How We Make Our Picks and Predictions

Our picks and predictions are driven by mass amounts of data going back for years in the NFL. Our predictions incorporate every statistic we can possibly use to predict winners, spread picks, and even scores and player's statistic projections. Although our formula continues to evolve with the game, we stick to our #1 belief: Measurable data and game performance is gospel, no matter what the so called "experts" think and say about teams. We take human emotion out of the pick (mostly). I say mostly since we do use human inputted values to make sure we include injuries, motivation, intangibles, draft picks, etc.

But Humans have an interesting ability to rationalize any opinion or view they want to believe, even when more than enough data exists to refute it.

Lets take this scenario for example: Two basketball players walk onto the court to shoot some balls to warm up. First you see their shooting technique. Player 1 was the #1 player in the draft, has an athletic build, an NBA-looking shooting stroke, and gets huge elevation on his jumper. Player 2 is slightly overweight, early 2nd round draft pick, undersized for his position, and shoots the ball with a low, straight, very unexciting trajectory.

Then you point to a spot on the floor and ask them each to take 10 shots. Player 1 hits four; Player 2 hits nine. So you point to another spot and tell them to take 50 more. Player 1 hits 24; Player 2 drains 43. Although the evidence is mounting that Player 2 is actually the better player of the two, many basketball "experts" would struggle to believe it, even if measurable performance data continued to indicate that the odds that Player 2 was just having a lucky day were very low.

We could care less the build of either player, what college he starred for, or that he is constantly getting beat down by the media. We're saying he's better and will more positively affect a win as soon as the statistics and projections determine he is a better player.

And statically speaking, our data proves that analysts and experts must be heavily relying on human rationale to make their picks, since we easily beat all of the experts heavily over time. See our 2008 PickingPros NFL Predictions vs. the experts here.

What Makes PickingPros Different (and Better)

Every sports bettor and handicapper carry bias. They may have grown up around a team, or watched a player extensively in college, or even just got a skewed opinion on a player or team from the media. These are illogical biases which make it difficult to make accurate picks consistently. Now a computer really only knows true/false, yes/no, until its given direction. As we like to say, computer is only as smart as the person programming it. We've programmed the most complete algorithms, using every stat availiable and created the best and most profitable system availiable.

Our picks combine smart math and 100% objective data. Other handicappers and Tout services claim to use their "system" to make "the best picks you can find around". But really all they do is follow a couple of high percentage trends and couple that with their opinions on what will happen in the games and with certain players.

Certainly other handicappers may use some form of computerized systems as well. But what we can guarantee is that no other handicapper in the industry has the ability to write as in depth software coupled with the computational skill set that our algorithms were designed with. If you haven't read about how we started, check it out here.

Basically, with us, you get the only system that can look at every angle of each matchup, using thousands of statistics along the way to generate the predictions and picks and analyze the variables and situations to get the most accurate prediction possible for each matchup.