PickLogic's first baseball pick this year came on April 19, and we went 5-4 in April (plus a win on the first day of May) for a nice 2% gain in under 2 weeks. It's likely that these first 9 picks will be typical of our performance throughout the rest of baseball season: two wins, followed by two losses, a win, two more losses, and now three straight wins.

(Think 2% doesn't sound like much? Even our $10,000 clients (with declared $10K "starting balances"), are up $200 in less than two weeks, and they've never had more than $411 (let alone $10,000) at risk at any one point, and most of the time much less.)

You can expect these little "mini-streaks" all year -- we probably (ideally) won't win or lose more than 4 in a row for the next 5 months. So just be sure you're following PickLogic's recommendations EXACTLY, and we'll all be quite happy come September.

In other words...invest, don't gamble! Sports betting is dangerous; we prefer lower-risk activities. That said (and since many of you ask repeatedly), we thought we'd mention that the PickLogic system actually likes 3 games for Friday, May 2. The actual pick is Florida over San Diego at a line of -130...but these other two games were also rated very highly:

-- Arizona over New York Mets, -130
-- Oakland over Texas, -145

(And if you really like a long shot, the system also liked Kansas City over Cleveland, at a line of +180.)

At any rate, in the next few days, we'll post a blog entry that discusses the historical (and recent) performance of PickLogic vs. other investment options.

Labels: baseball betting, investing, sports betting

The famous saying is that "Time equals money", and it's very true at PickLogic. (Please note that this post is directed at our trial members...our regular members certainly are well aware of the overall concept about to be put forth.)

When PickLogic clients lose a game, sure -- money is lost at that moment in time. But the betting strategies employed by PickLogic usually negate that loss (and any ensuing losses) with the next win (or series of wins).

In other words, going 1-3 is not all that different from going 1-0: often, the bottom line from those two situations is a positive gain of nearly the same amount. The one difference, of course, is that it takes longer to go 1-3 than it does to go 1-0. (And if you wonder how 1-3 can equal 1-0, just look at our results, and find a streak that begins with 3 losses and ends with a win, and compare it to another bet that starts at the same level.)

Even when our clients miss a bet that wins...yes, it hurts, but time will heal all wounds (along with your sportsbook balance).

When we had a 5-game losing streak at the beginning of January, we had a few clients who wrote in to tell us that they didn't make the large bets after the 4th and 5th losses, choosing instead to "take their losses" and move forward (reducing their wagers), since they were already well ahead overall, and they weren't prepared to follow the PickLogic's sports betting system exactly. We understand the logic -- it can be hard to unemotionally make such large bets when the positive outcome won't feel as positive as the negative outcome will feel, well, negative. At the PickLogic offices, of course, we follow the system to the letter, but everyone has their own methods: choosing, for example, to NEVER bet more than 20% of your starting balance can be a prudent choice. You won't finish as far ahead in a given time period, but in the end, you'll still finish ahead -- and again, it's only time that you've lost, not money, since you'll make up any losses soon enough.

(A client who might have reduced their bet levels after the 4th loss on January 7th, and then again after the loss on January 9th, might have realized a 10% loss in the 1-5 series over those 6 games, while someone who followed the system exactly would have actually gained .2%. Just 6 weeks later, all of our clients are up an additional 4%, so even those "prudent" clients are just 6-8 weeks away from getting back to where they would have been originally -- and, one way to look at it is that they've just lost time.)

Time equals money, no question...and if you're patient, PickLogic will help you extract as much money out of your time as possible.

(Final note: our members know that there's a pick for tomorrow -- UNDER 216 in the Sonics/Lakers game -- but there were also two very strong picks on the board that didn't get made. Last time we only threw out two "almost" picks, they went 0-2...let's see what happens this time: UNDER 216.5 in the Magic/Kings game, and OVER 189.5 in the Timberwolves/Mavericks game.)

Labels: investing, results, starting balance, time

It's always interesting to look at our past performance as an indicator of what to expect in the future, and the All-Star Break of the NBA gives us a chance to examine the first half of the basketball season (which has spanned 3 1/2 months so far):

-- November: 5-6 record, +1.22%. After starting with 4 losses to begin the season, we recovered nicely.
-- December: 8-8, +1.2%. Another uneven month, with a 3-game losing streak and a 4-game winning streak. We also had the beginning of a 5-game losing streak to end the year (but still had a winning month).
-- January: 6-8, +4.15%. Really, January's numbers are artificially high, and December's are artificially low (with January being the beneficiary of the month in which a December losing streak was ended). Still nice to have 2 losing streaks in the month and come out positive.
-- February (so far): 4-2, break-even.

This has actually been one of our more inconsistent seasons so far, and still, the results have been very positive: +6.58% at the moment, and a +13% NBA season wouldn't be something to throw away.

What's the point? Well, really just to highlight that sports investing is an art, not a science. You can't possibly win every game, nor can you expect to win much more than half of the games, even with the best system. Sports betting has made far more people poorer than richer -- we're probably as successful as anyone out there, and yet we're 23-24 through the first half of the NBA season. Many sports gamblers would be broke by now: at the very least, given the 10% "juice", if you were betting $100/game and went 23-24, you'd be down $340 at this point. We find outselves up over 6.5% despite a sub-.500 record.

As we head into the second half of the season (and a four-day break from selections), there IS a pick for tonight; our members (and trial members) would have just received it in their e-mail (it's the "OVER" the total of 224.5 in the Warriors/Jazz matchup on Tuesday evening). You'll note that the betting level has been somewhat reduced from its normal ascension on a two-game losing streak, given the reluctance of PickLogic to assume that trends will continue perfectly through a four-day hiatus.

Enjoy the last 8 weeks of the NBA season!

Labels: investing, methodology, performance, recent results

This was a tough week to be in the financial markets (at least, in the US). All of the leading indicators were down, many of them significantly. It's also a tough housing market out there.

In related news, PickLogic investors were up nearly 2% for the week.

We don't point this out to boast, but rather to signify one of the things that always made PickLogic the most attractive investment choice for those of us in the office: PickLogic is absolutely immune to the market economy. The sports betting market doesn't care whether there's a boom or a recession, or whether home prices are up or down. It's not affected by weather or natural disasters, or by political unrest.

Every week and every month, it just keeps churning along. It's nice to know that your investments are going to perform to a minimum standard on a regular basis, regardless of what happens out there in the "real" world.

Feel free to post a comment about how your PickLogic investment is doing vs. other investments you might have!

Labels: economy, investing, markets