Battling the Books: Goodbye WNBA, hello NBA

Today’s NBA plays:

Cleveland
Atlanta

On June 4, I posted my first WNBA picks here on the PredictEm home page, opening the season on a winning note as I hit both games.

On Sunday, November 20, I gave my last WNBA pick in the Predictum forum, a hedge play winner with the New York Liberty, closing the season on a winning note.

In between I got exactly what I aimed for – some action, a lot of fun, and in the end a few more winners than losers, allowing me to bank a little profit.

On homepage articles I finished at 28-22, 56%. For a sports bettor laying standard odds of -110/100 that’s a profit of +$380.

In the forum I was 5-8, -$280.
Total profit from both is $100.
I hedged my championship bets on Minnesota and New York and picked up an additional $90 in the postseason to finish with a profit of +$190 for a 100 bettor.

I didn’t make a bundle off the WNBA but that’s not my purpose for betting ANY sport. I got entertainment value from 63 games handicapped, wagered on, and on watched on the tube, didn’t lose any of my bankroll, and made a small profit.
I’ll take that any day, especially for a sport that I never handicapped before.

And now my Battle with the Books begins with the NBA.
Admittedly (unashamedly) I prefer the WNBA over the professionals.
But I’ll ‘cap the big boys and see if I can start to like the sport. Or at least not doing any damage to my bankroll.

For the NBA this season I’m ‘capping two methods for sides, and three for totals. It will take a few weeks to collect data and see where I can find value, so admittedly my first week or two of picks are more of a risk than normal plays.
I’ll use historical data from the past few years for these early plays until I get some recent data accumulated.

And like the WNBA, I started the NBA season with a win on my first pick, hitting with the Lakers in their season opener staying Under the total, as detailed in the PredictEm forum yesterday.

Today’s plays, Cleveland and Atlanta. There really are no stats to go by when handicapping games this early in the season. But I’ve been wondering for a couple weeks now if the asterisk play that’s worked so well in the WNBA and college and Pro football will work for the NBA too. And today I get to find out. Three plays fit, I’m using two of them here the other one I’ll put in the forum for info purposes only.

When to Buy Recommendation

With all the injuries on the Toronto Raptors I don’t expect the Cleveland line to get any better its already gone from man opening -4′ to -6′.

Atlanta is sitting at the same number, -6′ and a few of those have extra juice on the Fav so I’m buying them both now.

Atlanta -6′, -108
Cleveland -6′, -108