says that if you do this an infinite number of times (i.e. for every game possible)... that you would win 50% of the time.

So, you would be losing money on juice... but I'm interested to see...

I agree.  But I am a 50/50 bettor right now, and I know if I flip a coin 100 times it probably won't be 50 times Heads, it will be 55/45 or whatever, so I am just hoping that my luck is better than my capping....

Its very possible that I am just an action junkie and my job and 3 little kids are impacting my ability to spend all day long capping my games.  So this way I can bet the games without the aggravation of picking the games. 

Just to be clear, I have no intention of doing this as a long term strategy, but for the last 2 weeks of the NFL season when your guess is as good as mine as to which of the eliminated teams will give a sh*t enough to show up?  Why not...

lol

This is awesome.  Did you do well last week?  If not, the maybe that coin is due?  

Maybe your just playing too many games boss.  I had that problem a few years ago.  It's kind of like playing poker; ya just can't play every hand, and even still, if you fold, and that stupid 4-8 fullhouse hits - no worries. 

Same way in sports handicapping.  Not every game is a play.  Most of them are not! I'm only playing two games for real money this sunday, and the rest are fun little, very little plays for fun. 

I agree 100%.  I know I am playing too many games.  I think the best sports bettors have the discipline to lay off a MNF game and not play it just because its on TV and its the only game in town.  There is a tendency to pick a game because there are multiple ways to win each game and every game someone is a winner.  If I just played the games I felt really strongly about, I have no doubt I could play to profits.  But I have just never developed that skill. 

I should really open a second account and just play games I have capped and I feel good about.  Then play chump change on games where I am playing just for the action with the 1st account.