Founder
Why I Started BetSharper
For a long time, I didn't keep a betting record at all. I'd bet games I thought were interesting or mispriced, based on gut feel, and that was the whole system. No log. No grades. Nothing that could tell me whether I was actually any good.
That changed when I started working at a company with a lot of other sports bettors. Betting kind of became a thing in the office. One day some friends and I were sitting around and somebody said, "Let's do picks." And I said, "Before you tell me what the number is, I'm gonna guess what the number is."
That one sentence is where BetSharper started.
Tuesday mornings with Jimmy
We started the process right then and there. Every Tuesday morning we'd go over the games we picked and get our records. This was back when the NFL played 16 games, so a week might come out 8-7-1, or 7-8-1, or 10-6, or 4-12. We'd also rank our top three games of the week. We talked about turning those rankings into a pool. That never happened, but it's still a good idea.
Then one day I sat down and said, "Hey, Jimmy, why don't you have me tell you what I think the line should be? I'll be the bookmaker, and we'll go game by game."
He said, "Okay. Dallas at the Sea Chickens." That's what he called the Seahawks.
I said, "Sea Chickens minus three and a hook."
He came back with the line: "Sea Chickens minus four."
Then on to the next game. I'd give him my spread, and sometimes he'd say, "Right on the money."
What we noticed over the weeks was that we got better at figuring out what the market price should be. That turned into better top picks and better paper picks. And Jimmy and I still do it. On Tuesday mornings we go game by game and ask the same question: what's the line?
My picks were good. My betting wasn't.
Here's what took me way too long to see.
My picks on paper were really good. Over the last decade I've averaged around 58% against the spread on my leans. At standard -110 pricing you need about 52.4% just to break even, so that's a real number. I remember thinking I could be a professional bettor if I'd only kept my unit size at one unit, say $500 or $1,000, on every game my process liked.
But I didn't put my money where my conviction was. When I finally looked honestly, my picks and my bets were never the same thing.
What I actually did was chase. I'd chase a bad pick. I'd try to double up like I was at a blackjack table. I didn't keep to limits.
Yes, I had some amazing weekends. Sometimes I'd turn $200 into $10,000. But sometimes I'd chase a $1,000 loss into $5,000. It would start with a first-half bet on an afternoon game, and then I'd try to win it back with a live moneyline bet on something I was just eyeballing, a game that wasn't on my list of games I actually believed in. Then Sunday Night Football would wipe out whatever was left in the account from the weekend before, the one where I'd been really successful.
So I had a good process for picking games and almost no process for betting them. Someone who watches a lot of football and can be disciplined needs real structure around that. At some point I thought: I need to just build the app.
Not a picks app
At the end of last year I started using AI. Not to try to get the right pick. That's not what this is about.
It's about how I take my leans, the things I see that tend to be more right than wrong, and put structure around them. Then I use that to get the most out of a hobby I love, including financially. It can be fun, and it can be responsible.
Here's what that looks like for me now:
- Tuesday morning, I set my number first. Before I look at the line, I write down my own spread for each game. Jimmy and I still do this out loud.
- Then I compare it to the line. The gap between my number and the line tells me where I stand with the market. If the line is San Francisco -3.5 and I said San Francisco by 7.5, I'm way more bullish than the market. That's a game worth a closer look, for a lot of reasons. Maybe I'm dead wrong.
- I grade every game twice. I watch the games, then grade my paper picks and, separately, my real-money results. Those stay in separate columns.
- I check closing line value. Did the market move toward my number or away from it by kickoff?
The finding that surprised me most: the games I usually get right, the ones that make up that 58 or 60%, are usually the ones where my number is only one to two points off the market price. Not the huge disagreements. The small ones.
The app keeps teaching me things about my own betting, too. My AFC leans on paper outperform my NFC leans by leaps and bounds. And I'm 0-for-4 on Houston this year, so the lesson there is simple: don't bet Houston games.
What this means if you bet
You don't need my record to use any of this. You need your own. Here's what I'd tell a friend:
- Set your number before you see the line. If you can't write down a spread, you don't have an opinion yet. You have a reaction to someone else's number. I wrote more about that habit in Red Flag #3: Betting College Games Without a Number.
- Keep your unit size fixed. One unit per game your process likes. Not three units because you're down, not a double-up because the afternoon went bad.
- Don't chase losses. If a game isn't on your list before kickoff, a live bet on it isn't a plan. It's chasing.
- Keep paper picks and real money separate. Grade both against the spread. If your paper record is better than your bankroll, the problem isn't your picks. It's your betting.
- Watch closing line value, not just wins. Beating the close over a long stretch is one of the better signs your numbers are good. It still doesn't guarantee anything, and no single week proves much either way.
- Pay attention to how far your number is from the line. For me, the small gaps are where I'm right most often. Your journal will tell you where yours are.
None of this guarantees a winning season. What it does is show you, in black and white, whether your judgment is good and whether your betting matches it.
What's next
The whole point is getting smarter and putting rigor around the process you use to pick the games you actually put real money behind. That's what I'm building BetSharper to do: you lock your number before you see the line, tag each game, keep paper and real money apart, and get graded on closing line value and against the spread.
Every week of the NFL season, here and on the Tuesday show, I'll share my paper picks and leans, my results, and the lessons I learned that week as the founder.
After one full season, I hope a BetSharper user can say this about themselves: I became more of an operator. I make sound judgments, I accept the wins and the losses equally, and I enjoy the game responsibly.
If you want to try it the way Jimmy and I started, pick a game this week, write down your number before you look, and see how close you were. Then sign up at BetSharper.ai to keep the record.
BetSharper is a journal for your own numbers. It doesn't take bets and doesn't promise results.
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