A Word About Betting Systems for Football

I have a friend who tells me he has a betting "system" for football.

I don’t want to disbelieve him.

He tells me the system has shown a profit each year for the last nine.

I don’t want to disbelieve him.

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He says this system, or formula, simply takes in some data and spits out a football betting winner.

Once again, I don’t want to disbelieve him.

He tells me he has no idea why the system picks one team over another in a given game.

That one I believe completely.

I think there is probably a certain constituency of people who know that they are going to engage in football betting but would rather not take a chance on their own judgment, for fear of screwing up somewhere.

Instead, they would just rather have someone, or something, tell them who to bet on, and not have to worry about second-guessing themselves.

It might be some salesman in a boiler room. It might be a computer program. Okay, that’s a quirk in behavior, so I guess I can accept that.

Those aren’t really the people I want to work with. I don’t really have anything against computer-based systems – indeed, I have heard about a few of them that allegedly worked – but they usually don’t work for very long.

I’ve checked a few of them out, for curiosity’s sake. One of them was kind of intriguing.

If you’re familiar with the Racing Form, you know that a major component of the past performances is the "Beyer Speed Figure," which basically consolidates the speed of horse, taking into account several variants, into one single figure.

Well, this guy was trying to do the same with football betting, with average figures, home and road figures, etc., with a couple of other things you could factor into the equation.

The first week I looked at the system and worked the numbers out, the record it produced was 8-1-2 against the spread.

That brought my level of curiosity even higher, so I spent a little more time with it. But that first big week was actually the only winning week I ever saw with these figures.

It turned out to be a clunker, and here’s a real key when we talk about the reliability and marketability of these systems – I’m not going to give them another chance if they show losses over the course of a season, or even a half a season, because they can’t give me the "why."

Do you know what I mean by that? In other words, when you tell me that one team’s number is 106, while another team’s number is 102, and I am supposed to use those as a basis to plug that into a formula to come up with a football betting winner, you’re not really telling me anything about the game.

I like to know why those numbers are what they are. If you’re just using the numbers blindly, you can’t tell me anything along those lines.

When you start losing, you’re going to lose ME, and lose others. At least if one offered an analysis, to let me know where he is coming from, I could accept that there was a basis in logic for a particular play.

If I’m convinced you know what you’re talking about, I’m going to give you a few chances. If you can’t show me why you like something, and you’re losing, you might as well be throwing darts, as far as I’m concerned.

I always want to work out "why" I like one side over another, because while I recognize that somehow, somewhere, there are computer-based systems that may be working out for people, I can’t feel comfortable with it in a game that is played by human beings and in many cases, based so much on situational factors.

When I say "situational factors," I mean, what about the team that is looking past a weaker opponent to next week’s game? Or the team that has a problem switching playing surfaces from grass to artificial turf?

Or the two offensive guards who are playing but really shouldn’t be because of injuries?

Those are things that are indeed important to a football wagering analysis, but are not going to show up in a computer program.

The way I look at it, I have to account for those kinds of things.

If you don’t trust yourself with your football betting decisions, then go ahead and figure it out some other way, but be careful that you know someone – or something – has a clear rationale before you jump in.

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