In traditional investment instruments, those that civilized people can discuss in mixed company, the ebb-and-flow of the business can be accepted as part of the process. Stocks and real estate investments go up, and stocks and real estate go down. The best course of action is most often to ride both tides while expecting long term gains.
Wagering on sports does not fall under the umbrella of investments that are easily defended during good times and bad. Discuss in mix company losses from football wagers and you can count on a number of comments that might contend that the “house” always wins and gambling is a long term losing proposition. Brag about huge gains, and one might have listeners shaking their heads thinking that the success is a short term spike.
I’ve been doing this for more than four decades, and when we hit a wall like we did through the first nine weeks of the 2023 National Football League season, I take incoming complaints usually reserved for companies with shady business practices. The sports service industry is full of operations much more skilled at getting credit card numbers than delivering consistent point spread winners.
Even when we are winning, we’ve compiled winning seasons every year since 2014 and have never had a season where our weekly top pick lost more than they won, there are always skeptics. Our winning record over the decades includes 1983, when we opened the season with six straight top picks that lost, and closed out that season with wins in nine of the final ten weeks for a season mark of 9 wins and 7 losses. This year, top picks are 9-6-1 after 16 weeks, and we are at work to make sure we move that to a more winning record before the start of the playoffs in January.
When traditional investments take a hit the losses are accepted as part of the game, and the analytics still point to an expected turn around based on past performance and the nature of the market.
I don’t really know why football picks are also tied to a natural move of up and down. It seems to me that a Sunday selection is not tied to any before it or those that will follow, but it has been my experience that robust winning runs, when we rip off 16, 17 or more wins out of 20 games, are routinely followed by a leveling off of results that most often land our long term winning percentages around 61% for all plays and 70% for top picks.
It works the other way too, when we suffer depressed results for a period of time, the winning percentages commonly shoot up to land us back where our real advantages are pinned. During winning runs victories seem easy as one selection folds into the next with confidence that the final score is going to send us to the payout window.
When things go bad, it seems as if every injury, questionable referee call and fluke play that results in a safety or interception feeds a bitter loss.
As one might imagine, we don’t sell too many new subscriptions during a bad run, but, as is true in most investments, buying low is a good practice.