Tracking Your Wagers

[MFMc]

This piggybacks off BTB's blog post (Chapter 2 in an enthralling 10-chapter series that leaves readers wanting more!):

For those of you who track your bets, what aspects do you track? i.e., conferences involved, neutral site, dog winning outright, etc.

And I guess for those of us who don't track too detailed yet, what would you track if you did?

And do you do it in a spreadsheet or pen/paper? I can see the benefits to both ways.

I'm considering starting this on Jan. 1 to track a year's worth of wagers. Any input would be welcome. I'm going to start playing with some spreadsheets later today perhaps.

[jimmysingh9]

I will be starting this as well. Jan 1st. I could should start it right away, but wont lol.


Personally I am keeping it simple. I am tracking wager of bets/date/win/loss/ how much did I lose/win by/ Would ML dog win outright if played dog.

I am going to tinker with it after if I feel I need to. I do not think for starting off, you need to go super in-depth. I would use it as a money management tool. See how you are betting, your tendencies, maybe what you are winning with. Are you being profitable. What sports are you profitable on? things like this.

I think after you have that figured out or maybe doing this seperately is looking at your handicapping skills and see what kind of wagers you are winning on.

[mr.tanktop]

(12-22-2011 11:42 AM)jimmysingh9 Wrote:  I will be starting this as well. Jan 1st. I could should start it right away, but wont lol.


Personally I am keeping it simple. I am tracking wager of bets/date/win/loss/ how much did I lose/win by/ Would ML dog win outright if played dog.

I am going to tinker with it after if I feel I need to. I do not think for starting off, you need to go super in-depth. I would use it as a money management tool. See how you are betting, your tendencies, maybe what you are winning with. Are you being profitable. What sports are you profitable on? things like this.

I think after you have that figured out or maybe doing this seperately is looking at your handicapping skills and see what kind of wagers you are winning on.

I think you're right. This is something that I'm going to start doing as well. I don't think I even know enough at this point to got super in depth, and I think if I tried, I'd end up getting overwhelmed pretty quickly.

[KepowOb]

I started tracking everything when I decided to take this all more seriously about 6 months ago using a spreadsheet for each sport. While I find it great having my results laid out in front of me, I've wanted to start tracking everything a bit more in depth as was mentioned in BTB's thread. As it stands now I have wins/losses, profit, ROI, but it's all overall results and there isnt a ton of info i can learn from it other than if im winning overall or not.

Anyone have a certain way to organize by fav/dog, ML etc... Or do I just have to suck it up and completely rework my spreadsheets?

[JSpauny]

I know this has been brought up before, but anyone who doesn't want to go through the hassle of creating their own spreadsheet: Betbud for android is a great tracking tool. You can enter just about any bet on any sport and they will take care of all the math for you. You can sort your bets by just about anything. Makes it very easy to pick out the spots that you need improvement in. Just a quick recommendation for anyone with an android phone.

[Beyond the Bets]

Now you guys are making me kick myself. I should have had a sponsor for that particular post!

[ChiefZilla]

(12-22-2011 12:28 PM)JSpauny Wrote:  I know this has been brought up before, but anyone who doesn't want to go through the hassle of creating their own spreadsheet: Betbud for android is a great tracking tool. You can enter just about any bet on any sport and they will take care of all the math for you. You can sort your bets by just about anything. Makes it very easy to pick out the spots that you need improvement in. Just a quick recommendation for anyone with an android phone.

Is BetBud a free app?

[JSpauny]

They have a lite version that is free. I don't think you get as detailed stats and tracking. But the upgrade is only $1.99 or $2.99 I believe and its well worth it. Its the app I use the most on my phone because it tracks games pretty much up to the minute, so I don't have to scroll through Scorecenter and do O/U math in my head.

[SkyBlues42]

I'm surprised this type of app isn't more widely known among sports bettors.

[JSpauny]

(12-22-2011 03:22 PM)SkyBlues42 Wrote:  I'm surprised this type of app isn't more widely known among sports bettors.

It is only on Android I believe so that might have something to do with it, but I agree with you. Its perfect for the average sports bettor.

[louiemdj]

(12-22-2011 03:25 PM)JSpauny Wrote:  

(12-22-2011 03:22 PM)SkyBlues42 Wrote:  I'm surprised this type of app isn't more widely known among sports bettors.

It is only on Android I believe so that might have something to do with it, but I agree with you. Its perfect for the average sports bettor.

Good info, I am downloading it as we speak.

My spreadsheet just records pretty basic things right now like the bet, the final score, wins/losses, and a couple other things. I need to make it a little more complicated to track some different things. I used to have a really elaborate poker spreadsheet.

[The Peoples Champ]

Right now I am using the SBR spreadsheet, which is great for me at the moment, but to start the new year, I am going to create a spreadsheet that tracks both teams, win/loss, final score, whether it went O/U even if I didn't play it, and the amount of money bet/won.

[JSpauny]

This is pretty solid. Every stat comes with a graph. Stats can be sorted by a multitude of things such as sport, spread size, O/U, created labels (how I track tailed plays), date, etc...

An interesting stat they have is top performances/worst performances and top fades/worst fades. I just found out I'm 11-0-1 betting the Saints this season and 16-0 fading my Rams. Had no idea about the Saints thing. Also found out I'm hitting 70% on NFL spreads and am particularly money on spreads between +0.5 and +4.5. These are all good things to know. Really solid app. Teaches me new things everyday.

[SkyBlues42]

that response might be enough to get me to download the application right now.

[JSpauny]

Haha. Its pretty funny to look back at to be honest. 0-6 fading Tebow. Damn him.

[Dawgfan__1980]

I have started this exercise several times. 1 of 3 things always cause me to quit. 1) A bad run. 2) Going on vacation for several days and not being able to manually put in all the desired information. 3) Not being satisfied with the information that my spreadsheet contains.

I encourage you to start from the beginning with as much information that you feel will help you better handicap games.

How hard is it to learn the basic computer skills that it would take to build a good model for handicapping and install the scrapers that will go out on the web automatically and put the relevant information in the sheet for you? Being slightly older than the average user, I am just not blessed with the computer knowledge that I believe it takes to be successful. On the other hand, I can't see some of the better sharps sitting around daily and manually putting the information in. Does anyone have any advice on model building?

[mr.tanktop]

(12-22-2011 04:11 PM)JSpauny Wrote:  This is pretty solid. Every stat comes with a graph. Stats can be sorted by a multitude of things such as sport, spread size, O/U, created labels (how I track tailed plays), date, etc...

An interesting stat they have is top performances/worst performances and top fades/worst fades. I just found out I'm 11-0-1 betting the Saints this season and 16-0 fading my Rams. Had no idea about the Saints thing. Also found out I'm hitting 70% on NFL spreads and am particularly money on spreads between +0.5 and +4.5. These are all good things to know. Really solid app. Teaches me new things everyday.

I wish there was an app for the i phone like that

[JSpauny]

I can't believe there isn't. When I first downloaded it I just assumed that it was an iphone app that made it to android, since that's how it typically works.

[TheSportsMarket]

One thing that really helped us was tracking why we made a bet. Was it on a system, a recommendation of someone on Twitter, one of our models, a second half bet, etc. It forced you to justify your bets, and you can be really honest with yourself on what your betting and why. Then having the facts of "unsuccessful" reasons right in your face makes it easier to do it less.

[SkyBlues42]

(12-23-2011 09:36 AM)TheSportsMarket Wrote:  One thing that really helped us was tracking why we made a bet. Was it on a system, a recommendation of someone on Twitter, one of our models, a second half bet, etc. It forced you to justify your bets, and you can be really honest with yourself on what your betting and why. Then having the facts of "unsuccessful" reasons right in your face makes it easier to do it less.

That's a great way to track a bet. I'd actually be curious as to how many times I've made a play and won/lost based on whose advice I took, or whether not it was 100% decided by my research or opinion.

I started another thread -- "bet you wish you could have back" -- to get a better idea of why people make plays. I assumed everyone would post losers (since I doubt anyone would take a winner back ) and give an explanation as to why they made that specific play.