In this space we normally try and delve into some detailed NFL handicapping research, often relying on scads of data and tables to make our point, but this week I want to tackle a more philosophical issue. Hardcore stats fans need not worry though, as next time we will be back to our normal routine and break out all you ever wanted to know about the predictive value of past head-to-head performance…but today it’s a more reflective subject.

As the founder of TwoMinuteWarning.com, the first question out of someone’s mouth when they ask about the site is almost always "What is your record?" (and frankly as often as not it seems they are most concerned with how we did last week as if a fortuitous recent streak is somehow convincing!)

While we will diligently try to answer their questions and concerns, let me tell you our dirty little secret: we don’t want to be a tout service.

Now this may seem a little strange given that the majority of people who come to the site are primarily there to find out "who we like" in the games this coming week, and our content is certainly centered around making accurate NFL predictions. Here’s the thing though: we believe people who engage in sports betting should handicap the games themselves.

This sentiment probably arises for me at least from my background in horse racing – go to a racetrack or racebook and you’ll see people pouring over the Daily Racing Form with its zillion statistics in tiny print, or huddled around laptops with screens strewn with numbers and graphs. For horseplayers, the idea of listening to a tout is almost heretical: the game is about using your own mind and being smarter than the guy next to you, finding that gem of information amidst the mass of data that sorts it all out. Surprisingly, despite its cut-throat nature (20% takeouts, small pools where the bets of your fellow players do significantly change your odds), horseplayers are by and large a friendly bunch and frequently eager to talk about their approach to figuring it all out.

On the other hand with sports bettors the mentalities seem to be split into two primary camps – one that "everyone else" (linemakers, touts, big bettors, ‘computer groups’, etc.) knows more than you, or the other that you can just base your bets on casually watching the games and reading the newspaper.

There doesn’t exist the same attitude as with the ponies where the mantra preaches self-reliance, with the caveat that it can take years to learn all the nuances of handicapping and you better be on top of all the latest handicapping theories.

So if you will, the goal of TwoMinuteWarning is really to be a kind of sophisticated ‘Daily Racing Form’ for the sports bettor – full of features geared towards wagering-oriented analysis, and backed up by research into what factors actually do exert predictive influence over the outcome of games.

Why then, you may ask, do we not market ourselves in just such a fashion? Well, here’s the second dirty little secret: we want to convert people.

Not mind you to relying on our site for their ‘data source’, but to change their thinking to where they want to engage in some methodical analysis of their own about who to bet in a given week. Rather this than pay someone else to tell them what to do, or to take a flyer on the favorites du jour.

(And oh yes, the casual sports bettor LOVES favorites. One neat feature we have looks at which team the majority of the public is picking in their spread based office pools each week – through the first four weeks the consensus public pick has been the favorite 86% of the time!)

So recognizing that the vast majority of sports bettors simply want you to tell them "bet Pittsburgh" or some such thing, and heaven forbid they have to stretch their mind a little on their own, we have come to terms with the fact that making the case they should learn to handicap themselves will usually fall on deaf ears at first.

Now clearly there are exceptions to our stance. People who wager large sums and are very serious understandably about the ultimate profits, and people with disposable income who love the pure "action" of sports betting, may well be best served by finding the good tout out there and following along. Heck you don’t have to look beyond the pages of this paper to find some excellent NFL predictors.

For the recreational sports bettor though, the activity is just that. Small time players are not going to see dramatic changes in their lifestyle at the end of a football season, so even if you’re not as good as the seasoned NFL experts, which would you prefer: to win $250 on the power of your own noggin, or $1,000 on the advice of "the pros"?

It’s an attitude towards life – would you feel more excited about going out on a golf course and breaking ninety for the first time in your life, or watching Vijay Singh on TV shoot another sub-seventy round? Do you want to pluck up the courage to go out on a stage and perform in front of people, or be the world’s greatest "shower singer"?

My belief is that sports handicapping is a fantastic hobby for a person, requiring perception, learning new skills, using judgment, and ultimately people who practice the craft derive much more satisfaction and excitement from their sports betting endeavors then the folks who are content to leave the decision making in the hands of somebody else.

Moreover, there are numerous medical studies that show one of the keys to maintaining health and mental alertness as we age is to be deeply involved in a complicated analytical pursuit. It’s not just more fun, it has health benefits!

Now if this rant has been successful and you are feeling inclined to improve your own handicapping skills and become less reliant on listening to other people’s opinions, let me make a few recommendations:

• read some books! The Gambler’s Book Club here in Vegas has a ton of books with theories on how to be a better handicapper
• when listening to public handicappers talk about upcoming games, focus on why they like a team, what their analytical approach is, not who they like
• go on the web and track down the good sites which emphasis research over picks
• talk to fellow sports handicappers about how they choose teams, share ideas!
• And for the simplest exercise of all, begin each week by making your own line for each game, before you have seen the posted official point spreads. Chart how your predictions do against the line and what biases and tendencies you may have. I guarantee that doing this over the course of a season will quickly improve your handicapping sense and encourage you to learn more about the factors that really determine how teams perform in the future.

Again, the intent of this is to suggest that you stop watching ‘reality shows’ and start living one of your own. Or, to put it another way, you’ve got a brain, use it!

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Pre-Bye Teams
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