John Patrick’s Sports Handicapping

Ok, so this is a book written by someone who clearly has spent A LOT of time inside sports betting circles or at least some place like Vegas. He seems to know what he's talking about but yet you can't stop feeling like you're being conned by a guy you met at Vegas.

The book has chapters for every sport and also educates the beginner very well about all the sports betting systems that exist. It starts with few philosophical chapters such as describing the bettor, the how and whats of handicapping, expectations of winning, 'The Little Three' and learning to win.

Once you are 'educated' about general betting, the book dives into the concept of 'bankroll'. It has nice little chapters on laying out bets, short bankrolls, loss limits, minimizing losses, win goals, accepting your goals, and what a 'proper' bankrol should be.

Once the bankroll side of things are clearer, the book dives into the meat and bones of handicapping; the knowledge part. The part starts by defining what Knowledge is in sports handicapping and then goes on to explain every part of the industry such as linemakers, bookies and then explains lines, parlays, round robins, flat betting, teasing, over/unders, home dogs and so forth. It then has information on more factors that affect bets such as injuries, weather, fatigue factor, grass/indoor turf and even coach's philosophy.

The longest part in the book is on money management. It starts with describing what money management is and why you won't follow money management. It's a funny book once you get to understand the writer. This chapter goes into EVERY SPORT and EVERY TYPE OF BETTING. It starts with every conceivable game/situation about NFL and then moves into College football, NBA, College Basketball, and Baseball.

The next part in the book is Discipline. It starts with explaining how discipline is teh name of the game and goes on to tell who has discipline and why and how you should get discipline.

The book ends with the part 'Odds and Ends'. This part is a little less technical but more anecdotal. It has stories such as 'Kimberly Moore: Cocktail Waitress', 'Luck in Gambling', 'The Big Shot' and ends with a little inspirational 'Winning' section.

It is a nice and smooth read and you will for sure learn a lot of things from this book if you can ever get over the writing style of John Patrick and realize that you aren't being conned by a stranger you met on the street.

Our only concern is the date the book was written, since it does not contain online sports betting at all in the book.