Originally Posted by mickeycrimm View Post
Why a sports handicapper would market his picks instead of just betting them himself is a valid question.

There is an old axiom in gambling that if one is good enough to make a living as a professional gambler then that person would do very well in the business world. Richard Munchkin recently made a statement about this situation. He said:

"If I can make money gambling why would I want to go into the business world?"

A sports handicapper marketing services has moved into the business world. Why?

I'm with Munchkin on this one. If I could pick 57% winners I'm going to kelly bet until filthy rich. To hell with creating extra work by starting a business. I'm going to spend my valuable time searching for the best bets and getting the action down.

LOL. You're off on two things, which aren't exactly minor issues.

Point Number One: The people who pick 57% winners in a sport pick 57% winners in one, count 'em, one sport, with a limited number of plays per year, usually under 100 for football; maybe 250-300 or thereabouts for basketball. People are not, I repeat NOT, Leonardo Da AP's. When Mr. Walters recruited handicappers, he recruited them as specialists, not Leonardos. The roundtables he assembled for different sports were largely different groups of people. So it's pretty tough to get "filthy rich" handicapping at a 57% rate per year with 100 plays. You're talking 10-15 games over .500 per annum. I broke this down in other posts; you'd need a starting bankroll somewhere between 250K and 500K to make this work. Tough to do that without....other income.

Point Number Two for all you "APs" out there: When a handicapper works on a pay-after-you-win basis, what he has done is flip the percentages, a la AP'ing by definition. While the classic number is 52.3% versus "normal" juice, if a handicapper has clients who pay him after he wins (whether that winning is per game or per season), he has augmented his profits with the same percentage. If he wins 53% of the time, depending on how many clients he has and what they are paying him, he has generated income as if he'd hit 55% or 58% or 60% or more. He's basically turned that 10-10 payoff when he wins into an 11-10 or a 13-10 or a 2-1. It's classic "AP" methodology, only some people for some reason can't appreciate the obviousness of that. It's the equivalent of using a slot club to boost a marginally profitable (or even negative) game.

Now I find it very, very difficult to believe that mickey crimm, who is the creme de la creme of AP'ing, doesn't immediately grasp all this. So reading mickey's stuff, I'm forced to believe either (A) mickey is dumb as a rock or (B) he has some agenda. I'll go with (B).