American Football & Soccer Betting : Week 1

The new NFL season starts tonight with the opening game between the World champion, New York Giants against the Washington Redskins.

I have placed my bets on the opening week of games but am not that confident to start with. I think by week three or four I will be have a better idea on which team to back.

I keep a record of the score in each match and use some calculations to work out whether it's possible the teams can beat the handicaps and whether the total points in the games could go over or under the line that the bookmakers have set.

This calculating idea started in 2004 but it found it's best success in 2005. I was making quite a bit of profit each weekend with this strategy. 2006 saw a slight dip in returns and 2007 was a non-starter because I started getting silly and using the results of the Madden '08 game alongside my calculations which was a distraction. I also gave up betting on the games as the season progressed because I got tired of losing. I took my American football and went home, if you will.

I'm starting afresh from tonight and you'll be glad to know that I decided not to buy Madden '09.

The current idea I have is to do a Goliath each week. This will consist of four NFL and four soccer selections but may change depending on how I feel. As this week sees soccer Internationals the entire bet will consist of NFL matches. From week two the 4:4 comes in to play.

Here are the picks for week one:

1) Cincinnati -1.5
2) Buffalo -1
3) NY Jets -3
4) Dallas -5.5
5) Washington vs NY Giants under 41 points total
6) Detroit vs Atlanta under 40.5 points total
7) Chicago vs Indianapolis under 44 points total
8) Tampa Bay vs New Orleans over 42.5 points total

Total staked for this bet = £12.35
Returns from last week = N/A
Overall P/L = - £12.35