How do you learn to become a capper?

That's how John Dobbs does it!  He's hitting about 38% this year...

Not here to argue with anyone and I certianly feel what you are saying.  The bottom line is this, sports betting is picking when the better team isn't going to play well or handle their business.   Plain and simply and while I feel the math part, the math didn't take into account USC going through the motions after they got up 21 points on Idaho yesterday, enroute to NOT clearing their 46 point spread by about 20+.  And baseball, that's another story.  Anyway, my point is, you have to consider stats not to mention plain old emotion and all that other stuff you can't measure with a equation.  Trust me I'm not attacking you but if it were simply taking the stats and running with them, we'd all be rich and quite frankly, there'd be no sports books around cause no body would stay in business.

I have to agree with most of the ideas said here, I think we are all hitting the right key points of handicapping but it's all of what we are saying compiled together.   It's the whole process that counts, stats, emotion, math, etc.  Some sports require a little more research than others. 

Personally I am more of a money management, stats, and value kind of handicapper.  I don't put too much time into picking a winner I'm mostly looking for value and advantage then use a tight strict bankroll system to bet.  That works for me and it might not work for others. 

I like to keep it as simple possible but you can't put it all on the line based on a one way view. 

So true, for every football season I have about 4 winners that I play just based on some comment I read from a coach or a player. they don't come out often but I love them when they do. 

Quote Originally Posted by lanastasis:



Not absolutely correct. While I would certainly hope that anyone handicapping (or betting in general) has a decent knowledge of that particular sports, some of the more prominent professional gamblers are former mathematicians who can identify the weaknesses in the inner workings of the business.

I, for example, have perfected a score prediction system for baseball that requires minimal knowledge about the sport -- just some familiarity with excel, scores, etc.

 

Mathmatics  is key