The House Advantage

Matchup Handicapping for the NBA can provide cappers and bettors with a “house advantage” in picking NBA pointspread winners. Matchup Handicapping has proven over recent years to bang home NBA pointspread winners 54-58% of the time. Hopefully, this winning trend will continue. Now, many people may think this is too low of a winning percentage to be deemed worthy of praise, but I beg to differ.

The key to winning and maximizing profits with a "modest" winning percentage is to have a sufficient number of plays. Thus, Matchup Handicapping for the NBA was designed to achieve a modest winning percentage with a relatively high yield of plays. Furthermore, I maintain that a winning percentage of 54-58% over an NBA season of plays is the most realistic and optimistic expectation for cappers and bettors. If a handicapper or bettor is winning in the 54-58% range, there just isn’t a large enough winning percentage disparity to warrant making some plays worth more than others. Therefore, Matchup Handicapping recommends an equal 1 unit play per game for each and every game because it is not about short term winning, it is about winning seasons.

Matchup Handicapping generally offers about 10 to 15 NBA plays per week. A winning strategy would be to risk small wagers over a frequent number of plays. Consider an NBA betting season can produce about 300 plays and assume the winning percentage is 55.67% which would yield a 167 win and 133 loss pointspread ledger. If all plays or wagers were equal with a 10% juice, this would produce +20.7 units of profit for the season (34 gross wins - 13.3 for the vig deduction). If the bettor wagered an equal unit equal to 5% of the total bankroll for all 300 plays, the bettor essentially doubles the starting bankroll at season’s end. Voila, here we have a relatively low risk, high gain venture. How is your 401K and savings investments performing lately?

A low risk, high gain proposition is what the casinos enjoy. Why? Because they have factored the odds to provide them with a slight house advantage that almost guarantees their profit margins over the long haul. Sure they have losing days and make some large payouts to lucky gamblers, but the key to their profit mode is time. The longer everyone gambles, the more money casinos take in.

Think of a weighted coin that will flip the heads side up about 56% of the time. Would a bettor feel good betting the heads side up? You better believe it. With a 56% advantage, the proper wagering strategy would be to risk small amounts on many coin flips. Sure there will be losing streaks where tails are out-flipping the heads, but the 56% advantage should certainly provide a long term winning prospect. The absolute wrong strategy would be to risk large amounts at a time since a 56% advantage hardly qualifies as a can’t lose proposition. If the wagers are too high, a losing streak could wipe out the bankroll.

In summary, a house advantage is defined over a long term winning venture. Since a moderate winning percentage should experience a variety of winning and losing streaks, there is no guarantee on any specific time frame for posting a winning record. The goal of Matchup Handicapping for the NBA is to beat the pointspread 54-58% of the time over an NBA season. Wise and disciplined money management is essential in promoting a winning environment. There will be more to follow on this topic.