With or Against the Consensus?

**aimar21** · 16-04-2007, 23:07

As you know there are betting consensus picks in some sites for American Sports and I thought maybe I could get a profit by using them in the long run by having a decent strike rate.

Everyday members of those sites make their "spread betting" picks and they are all recorded and then turned into statistics. Let's say for tonite NJ spread is backed by 60% of them while NY spread is backed by 40%. I might pick NJ which means I will always be with the public, or I might pick NY and go against the public from the beginning until the end of the season. Playoffs are getting closer for NBA but I think there will be enough number of matches to determine which one is the better (public or against the public) so we can use the better one next season. I really wanna start this system that's why I posted this message here but I wanna ask two things first and maybe I might never start according to the answers.

Let's say this season public had a hitrate of %43 which will probably be an outragous amount of profit for against the public backers. Will it be the same next season or this time will the public win?

And my second question is do bookmakers think of this possibility and they set the lines so that even public has a 50% strike rate every damn season?

**Tulenos** · 16-04-2007, 23:32

If you are talking about NBA (and NFL) the books are pretty much aware of the public opinion / can see the money flow and adjust the lines accordingly - it's not rare to see the result exactly between the original line and the line you're able to get, mainly beacause the cappers at books are pretty good. Moreover, a lot of these picks, to my knowledge, state outrageus lines which are never available to the public - they are opening Vegas lines only a can use before the market moves.

In NHL, they don't change lines, but they do change the odds.

Basically, if it was so easy as only to side with the public or to oppose it, we would all be in the Carribean and laugh all day long - only there would be no bookis so we would have to return to real world soon anyway

It just works the same way as in any other sport, mate

**aimar21** · 17-04-2007, 07:23

yep, I guess I agree, I was also thinking that you can back the ones with the lowest ATS record to win and ones with the highest ATS record to lose since the bookies try to get everyteam close to 50-50 at the end of the season. What do you think about that?

**Tulenos** · 17-04-2007, 08:19

Never checked these stats, TBH, but then again, betting on all teams in a similar position (or against) will hardly pay off. It's always a matter of choosing the right ones