Should You Fade A Loser?
I originally wrote this in the forum on Pickmonitor. Guys think betting against someone who loses means they will win, but that's not the case.
In basketball and football against-the-spread or total bets with standard -110 lines, the ROI for 50% is -4.3%. So fading a 50% handicapper would also give you a -4.3% ROI. The point to understand here is that a negative ROI doesn't mean fading those picks would produce a positive ROI.
At -110, a winning percentage of 52.5% is a 0.23% ROI. The very opposite winning percentage of 47.5% is a -9.3% ROI. Nearly all bettors, 99% of them, will fall between 47.5% and 52.5% in the long run. Finding someone below 47.5% or below -9.3% ROI is as rare as finding someone with a winning record.
One last thing. Even if you found a guy with a 45% winning percentage with 1000 picks, he's still likely to win between 47.5% and 52.5% of his next 1000 picks so fading him would still be a bad idea.
While the math for money-line sports is much different and longer to explain, the same principles apply. Negative ROI's don't equal positive ROI's for fading.
Hope this helped.
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