Let me answer a couple of your questions. Every week I feed every NFL matchup into my predictive algorithm, even though I don’t always turn those forecasts into wagers. The reason is simple: if the gap between my projected margin and the sportsbook’s line isn’t wide enough, there’s no value in placing a bet. For instance, imagine it’s a crisp Saturday morning in Ireland and my model pegs the Vikings winning by 11.5 points—but the books have them at minus 2.5. That nine-point overlay is a juicy spread, so I pull the trigger. By contrast, last night under Seattle’s bright stadium lights my model saw the Seahawks winning by 3 points, yet the market offered them at plus 1.5. That 4.5-point edge, while technically a win, isn’t large enough in my book to justify risking money—so I sit it out, even though I would have cashed in.

I could easily put every game out there for you, but I don’t—and for good reason. Offering every contest only encourages reckless parlay betting, which is the single worst wager you can make. Sure, the payout odds balloon as you pile on more teams, but the sportsbook’s built-in vig swells even faster. They don’t adjust parlay odds to true mathematical levels, so while you swoon over a six-team parlay hit, the house cuts you down over time. Those “Knuckleheads” bragging about one big parlay score eventually get annihilated by the worst sucker bets known to mankind.

This season my algorithm has been particularly sharp. I integrate fresh data each week and fine-tune dozens of variables. Home-field adjustments alone swing wildly—from a 6.3-point boost for the Detroit Lions playing at Ford Field to essentially zero uplift for the Arizona Cardinals in front of a skeptical desert crowd (did you catch the boos last night?). I also account for travel-exhaustion factors—short weeks with cross-country flights, bye-week freshness, shifting time zones—and these tweaks can shift my line by as much as eight points. These aren’t plucked from thin air like the blanket “add three points to every home team” rule you see on TV; they’re the product of years of trend analysis and variance studies.

To validate my system, I benchmark its accuracy against so-called experts. Take the six USA Today pundits who post weekly picks: over the first three weeks (48 games), their best forecaster hit just 24 spreads correctly, while the worst managed only 19. A 50% success rate is a guaranteed money-loser. If you’d bet $100 on every pick from the top analyst, you’d be down about 4.5% on your total wagers by now.

Remember this: you never truly “beat” the sportsbooks. What you beat is the public. Point spreads are shaped by the flow of public money, and sportsbooks continuously tweak lines and money-line odds to balance action. They want equal dollars on both sides so that, no matter which team covers, they collect a built-in vig—roughly nine percent of the handle. That’s why you see payoffs like “bet $110 to win $100.” The extra ten bucks is their margin of safety.

Hope that provides some clarity and keeps you from chasing bad bets. Oh, and for my NFC North family, I have the Pack by only 2 Sunday night, y Bears by less than a point, the lions by 14 and the Viks as I said earlier by 11.5. Good luck out there!