I have a longstanding love-hate relationship with sports betting.
But my alternating emotions are not based on wins and losses.
A gambler's return on investment (ROI) is far more important than a won-loss ledger.
Win four of six sports betting selections and then lose your seventh and final play when placing a "double-bet" and your 4-3 record at odds of 11/10 produces a loss of nearly five cents on the dollar.
Tough game.
Drop 5% of your bankroll every day and you will lose about 40% of your total bank at the end of a 10-day run.
Keep splitting your plays over a monthlong period and you will see an 80% decline in your gambling fund.
At first blush, standard sports betting odds of 11/10 do not appear insurmountable.
Upon further review, the 4.54% house edge is extremely difficult to overcome, especially against an efficiently-priced betting market (think Pinnacle in the 1990s).
Here are three other notes from a dedicated handicapper's weekly notebook:
1) Coaching matters
To find the winning side before a game is played, it is incumbent upon a handicapper to determine which team will benefit more from a tactical perspective.
Most games are won by the players between the lines, but there are some games that are won by the coaches on the sideline.
The job of any coach or manager is to put his players in the best position to win a game.
Minnesota head football coach P.J. Fleck is known as a master motivator with his signature phrase "Row The Boat."
His program looks poised to enter the league's elite after last Saturday's comprehensive 34-7 road victory over Michigan State.
Fleck's respectable 22-22 record in Big Ten play since 2017 is a positive sign for Golden Gopher Nation.
At only 41 years of age, Fleck's star is pointing skyward and his positive coach-player relationships are unmistakable, on and off the field.
After Minnesota's fourth win in as many games this season, Fleck revealed one of the secrets to his success.
Fleck said, "Bad teams are led by coaches, good teams are led by players."
When players take ownership of their team and its outcomes, good things happen.
2) Prices matter
When I first arrived in Las Vegas in the late 1980s, I would ask accomplished sports bettors, "Who do you like?"
I quickly learned to refine the question.
"Who did you bet?" was a more specific question, but it still missed an important aspect of the winning equation.
The proper question is a two-pronged query: "Who did you bet and at what price?"
This past Saturday, Duke traveled to Lawrence, Kansas to play the Jayhawks in a battle of undefeated football teams overshadowed by the rich history of their basketball programs.
KU defeated Duke, 35-27, in a game that saw the Jayhawks favored by nine points early in the week and seven points at kickoff.
Eye On Gaming contributor KANE timed the market beautifully when he posted a selection on Duke +9 last Monday.
KANE was rewarded for his early-week shopping when Duke scored a late touchdown with less than three minutes remaining in the game to narrow KU's margin from 15 points to only eight.
Cue Kane, "If you're waiting for the weekend to get your plays in, you're not giving yourself the best chance to win. Ninety percent of my plays are made before the weekend starts.
3) Beware of "expert" opinions
With the explosion of legalized national sports betting, every sports media personality is now a so-called sports betting expert.
One of Chicago's biggest names, David Kaplan, is a likable character, insightful interviewer and provocative commentator.
He's labeled a dual threat by working for both the ESPN Radio affiliate in Chicago and NBC Sports Chicago on television.
He's one of the best in the Chicago market, if only he would stay in his lane.
FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM and Caesars are paying high-profile media personalities in select markets to endorse their gambling products.
Kaplan is currently promoting PointsBet, a second-tier sports betting company launched in Australia just five years ago.
Kaplan last week unwisely went on record with a bold prediction that the underachieving White Sox would sweep the surging Guardians and pull within one game of the American League Central leaders.
Kaplan was right about the sweep, but his team was on the wrong end of the broom.
The home-standing White Sox were swept in a critical three-game series by a combined score of 22-11.
The well-managed Guardians exposed every weakness of the listless White Sox: the lack of hustle, the lack of defense, the lack of solid fundamental play and the inability to rise to the occasion.
Cleveland catcher Austin Hedges summed up the situation beautifully after a big win in one of the division showdowns last week, "We don't rise to the occasion, the occasion is every day."
On the final night of the three-game series against the Guardians, White Sox brass invited sportscaster David Kaplan to throw out the game's first pitch.
He threw a pitch that fell at least 10 feet short of home plate.
It was a "pathetic" effort (his word, not mine).
Unfortunately for Kaplan, he was pathetic, not prophetic.
But my alternating emotions are not based on wins and losses.
A gambler's return on investment (ROI) is far more important than a won-loss ledger.
Win four of six sports betting selections and then lose your seventh and final play when placing a "double-bet" and your 4-3 record at odds of 11/10 produces a loss of nearly five cents on the dollar.
Tough game.
Drop 5% of your bankroll every day and you will lose about 40% of your total bank at the end of a 10-day run.
Keep splitting your plays over a monthlong period and you will see an 80% decline in your gambling fund.
At first blush, standard sports betting odds of 11/10 do not appear insurmountable.
Upon further review, the 4.54% house edge is extremely difficult to overcome, especially against an efficiently-priced betting market (think Pinnacle in the 1990s).
Here are three other notes from a dedicated handicapper's weekly notebook:
1) Coaching matters
To find the winning side before a game is played, it is incumbent upon a handicapper to determine which team will benefit more from a tactical perspective.
Most games are won by the players between the lines, but there are some games that are won by the coaches on the sideline.
The job of any coach or manager is to put his players in the best position to win a game.
Minnesota head football coach P.J. Fleck is known as a master motivator with his signature phrase "Row The Boat."
His program looks poised to enter the league's elite after last Saturday's comprehensive 34-7 road victory over Michigan State.
Fleck's respectable 22-22 record in Big Ten play since 2017 is a positive sign for Golden Gopher Nation.
At only 41 years of age, Fleck's star is pointing skyward and his positive coach-player relationships are unmistakable, on and off the field.
After Minnesota's fourth win in as many games this season, Fleck revealed one of the secrets to his success.
Fleck said, "Bad teams are led by coaches, good teams are led by players."
When players take ownership of their team and its outcomes, good things happen.
2) Prices matter
When I first arrived in Las Vegas in the late 1980s, I would ask accomplished sports bettors, "Who do you like?"
I quickly learned to refine the question.
"Who did you bet?" was a more specific question, but it still missed an important aspect of the winning equation.
The proper question is a two-pronged query: "Who did you bet and at what price?"
This past Saturday, Duke traveled to Lawrence, Kansas to play the Jayhawks in a battle of undefeated football teams overshadowed by the rich history of their basketball programs.
KU defeated Duke, 35-27, in a game that saw the Jayhawks favored by nine points early in the week and seven points at kickoff.
Eye On Gaming contributor KANE timed the market beautifully when he posted a selection on Duke +9 last Monday.
KANE was rewarded for his early-week shopping when Duke scored a late touchdown with less than three minutes remaining in the game to narrow KU's margin from 15 points to only eight.
Cue Kane, "If you're waiting for the weekend to get your plays in, you're not giving yourself the best chance to win. Ninety percent of my plays are made before the weekend starts.
3) Beware of "expert" opinions
With the explosion of legalized national sports betting, every sports media personality is now a so-called sports betting expert.
One of Chicago's biggest names, David Kaplan, is a likable character, insightful interviewer and provocative commentator.
He's labeled a dual threat by working for both the ESPN Radio affiliate in Chicago and NBC Sports Chicago on television.
He's one of the best in the Chicago market, if only he would stay in his lane.
FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM and Caesars are paying high-profile media personalities in select markets to endorse their gambling products.
Kaplan is currently promoting PointsBet, a second-tier sports betting company launched in Australia just five years ago.
Kaplan last week unwisely went on record with a bold prediction that the underachieving White Sox would sweep the surging Guardians and pull within one game of the American League Central leaders.
Kaplan was right about the sweep, but his team was on the wrong end of the broom.
The home-standing White Sox were swept in a critical three-game series by a combined score of 22-11.
The well-managed Guardians exposed every weakness of the listless White Sox: the lack of hustle, the lack of defense, the lack of solid fundamental play and the inability to rise to the occasion.
Cleveland catcher Austin Hedges summed up the situation beautifully after a big win in one of the division showdowns last week, "We don't rise to the occasion, the occasion is every day."
On the final night of the three-game series against the Guardians, White Sox brass invited sportscaster David Kaplan to throw out the game's first pitch.
He threw a pitch that fell at least 10 feet short of home plate.
It was a "pathetic" effort (his word, not mine).
Unfortunately for Kaplan, he was pathetic, not prophetic.