'Edge' is perhaps the least understood element of NFL handicapping.  When placing a wager on an NFL game, your opponent is not the Book, not the 'other team', but rather the Great Unwashed Herd  (GUH) that has set the price.  If you can identify those games where the GUH has created Edge, you can win consistently.  Here's the blueprint!

• Edge, in any transaction, can be defined simply as the difference between price and value.

• In order to capture edge, you must know as much as humanly possible about how and why price has been set.

• In an NFL game, 'price' is the LINE established by the sports books (Book).  

• NEWSFLASH! The Line Has Nothing To Do With The Ability Of The Teams, Nor The Probable Score Of The Game!  

• The Book maximizes his profit by getting 50% of the betting public on each side of a game.  (If exactly half of the money comes in on the Bears -2.5, and the other half comes in on the Giants + 2.5, the books lock in a guaranteed, risk-free profit).

• The Books are not experts in gauging matchups in the NFL, in fact they could care less!  The are experts in gauging how the public will bet a given game!  The Book needs to set that line just right, balanced in the head of a pin, so that an equal amount of money will be bet on each side.  

• This is the essence of why the NFL can be beat!  Think about it:  The Book sets price based on factors that have nothing to do with the potential outcome of the game!  

•  Edge in NFL games occurs when the LINE it takes to get 50% of the public to bet each side of a game, differs radically from the actual, quantified difference between to teams!  There will obviously be times when the public's appetite for a game yields a 'fair price'.  But there will also be times when the public favors one side so much that the Book has to 'move the line', sometimes well beyond value, in order to entice bettors to take the other side.  This is the land if edge. 

I knew that if I could devise a model that accurately quantifies how a game should be priced, based on the fundamental abilities of the teams, and then a second model that tells me when the difference between my line and the Books' line is statistically significant, I'd have a winner!  At PigPicks.com, that's exactly what we do.  The model we built is absolutely unique in the business, and is derived from the same pricing models I used for years as an options trader.  It is this model that forms the foundation of a service that makes consistently over 60% year in and year out! 

But finding Edge is just the first step in the process!  Click 'Is Edge Enough?' to see what's next!