How often do you have to win to make money? Well, as we mentioned early, the book gets a percentage of every wager. This percentage is called the vig (short for vigorish) or juice. The vig is usually 10%. All gamblers have to pay the vig, but winners get it back. To illustrate, anyone who wagers $10 has to give $11 to the book. Winners are paid $21. This $21 consists of the return of the original $10 wager, the return of the $1 vig, and the $10 that you just won. If you lose, you're out $11, since the book keeps the $10 wager and the $1 vig. If the number of winners and losers are equal, the book keeps $1 out of every $22 wagered, or the 4.5% that we mentioned earlier.

Because of the vig, you need to win more than 50% of the time to break even. For example, if you made a hundred $10 wagers, and won half of them you would lose $50. You would win only $500 (50 x 10) and lose $550 (50 x 11). The winning percentage you need to break even is 52.4%, which happens to be 11 out of 21.

Beating the line more than 52.4% of the time is harder than it sounds. You have probably seen advertisements where tout services claim an against the spread (ATS) record of 70% or higher. Thousands of customers have fallen for these exaggerated claims. Don't believe it. Every gambler gets a “hot hand” once in a while, but experienced handicappers know that percentages like that are impossible to maintain over long periods of time. If you consistently hit in the 55% to 60% range, you’ll outperform nearly all of the tout services. Every year, the organizations that monitor touts services report that many hit less than 50%, or worse than they would do by flipping a coin. Far more than half of the touts hit less than the 52.4% required to break even. And these services aren’t cheap. Some charge thousands of dollars per year for their selections!

The plain truth is that the oddsmakers know their business. They set a good line, and beating it consistently requires a lot of work. However, WinPicks can greatly improve your chances since it does most of the work for you. In the following sections we'll discuss how to tap the power of WinPicks when wagering on pro football, college football, and pro basketball.