Betting on sports is not an easy task. In fact, there is a myth that 95% of people who bet online are losing their money. This is because people are making the wrong picks and poorly managing their money. Today I will discuss a successful sports picking strategy that is utilized by numerous professional sports handicappers that will help improve your winning percentage for your sports picks, thus helping you make picks that will be much more profitable for you in the long run. The strategy is identifying streaks and using these streaks to your advantage to make high winning percentage picks. I will use last NFL season as a reference, focusing on against the spread (ATS) results. The key here is to identify noticeable ATS trends and understanding the foundation behind these trends.

One of my favorite examples is the New England Patriots. The Patriots were 9-1 ATS during the first 10 games of the season. On November 18, 2007, as a 16 point favorite, they creamed the Buffalo Bills by a score of 56-10. The following week, they were a 24 point favorite against the Philadelphia Eagles. I remember this game quite well. I had a very strong doubt about New England covering this ridiculously huge spread so I didn’t bet on the game. Sure enough, the Eagles gave the Patriots a run for their money, as New England only won by a field goal. This was the big turning point for New England, in terms of their ATS record, because odds makers were overvaluing the New England spreads and the Pats’ opponents began adjusting their strategies to narrow down New England’s margin of victory. After crushing the Bills, the Patriots were 1-9 ATS for the rest of the season. All in all, if one had bet for the Patriots to beat the spread for the first 10 games of the season and then against them for the last 10 games, their record for betting on the Pats would have been 18-2!

However, the tough part was identifying the turning point of the streak. This occurs when the evident outcomes of a team’s success begin to change. As mentioned previously, after the Pats crushed the Bills, they were 1-9 ATS. This turning point could have been identified. One would have had to watch the Pats’ games after they creamed the Bills to determine that their opponents were modifying their strategies against the Pats, thus making it much more difficult to win games. At this point the Pats were still beating their opponents but by much slimmer margins, and therefore not beating the spreads. To make a long story short, identifying and capitalizing on a streak from beginning to end is extremely unlikely as there is always a period of adjustment. In the Pats example, going 18-2 is completely unrealistic. However, given the proper opportunity to adjust, one might have gone 15-5 or 16-4. Furthermore, one may have even stopped betting on the Pats for certain games where they were really not sure what to expect. This is what I did when they were favored to beat the Eagles by 24 points. The following week the Pats were favored by 19 points over Baltimore and again won the game by just a field goal. At this point, it was quite evident that the Pats ATS winning streak was over and thus one could have began considering betting against them, seeing that they were being favored by large spreads. If this were the case, a sports better would have gone 9-1 on the first 10 games betting for the Pats, stopped betting the next 2, and then gone 6-1 betting against the Pats, for an impressive record of 15-2.

In conclusion I would just like to note that the Pats’ example was just one of the many profitable streaks that could have been identified throughout last year’s NFL season. As mentioned previously, most sports handicappers isolate trends to help them make their predictions. Unlockedsports.com will do the same and unlike other sports handicapping websites, we will provide all of our premium picks with complete breakdowns for free for a limited time. I will keep you posted with more articles about identifying streaks with other key examples.