Why "Good Picks" Can Be Bad Bets

[ParlayPrincess_88]

Okay so this is gonna sound dumb but I need help understanding something.

I keep seeing people say things like "that's a good pick but a bad bet" and honestly I don't get the difference? Like if you think a team is gonna win isn't that a good bet by definition?

For example everyone was saying the Chiefs would definitely beat the Raiders and they did win. But someone told me betting Chiefs -9.5 was a "bad bet" even though it won. How can a winning bet be bad lol.

I feel like I'm missing something obvious but I can't figure out what it is. Can someone explain this in a way that actually makes sense?

 

[betcatalog]

Yes, give me more info

 

[SharpEddie47]

This is actually one of the most important concepts in sports betting and most people never understand it.

A good pick means you correctly identified who will win. A good bet means you're getting paid enough to make the wager profitable long-term. These are completely different things.

Let me use your Chiefs example. Yes, the Chiefs beat the Raiders. But if the Chiefs were -450 on the moneyline, betting them requires you to risk $450 to win $100. The implied probability at -450 is roughly 81.8%. Do the Chiefs beat the Raiders 82% of the time? Probably not. Maybe they win 75% of the time in reality.

So you made a "good pick" - you correctly predicted the Chiefs would win. But you made a "bad bet" because you weren't getting paid enough for the actual probability of the outcome. Over 100 similar bets, you'd lose money even while winning 75% of them because the payout doesn't compensate for the 25% of losses.

The math is simple: if you bet $450 on -450 favorites 100 times, and they win 75 times, you win $7,500 but you lose $11,250 on the 25 losses. Net result: down $3,750 despite correctly picking the winner three quarters of the time.

That's why odds matter more than outcomes. A winning bet at bad odds is still a bad bet. You just got lucky this time that the lower probability outcome didn't occur.

 

[FadeThePublic]

The public makes "good picks" all day long and still loses money.

Everyone knows the Chiefs are better than the Raiders. That's not analysis, that's just watching football. The market knows this too, which is why the Chiefs are massive favorites. The public sees "Chiefs are way better" and bets them at whatever price, not realizing the price already reflects that information.

A good pick is identifying who's better. A good bet is identifying when the market has mispriced the gap between them. Those are completely different skills.

The Raiders might be 7-point underdogs but if you think the actual gap is 10 points, then Raiders +7 is a bad bet and Chiefs -7 is a good bet. The pick (Chiefs win) and the bet (what spread offers value) are separate questions.

This is why the public loses. They make good picks constantly. They just make terrible bets because they ignore price.

 

[ParlayPrincess_88]

This is actually one of the most important concepts in sports betting and most people never understand it.

A good pick means you correctly identified who will win. A good bet means you're getting paid enough to make the wager profitable long-term. These are completely different things.

Let me use your Chiefs example. Yes, the Chiefs beat the Raiders. But if the Chiefs were -450 on the moneyline, betting them requires you to risk $450 to win $100. The implied probability at -450 is roughly 81.8%. Do the Chiefs beat the Raiders 82% of the time? Probably not. Maybe they win 75% of the time in reality.

So you made a "good pick" - you correctly predicted the Chiefs would win. But you made a "bad bet" because you weren't getting paid enough for the actual probability of the outcome. Over 100 similar bets, you'd lose money even while winning 75% of them because the payout doesn't compensate for the 25% of losses.

The math is simple: if you bet $450 on -450 favorites 100 times, and they win 75 times, you win $7,500 but you lose $11,250 on the 25 losses. Net result: down $3,750 despite correctly picking the winner three quarters of the time.

That's why odds matter more than outcomes. A winning bet at bad odds is still a bad bet. You just got lucky this time that the lower probability outcome didn't occur.

Okay Eddie's math makes sense but like... practically speaking how am I supposed to know if the Chiefs actually win 75% or 82% of the time? I can't predict the future lol.

And @FadeThePublic I get what you're saying but again - how do I know if the "actual gap" is 7 points or 10 points? That just sounds like guessing with extra steps.

I feel like I'm being told "just know the right probability" but nobody's telling me HOW to know that. Do I need a math degree for this or something?

 

[CoachTony_Bets]

Princess you're asking the right question. The answer is you don't know the exact probability - nobody does. What you're looking for is spots where your analysis suggests the market is wrong by enough to overcome the vig.

Think of it this way: I'm not trying to predict exact probabilities. I'm trying to find spots where I'm confident the real probability is meaningfully different from what the odds imply.

For example, if a team is coming off an emotional overtime win on the road and now faces a short week with travel, I might think they're more likely to underperform than the market prices. I don't need to know their exact win probability - I just need to believe the market hasn't fully adjusted for those contextual factors.

The skill isn't precision, it's identifying situations where you have information or perspective the market doesn't fully reflect yet. That's where good bets live, even if the "pick" seems obvious.

It takes time to develop that judgment, but it starts with asking "why is this line here?" before asking "who do I think wins?"

 

[ThePuntingProf]

I must interject here because Princess's confusion is entirely understandable and the issue she is encountering is that most betting advice focuses on predicting outcomes rather than evaluating prices which is backwards because in any efficient market the outcome prediction is already embedded in the price and what separates winning punters from losing punters is not their ability to predict winners but their ability to identify when the market has made a pricing error, when Margaret and I first started betting together in the 1990s we made exactly this mistake for several years, we would analyze matches thoroughly and correctly predict the winner perhaps sixty percent of the time and yet we were still losing money because we were betting odds-on favourites at prices that offered no value whatsoever, the breakthrough came when I started tracking not just whether our predictions were correct but whether the odds we received were higher than the true probability suggested they should be, once I shifted from asking "who will win" to asking "is this price wrong relative to probability" our results improved dramatically and we became profitable punters rather than merely accurate predictors, the fundamental principle is that a bet with fifty-five percent probability of winning at odds of 1.90 is profitable long-term while a bet with seventy-five percent probability at odds of 1.25 is not because the mathematics of expected value depend on both the probability and the payout not merely the probability alone.

 

[DublinDegen]

lads this is exactly why i lose money because i see Meath playing in the GAA and i KNOW Meath are gonna lose because theyre shite but i bet on them anyway because im from Meath and i cant help myself and then everyone tells me im making a good pick on the other team but a bad bet on my own team but honestly i dont even care about expected value when Meath are playing i just want to have money on them and feel something when they inevitably lose by 8 points...

actually wait no this is a bad example because im never making good picks when i bet Meath im just making emotional decisions that happen to be wrong...

but like the point is sometimes you know what the right bet is and you still make the wrong bet because betting isnt just about math its about entertainment and feelings and supporting your team even when you know theyre going to lose...

which i guess proves everyones point that knowing the right pick doesnt mean youre making the right bet...

 

[oli_sussex]

@ParlayPrincess_88
Princess, you're overcomplicating this.

Good pick: correct outcome prediction. Good bet: positive expected value at available odds. Pick quality and bet quality are independent variables.

You don't need exact probabilities. You need better probability estimates than the market, even roughly.

 

[ParlayPrincess_88]

@ParlayPrincess_88
Princess, you're overcomplicating this.

Good pick: correct outcome prediction. Good bet: positive expected value at available odds. Pick quality and bet quality are independent variables.

You don't need exact probabilities. You need better probability estimates than the market, even roughly.

Okay Oli that actually helps more than the long explanations lol.

So basically I need to stop thinking "will this team win" and start thinking "is this team being underpriced or overpriced." Right?

But then my question is still like... HOW do I figure out if something is underpriced? Is it just experience or are there actual things I should be looking at?

Because right now I mostly bet based on who I think wins and clearly that's not working great for me

 

[Klaus]

@ParlayPrincess_88 asks the correct question. Identifying mispricing requires systematic approach, not guesswork.

The practical method: compare your assessment to market consensus. If your analysis suggests Team A should be 60% likely to win, calculate what odds that implies. If the market offers better odds than your calculation suggests, value exists.

For Bundesliga specifically, I focus on situations where public perception differs from underlying performance metrics. Teams with strong expected goals numbers but poor recent results often become underpriced. The market overweights visible results and underweights process quality.

This creates opportunities where the "pick" is obvious to anyone analyzing properly, but the "bet" is good because casual bettors have pushed the price wrong direction.

The skill develops through tracking your assessments against outcomes over hundreds of matches. You learn where your judgment is reliable and where market prices tend to deviate from reality.

Start with one league, track everything, compare your assessments to closing lines. This feedback loop teaches you where value exists.

 

[SharpEddie47]

Klaus is right about the systematic approach. Let me add the practical threshold I use.

I don't bet unless I believe the true probability differs from the implied probability by at least 5%. That's my edge threshold. If I think something is 55% likely and the odds imply 54%, that's not enough edge to overcome variance and vig.

But if I think something is 60% likely and the odds imply 52%, that's a meaningful gap worth betting. I need that cushion because my probability estimates aren't perfect.

This also answers your question about "how do I know?" - you don't need to know precisely. You need confidence that you're off by enough that even accounting for your own estimation errors, edge still exists.

The other thing I'll add: good picks become bad bets when everyone else also makes that pick. The market adjusts. When a team is correctly favored, the odds shorten to the point where betting them offers no value. You correctly identified who's better, but so did everyone else, and now the price reflects that.

Finding good bets means finding spots where your analysis leads you somewhere the consensus hasn't fully gone yet.

 

[CoachTony_Bets]

I want to address something @DublinDegen said earlier because even though he was joking, he touched on something real: the entertainment value question.

For someone betting for fun with small amounts, making a "bad bet" on your favorite team might be worth it for the entertainment value. If putting $20 on your team at terrible odds makes watching the game more fun, and you can afford to lose $20, that's a valid choice. You're paying for entertainment.

The problem comes when people convince themselves that emotional bets are actually "good bets" through motivated reasoning. They want to bet their team, so they construct justifications for why it's actually value when it's not.

Princess, if you're betting for entertainment, own that and set limits accordingly. If you're betting to make money long-term, you need to separate picks from bets like Eddie described. Can't do both with the same money - pick one goal and optimize for it.

Most people try to do both and end up doing neither well.

 

[FadeThePublic]

I'm going to give Princess the real answer that nobody wants to hear: most people never learn to separate good picks from good bets because it requires admitting that "being right" doesn't matter.

Your ego wants to predict winners correctly. That feels good. Making money requires betting when the price is wrong, even if the outcome is uncertain. That feels uncomfortable.

The public would rather be right at -300 than make money at +180. They'd rather say "I knew the Chiefs would win" than make the +EV bet on the underdog that has a realistic chance.

This is why sharp bettors fade the public. The public makes good picks constantly - they're not dumb. But they make terrible bets because they optimize for being right instead of getting paid enough when they are right.

If you want to actually win long-term, you need to be comfortable betting things that might lose, as long as the price is right. That's the mindset shift most people never make.