Okay, so you’ve decided to go with a sports betting pick service and the first night of picks they go 1-3. What are you thinking? Are you thinking, “I could have saved my cash and done better?” Is that what you feel?

This is what many sports bettors feel and say when they hire a sports handicapping service and the first time they place their bets they lose rather than win. If that’s your take, then you’re going to need to get some perspective on how the world of sports betting works and what you should expect from a pick service.  Bettors need to be careful not to rush to judgment. Shouldn’t the pick service subscriber give their new service a little more time to prove that they can deliver?

A handicapping service that offers quality picks is able to help a bettor achieve a 55% success rate over time. “Over time” is the key phrase here. No one can be right all the time and if anyone claims to be correct on all picks more than 65% of the time, they are simply bending the facts or lying. A handicapper may be correct 68%, 75% or 85% of the time on a given day, week or even month. Or they may do well but are only picks a very small percentage of the games. If this happens, they are severely limiting your ability to make money.

Here’s one way to look at it. If you get four sports picks per night and are looking to achieve an overall winning percentage of 55%, your four picks would work in the following manner at the following percentages. If you went 4-0 (9.15%), 3-1 (29.95%), 2-2 (36.75%). 1-3 (20.05%) and 0-4 (4.10%), you’d be at 55% by the end of the year. Note there are only a few times you’d go 4-0 and fewer times you’d be 0-4, but the fact is both would happen. Most of the time with sports picks, you’d break even and your second most frequent result would be a 3-1 finish.

Now here’s a quick look at going 60% on the season and 65%. Both of these are possible but less likely. To be at 60% you would go 4-0 (12.96%). 3-1 (34.56%), 2-2 (34.56%), 1-3 (15.36%), 0-4 (2.56%). Note that you’d have a losing record more times than you would go 4-0 and the majority of your results either have you at 3-1 or 2-2. For 65%, you would be 4-0 (17.85%), 3-1 (38.45%), 2-2 (31.05%), 1-3 (15.36%), 0-4 (2.56%)

Here’s the skinny on this one. A 55% sports handicapper wins cash on 39.10% of his picks and a 65% makes a profit 47.52% of the time. To be good 65% of the time, the pick man would need to make cash 56.3% of his nights where he’s betting on four games.

Thus, these facts and stats should put the whole pick game in perspective. Here’s another thing to consider. If you’re betting every day, that’s 365 days, and winning 55% of the time, you’ll have 88 days where you go either 1-3 or 0-4 and 134 days where you break even. The other 143 days you’ll be either 3-1 or 4-0. Thus, you’ll have more losing and break even days than winning days and still you will make a sizeable profit with a solid sports pick service.

How much can you make? It depends on the size of your bankroll, units and the number of units bet, but you could turn $5,000 into a profit of $15,000 or more each year by winning 55% of your bets. That’s basic math, and it is based on betting every day and not a few times a week or 10 times a month.   In fact we wrote how 55% winners can turn into 1 million dollars in a very reasonable time in a prior article.

The basic theory is the more you bet, as long as you are going where the smart money is, the more you’ll make. Every time you place a sports bet, you have the chance to make a profit and for every sports bet you don’t make, you miss the chance to make a profit. You must be in the game to win the game.

The thing to keep in mind is that success in sports betting is measured by profit over time and you need a good length of time to see if a pick service is paying off. Of course, you want to monitor how you’re doing to ensure that you’re getting valuable picks, but you also need to evaluate your handicapper in the proper manner and over the course of time in order to get a true picture of how well they are performing.

Don’t jump to conclusions about your pick service. Stick with them and monitor their overall performance. Give them some time and a chance to make some cash for you. As a serious sports bettor be sensible and show a little patience.