“Who's Predicted to Win Next Week in the NFL?”
NFL, American Professional Football Predictions Week by Week
By Ion Saliu, Founder of Sports Betting Mathematics
American professional football is the most popular event on television in the United States. Out of the 25 most popular TV shows, 23 of them are NFL (National Football League) games. NFL on TV has twice as many spectators as all prime-time TV shows combined!
I look at the stats of my website and I see many search strings like this one:
“Who's predicted to win next week in the NFL”
Short answer: NOBODY / ANYBODY!
The experts on television and other media also talk a lot about the best/worst teams, who is expected to win, who is expected to lose, etc. In the overwhelming majority of cases: They are wrong!
I like that. That's how it should be. I want to watch real games — competitive games — not foregone conclusions. The NFL is built on the principle of parity. There is the salary cap, the free agency, the fair draft… Every team has a fair shot at winning the championship. Contrast that to European football: Only the richest clubs have a realistic shot at winning championships!
One week (#6, October 11 – October 15, 2012) was a very good example of NFL parity. There were hard-fought games (some decided in overtime). There were a few so-called surprising results (no surprises to me!)
NO — I am not saying I can predict the NFL results accurately at a high rate. Indeed, I do offer systems and software to get better prediction results. But all those theories, systems, software programs are based on The Fundamental Formula of Gambling (FFG). I can also see search strings (referrals to my site) like these:
“Week x NFL football spreadsheet”
“Software for betting against the spread”
“NFL betting algorithm”
In my theory, the degree of certainty (DC) for some outcomes is higher after a certain number of trials (N). Therefore, the amount bet should be increased when DC is higher. Again, as I said many times at my Web site and in my forums, there is NO gambler's fallacy.
Some “authorities” are extremely vocal about the “reality” of the gambler's fallacy. But they are dead-wrong! In fact, the gambler's fallacy itself is dead! So, I pick a football team to win next week. I lose. I stay with the same team, but I increase my bet (usually a Martingale). It is extremely rare to lose such a bet 5 times in a row!
Things get even better when applying my sport betting spreadsheets (e.g. NFL2001.xls). The trends based on previous results (in the same season) have a success rate of over 60%. No, 60% is not 100%! There is no degree of certainty of 100%. That's why even the football experts are wrong more often than not.
I watch on TV every week in the NFL. The answers to the question “Who are the best NFL teams” change from one week to the next. And then the champion (the Super Bowl winner) is a real surprise, more often than not!
I do NOT bet on sports, for it is not allowed where I live. I believe, only the state of Nevada allows sports betting in USA. But you must live in that state — especially when applying by theory. You have to go to the booking window every week. Especially, you must have a large enough bankroll to be able to increase your bet. The bet increase is a fact of life. By contrast, in the lottery you can skip drawings…
There are bettors who bet on all NFL teams to win the championship! 32 teams x $100 = $3200. Their reasoning is: One 500 to 1 team wins the Super Bowl. 500 x $ 100 = $50000. Net profit: $50000 – 3200 = $46800. Not bad, huh? Problem is, not all NFL teams are absolutely equal, despite the parity!
I look at the last 5 Super Bowl futures. The payouts were: 15 to 1, 12 to 1, 25 to 1, 18 to 1, 30 to 1. So, betting on no more than 11 teams would have earned a profit every year. At the same time, the favorites did not win. In fact, not even top 5 of the teams based on betting order won. The betting ranks were: #13, #9, #12, #9, #16. A better way of betting would have been: Teams bet-ranked between #8 and #17 (added one rank for safety). Total teams: 10. Source:
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