October 27, 2007
There are many ways to loose money betting the NFL. The first way that occurs to everyone is by picking the wrong side in a contest, but there are other ways cash can slip through our fingers. A way that may not immediately come to mind is by picking the right side but making the wrong bet. NFL bettors have a lot of options when it comes to betting a contest. On the same wager bettors can make straight bets, parlays, teasers, buy points. Which is best? Well, that depends on the situation. These situations are discussed in Win More--Lose Less.
Peszynski steps through a careful analysis of nearly every sports betting option available to NFL bettors. He starts the book with an analysis of half points, and moves on to cover betting futures, and examines the hazards of Super Bowl props. Peszynski isn't always giving advice on what bets will make money, his focus is equally on advising bettors to avoid those bets that will lose more money. This is a subtle distinction, but an important one. Through this, he is especially true to the title of his book.
Next we receive analyses of parlays, synthetic parlays, and teasers. While parlays and teasers are usually worse for the bettor than straight bets, they can each be better bets under certain circumstances. These are examined by the author. What he has to say on these topics is pretty strong. A lot of bettors would be well advised to follow the advice he gives.
Peszynski also covers money management, hedging and middles, and other miscellaneous topics. His middling advice is solid. What he has to say on money management is better than the advice most authors give, but I would have liked to have seen a stronger mathematical foundation for his recommendations. His miscellaneous discussions are hit-and-miss. I like what he has to say on sports services and technical handicapping. I'm less enamored with his comments on turnovers. Sure, there's an enormous correlation between turnover differential and the winner of an NFL game, but it's not a good predictive indicator. There's a difference, and it seems to have been lost on the author.
Nearly everything the author has to say is correct, carefully considered, can save most sports bettors a lot of money. Often times I think the material could have been presented to make the fundamental lessons easier to comprehend, but Peszynski's information is solid. Much of the data is a bit dated now, but the analysis of it is good. Readers should reapply his methods to a more comprehensive (and recent) data set, but that's no fault of the book. Given the dearth of good material available for sports bettors, I'm definitely happy to recommend Win More--Lose Less.
I believe that this book is most appropriate for intermediate sports bettors. This is a good book to read between, say, Arne Lang's book for beginners and books by King Yao and Stanford Wong. Every serious sports bettor needs to understand what Peszynski has to say about "exotic" sports bets, and his book is a good place to learn.
Don Peszynski's Win More--Lose Less is a strong book for intermediate sports bettors interested in the NFL. It lives up to its name by explaining when it is a good and bad idea to bet parlays, teasers, straight bets, etc.. This is information all serious sports bettors should know, and it's explained well enough in this volume for me to recommend it.
Note: I received a free review copy of this book from the author. I have no other interest, financial or otherwise, in the success of this book.
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