Originally Posted by redietz View Post
Point Number One: The people who pick 57% winners in ...maybe 250-300 or thereabouts for basketball ... need a starting bankroll somewhere between 250K and 500K to make this work.

Point Number Two for all you "APs" out there: When a handicapper ... 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. ... It's classic "AP" methodology.
I wanted to support Bob (redietz) as a long-time handicapper who tried to play it straight by having Integrity Sports monitored. I don't know how he paid his rent in Vegas, but he could have mixed betting with touting, shopping numbers and playing promotions in town, perhaps booking some bets on the side. He could also have had other sources of money.

I also wanted to warn that touting is a sleazy marketing business. Even if a tout starts with an edge, it inevitably deteriorates over time, and he is stuck selling worthless picks for the rest of his career. I studied monitored touts and found one guy who stopped his 60%+ winning NFL preseason service. He explained that he got coach's interviews from wire services. It was easy to handicap when you know one coach will sit his stars, while the other coach plans to let them play four quarters. When the internet made this information widely available, the tout lost his edge and stopped the service. Wow, that was honest!

But this money management nonsense is annoying. A 57% Kelly bettor should bet 10% of his bankroll at -110. Haralabos Voulgaris made millions betting NBA totals. There are plenty of losing gamblers who find time to handicap, gamble, and post on internet forums. If you could really hit 57%, then you would accumulate the bankroll. Many low-level poker and blackjack pros played part-time while they scrounged up session bankrolls and lost. But eventually they won and never looked back.

Also, "pay after you win" is not classic advantage play, it is classic scamdicapping. If the tout is winning at 53%, then his paying customers are losing. If you earn money and your "partners" lose, then you are not a professional bettor. The poker world had a lot of "professional" players who got publicity in the poker boom and then burned "investors" in staking deals. Bob's post displays no remorse or empathy for his losing customers and just brags about being clever to win so much with 53% picks. This also ignores those inevitable 47% seasons where customers lose a lot.