College Bowl Game Betting Picks Performance

We stand for 100% transparency in our communications with users and in our pick accuracy reporting. That's one of the reasons why we're the only sports prediction site we know of that publishes full prediction accuracy reports dating back for as long as we have been tracking our picks.

You can slice and dice these reports in many ways, you don't need to be a subscriber to access them, and all users are free to review them before they make a decision to subscribe to any of our premium packages.

Since our current prediction accuracy pages for college football don't yet break out year by year bowl pick results since 2005, we've created this page, compiled from data pulled directly from our database.

Our game winner picks are determined by a “model of models” methodology. We have built several independent math models that each take different approaches to predicting win and point spread cover odds for each team. Based on the overall historical performance of each of these models, plus associated situational performance analysis, we determine a final pick for each game and percentage win odds for each team.

It's worth noting that our bowl game winner prediction performance since 2005 has fallen nicely in line with our expectations. We expect 3-star picks to win 70-80% of the time, and they've won 75% of the time. 2-star picks we expect to win 60-70% of the time (they've won 63%), and 1-star picks 50-60% of the time (57%).

Coupled with our data-driven contest strategies, our algorithmic win odds projections have helped power multiple top-tier finishes in game winner based bowl pick'em contests over the years.

Performance of our point spread picks for college bowl games has been remarkably consistent over the years. Although last year was a down year, we're still a profitable 54.5% ATS across all point spread picks since 2005, with five profitable bowl seasons to two unprofitable ones.

It's interesting to note that our 2-star bowl point spread picks have actually been our best performers, but the sample sizes are relatively small, so it's too early to conclude anything.

Unlike our ATS picks, there has been a marked difference in performance as you move up from 1-star to 3-star confidence with our historical bowl over/under picks. 3-star picks have been outstanding, but 1- and 2-star picks have been unprofitable with just under 50% win rates.

We doubt we'll maintain 69% long term performance against the totals lines for our 3-star picks, but even if you combine the 2-star and 3-star categories together to increase the sample size, those picks have gone a still solid 69-55-2 (55.6%) overall.

We've only been doing college bowl picks against the money lines since 2008, so we have four years instead of seven years of results. Our results have been profitable for our playable (2- and 3-star) picks, but unprofitable if you include 1-star picks.

The primary thing to remember with money line picks is that we don't just pick who we expect to win the game. We look at the win odds of each team, and then the money line for each team, and in most games (but not all) there is usually some value to be had on one side. Sometimes neither side has value, and we classify the game as a “LAY OFF” from a money line perspective.

Another thing to remember is that value is usually (but not always) on the side of the underdog, so we end up losing more money line value picks than we win. However, that lower winning percentage is offset by much higher money line payout odds for underdogs. This is why we track our money line picks using units of profit returned, and not winning percentage.

Final Thoughts

We're proud of an overall profitable track record for our playable (2- and 3-star) bowl betting picks, dating back all the way to 2005. At the same time, we know that our predictions are not going to win all the time. Randomness is inevitable; over a sample size of just 35 bowl games, even a great predictive system will occasionally perform poorly.

Unlike many “professional” handicappers, though, we never try to mislead potential customers with silly marketing gimmicks. We don't claim we're going to kill it this bowl season; we don't tout triple lead pipe locks; and we don't offer guaranteed anything. We just build models, post the results, and let users decide for themselves if it's worth subscribing.

So please take a minute to think about it. Assuming our bowl betting picks are going to win every single bowl season is an impossible expectations to meet, so please don't subscribe and put us both in that position. However, if you believe that based on our track record and what's at stake for you, it's worth the price we're asking to see our algorithmic picks for all of the 2012-13 college bowl games, and you're comfortable with the risks involved, then we would love to have you as a subscriber.