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The following originally appeared in a July edition of TSP Live Insider…
With college football arriving in earnest this weekend, and everyone excited for football, I wanted to discuss some key lessons in preparation of the football season. TSP veterans have heard this story before…and you will likely hear it again right before the season starts (either here or in the TSP Newsletter). It’s not because I like to repeat myself. It is because so many people have a short memory when it comes to gambling and especially gambling during the football season. All everyone will remember is last season was a winner and it was pretty easy throughout…what you won’t remember at the awful weeks along that journey. I love talking about all the highlights and the fun, but if you forget the bad moments then you won’t handle them properly when they show up this season. So, let’s discuss the lessons from season’s past!
Lesson #1 – Do not have any expectation for how the season will play out.
I tell this story every year because it is so important to appreciate. Several years ago, before I was doing The Sharp Plays, I had a football season where I lost money in September, October and November. Then I had an EPIC December where I got back all my losses from September through November AND had a season’s worth of profit on top in my pocket by the end of the month. I did not press when I was losing. I did not chase when I was losing. I trusted that eventually, as it always does, the cream would rise to the top and everything would work out…and it did. If I had that sort of season at The Sharp Plays, do you realize the riots that would be occurring in November and how many people would have given up on the content after two bad weeks in September…let alone still be there in November. However, those same people would have missed the epic comeback and profits to be had in December. As soon as gambling wasn’t easy or free money…they ran away. If you run away from strategies when they are losing, you will always be chasing the winning…but never quite obtaining it.
Sometimes, the way that season played out for me is exactly how gambling works out. The colder it is, the hotter it tends to be when it turns around and that December…I could not miss! It was like I was seeing the final results before the games even began…I am serious…it was wild! I was cashing parlays like they were straight bets and hitting straight bets at an outrageous percentage. It was awesome and I remember it like it was yesterday.
So, don’t go into this season expecting to win money in September or win money every week or win money every month. Go in knowing that there is a VERY HIGH probability that if you maintain discipline and stay the course of your +EV strategy that the profits will be there at the end of the season. However, those profits will only come when Lady Luck sees fit to give them to you. Be patient!
Every football season I have gambled since 2001 has provided me a profit. I have a high confidence I will have another profitable season under my belt when the clock ticks 0:00 on Super Bowl Sunday…how that profits comes…I have no clue. So, I won’t go in with any expectations or preconceived notions.
Lesson #2 – Do not have an expectation as to how those profits will be achieved.
Similar to #1, there have been seasons where my profits came from straight bets, parlays and futures. There have been seasons when my profits came from straight bets. There have been seasons where my profits came mostly from parlays! There have been seasons where my profits came mostly from teasers and futures. I say this because there are folks out there who will refuse to bet parlays, teasers or futures. That’s all good…but be aware that a good portion of The Sharp Plays profits could come from those sources. I don’t know where the profits will come this season. Maybe I will have a wild 1 unit parlay that pays 80-1 at some point and by the grace of God I will cash it…and that’s a bulky 80 units of profit! Three years ago I gained over 60 units from PARLAYS throughout the season!! I had all sorts of people bitching at me because “they don’t bet parlays.” Well, sorry for you…I do bet parlays because they work for me. So, don’t write-off categories of bets as options for you. You never know what will carry the day. Last season in October it was a losing month and then the last weekend of the month we cashed two parlays in TSP Live Insider (those will now be a part of the Degenerate Club Report) in back to back weekends and bingo…into the green!
Lesson #3 – You will have losing weeks…know it…accept it. Losing is unavoidable.
There’s a scene in The Hangover (click here for a good laugh this morning). In the scene there is a guy waiting at the Caesar’s valet that says, “some guys just can’t handle Vegas.” Well, some guys just can’t handle losing…at all. Like they lose and turn into blubbering idiots. It never ceases to amaze me that people can see all these billion dollar casinos, and nowadays these billion dollar valuations for sportsbooks (DraftKings has a market cap of $14.96 BILLION) and yet they think winning at sports and beating these casinos and sportsbooks is easy. Yes, you got it right. DraftKings is nothing more than a degenerate welfare program which allows all of us sports gamblers a means of a secondary income relatively easily. As long as we put in a ticket at DraftKings, they will ensure we are supported financially! LOL…yet what people seem to believe does not seem far off.
Lesson #4 – The most important lesson of all…HAVE FUN!!!
Gambling is supposed to be fun and entertainment! Yes, I wager for an income each year, so I am serious in how I strategize my wagers and my goal is to collect a nice return on my investment. However, I also ensure to let the losses roll off my back and to have a lot of fun along the way. Hopefully the fun is evident in my comments on Twitter, Telegram and in the various content of The Sharp Plays. There is an old Gambler’s Anonymous saying of “when the fun stops being fun….” Yes, it is a good point. If you can’t laugh after an epic bad beat…if you can’t joke after getting crushed on the last leg of a parlay, or your last straight bet of the day which would have gotten you even…it is a sign you are betting WAAAAAAAY too much. No, I am not saying when someone drops a TD that costs you a $100K parlay that you should laugh in that moment. Nope…I get it. However, 30 minutes later if you can’t have a laugh in what went on and get yourself ready to try again the next week…you have a serious problem that is only going to get worse as the weeks go by. Take a minute to assess that and figure if the business of betting is right for you…because it is not right for MOST people. Those people just refuse to admit it…and they are the income generators for the sportsbooks.
If you can go in with a bankroll dedicated to betting (at least 100 units), with the expectation that you have no clue how you will get there, but that with patience you will have a profit by the Super Bowl, you are open to any wagers so long as there is value within them and you are looking to have some fun along the way…then you should be good to go to have a GREAT time this football season! If any of the above lessons are a problem for you or don’t fit your style…please take the time to reassess your plans for the season ahead. I am always happy to help with questions or concerns, you just need to reach out. I can be reached on email at [email protected] or on Telegram https://t.me/thesharpplays. You can DM me on Twitter, but those are so bogged down that my reply speed is often a little slower there.
As a side note, I talk about a 100 unit bankroll and people say…I don’t have that kind of money. If this is you, then you are calculating your bankroll wrong. It doesn’t matter whether you have $1,000,000 you are dedicating to betting or $1,000…you take that amount and divide by 100 to get your per unit wager. If you have a $1,000 bankroll, then your per unit wager is $10. I know, it’s not a lot, but mathematically you NEED 100 units to weather the ups and downs along the way in your betting. So, if you are telling yourself that you are a $500 per unit bettor, but you don’t have the ability to dedicate $50,000 to your gambling…you are not a $500 per unit bettor and are putting yourself at risk of financial ruin. Statistically, you will have a drawdown of 20-30 units once or twice in a year if you are gambling almost daily. As such, you need the 100 units to be able to comfortably weather ANY potential drawdowns and then be there for the progression back up and into profits. If you don’t, well…then you are the person who will wake up one day and say they lost everything. It’s because you were not properly capitalized for the business you chose to partake in…sports betting. You bankroll was not able to weather the volatility. If you have been gambling for any length of time, you know EXACTLY what I am saying here. If you do an honest self-assessment you will also agree that it is because you were betting an unsustainable amount of money per wager based on your financial situation.
There are people reading this today who will have 10 unit bankrolls this football season. Then, when TSP Live has a -6 unit week will be absolutely destroyed. These folks will then contact me to tell me how I bankrupted them and the content sucks. Does the content suck or are you just a moron? Some of you will laugh at the idea of a 10 unit bankroll…but you have no idea. There are people reading this with $3000 to their name (nothing wrong with that, we all start out somewhere) but these folks will be risking $500 or $800 or $1000 on a single wager this football season. There is no content, no information anywhere that will prevent this person from avoiding financial ruin. Even if they get lucky early in the season, they will inevitably blow it all…and it will be everyone else’s fault but their own!
That’ll do it for me today. I hope you have a wonderful day and good luck in your action!