PrizePicks Strategy (CBB)

My Personal CBB PrizePicks Strategy

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Intro

I want to preface this by saying there isn’t one right way to play on PrizePicks. You can be profitable long-term with 2/2, 3/3, 4/4, 5/5, or 6/6s (and everything in-between). I don’t have the secret key to being profitable in terms of what specific strategy you use.

There is a specific key to being profitable over the long term, though. Win individual plays. Regardless of the strategy you employ, the players that win more individual plays will win more often than others.

It’s simple. It isn’t always understood, though. If you’re hitting on 70% of your individual plays, you’re going to win more over the course of a season than someone hitting 55% of their plays.

In this article, I’m going to break down my personal strategy, options you can employ around this strategy, the most important process to consider, and why your confidence is important to your bets.

Strategy

I feel I have a slightly different strategy than most on PrizePicks. Granted, it depends on the size of the slate and how many plays are available, but I’m going to outline what I do for bigger slates. We’ve had 18 CBB plays for both of the last two days, and that’s what I’m going to use for this example as well.

I really want to emphasize that this isn’t the only strategy, and it may not even be the most +EV. I’m also a riskier gambler. I always have been, and I don’t foresee that changing. The strategy I employ is extremely risky, but it also comes with plenty of upside. Don’t worry, I’ll explain how you can limit this risk in the next section.

For this example, we’re going to pretend we have 18 CBB plays. I’m going to make a total of nine 6/6 plays on PrizePicks with those 18 plays. Each player will be used three times.

The first aspect of my strategy is getting the 18 plays. You will all already have these from my email, although you don’t have to use all 18 of my plays. You can add or subtract any that you want.

Next, I’ll rank them all from 1st to 18th. Then I’ll break them up into three brackets of six plays. My favorite six with be the first bracket, and my next six will be the second bracket, followed by the final six. These are three of the 6/6 plays.

My next set of plays comes from the first and second brackets. I’ll take my favorite three plays in the first bracket and pair them with my favorite three plays in the second bracket. My final three plays in each bracket will then be a play. This equals two more plays for a total of five.

I’ll do this for a combination of the first and third brackets and then the second and third brackets, which totals four more plays. Overall, we’re at nine 6/6 plays now. Keep in mind, I will make SMALL changes so I don’t have the same three players in every play.

I understand this is probably a bit confusing, so I’ll add some visual aid. These are legitimate photos from what I’ve done the last two days. I make these every night, and this is how I stay organized on what I’m working on.

As you can see, there are three players outlined in red that don’t have any numbers next to them. These were three leans that I opted not to play. The other 18 plays were official plays, and that’s where I made my nine plays from.

These were the 18 plays from last night. This is what I’m going to use to explain the example.

The easiest way to see how I broke them up is to look at the initial 1-3 numbers. The players with 1 next to them were my favorite six plays, followed by the 2s, and then the 3s.

It starts getting more interesting when you hit 4. As you can see, my favorite three players on the slate were Quentin Post, Sean Pedulla, and Erik Stevenson. These were the 1s I used in the first “4” play. These were followed by my favorite three plays from the 2s - Ryan Kalkbrenner, Miles Kelly, and Eric Dixon.

The 5s are then made up of the six players from the 1s and 2s that I didn’t use. In this case, it was Jesse Edwards, Kendric Davis, De’Vion Harmon, Kevin Obanor, Umoja Gibson, and Darin Green.

Now, it gets a bit more interesting when you use a set for the second time. I personally make a SMALL change here. This can be seen in my set of “6” plays. My favorite two plays for the 1s were Post and Pedulla, so I kept them together. I swapped Stevenson for Gibson, who was my 4th favorite 1.

I opted to do this because I don’t want three players locked into all three plays that I make. That automatically ruins each of those three plays if one loses. As you can see from last night, I ruined all of my Post plays with Pedulla, which is something that can certainly happen when you’re using this type of strategy.

Essentially, you’ll have to have two players from each set that are in all of their plays together. That’s just the way it works.

You then take the final three players from the 1s and the 3s.

Next, you repeat this with the 2s and the 3s. You then take the remaining six players, and that creates your final 6/6.

If this is still confusing, comment any questions you have. Others may have the same questions, so I’ll answer everything there!

Profitability

This is such a risky strategy because of how much money you’ll be playing each night. A bad night is extremely damaging, but a good night is great for your bankroll. I’ll never pretend this isn’t a high-risk, high-reward type of strategy.

I’m of the belief that 1 unit = 1% of your bankroll. That’s what I’m going to be referencing for this section. Essentially, if you have a $1,000 bankroll, 1 unit would be $10.

If you’re betting 1 unit on each of these plays, you’re betting 9 units per night. That essentially gives you 11 nights of losing before you’re out of money. Keep in mind, you don’t have to hit the full 6/6 to win some money back on PrizePicks.

On any given night, you’ll have to hit only one 6/6 to make a profit. It’s +24 units when you hit the full 6/6. That’s a +13 unit profit, assuming you hit one 6/6 and lost all of the other eight outright (3/6 or worse on each of them).

If you want to look at the last two nights for what I’ve specifically gambled, here’s how it breaks down. I bet a total of 18 plays, winning three 6/6 and a 5/5 (Kevin Obanor pushed). I also “hit” 9 4/6 and 1 5/6. Here’s how that breaks down in terms of profit:

• Bet - 18 units

• Won - 90.6 units

• Profit - 72.6 units

If you’re betting $10 per unit (based on bankroll), you’d be up $726 over the last two days. Keep in mind, there aren’t 18 plays every night, and we’ve been hot the last two nights. You won’t find this much success on a nightly basis. It just isn’t possible.

It is possible to win over the long term, though, and this shows the pure upside of this type of strategy.

Options

You don’t have to employ this specific strategy, though. You can employ similar strategies while making it a bit safer. I don’t mean safer in terms of plays. I mean safer in terms of bankroll. Allow me to explain.

You can play this exact strategy but lessen your units. For example, my strategy costs 9 units in a night. You can simply lessen your units. This takes away a bit of risk, but it also takes away a bit of the upside.

For example, you can change each 1-unit bet to 0.5 units or 0.33 units. Here’s how each of them would breakdown (unit size, possible losses, possible gains):

• 1, 9, 216

• 0.5, 4.5, 108

• 0.33, 3, 72

As you can see, your risk and reward each drop as you drop the amount you put on each play. It allows you to run this strategy without taking all of the overall risk that would come with a full loss.

This isn’t the only way you can maneuver this strategy to potentially take away some of the risk. You could potentially run the nine 6/6 along with some type of “safer” play. Here’s an example.

To keep this simple, let’s say you’re planning on spending 9 units on the 18 plays overall. You could spend 0.5 units on each of the nine plays. This would take up 4.5 units, and you would have 4.5 units remaining. You could spend the final 4.5 units on a 2/2 with your favorite two plays.

If your 2/2 hits, you profit 4.5 with all of your 6/6 plays remaining. You could potentially do this in several different ways.

For instance, you could spend 0.33 units on each of the nine 6/6 plays, giving you 6 units to spend on a 2/2 or a combination of 2/2s, 3/3s, 4/4s, or 5/5s.

I’ll continue to say, there is no one way to bet on PrizePicks. There are a million different ways that you bet and be profitable over the long run. There isn’t one individual way that is drastically better than other ways. It all comes down to risk and preference.

Process

You’ll also hear me say this a million times - your process is everything. If your process is correct, you will be a profitable bettor. If your process is off or inconsistent, you’re going to lose your money.

There are far too many people that care about individual nights. They’re absolutely meaningless. Enjoy the wins, but don’t sweat the losses. That’s the biggest key to sports betting.

Why don’t single bets or nights matter? Variance. Sports are inherently volatile. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost a bet by a single missed free throw late in a game by someone that shooting 80% or higher.

You could have six plays in a night, and have the exact process you need to win. These plays could go 0/6. It’s meaningless. The sample size is entirely too small. You have to be able to take a step back and look at how you’re performing over a month, season, or longer.

The most important part of the “process” is bankroll management. You have to be able to stick to this, or you’re going to lose all of your money. Virtually everyone struggles with bankroll management, and it’s one of the biggest factors as to why people lose their money gambling.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone put $25 on a 6/6. They go 3/4 on the first four plays with two left. They get pissed that they can’t hit the 25x, start tilting, and throw $50 on the final two plays because “they need to win it back.”

Once one of those two loses, they’re down $75 instead of $25. Why? They didn’t stick to their process, and they didn’t stick to their bankroll management.

The most important part of betting is having a correct process along with proper bankroll management. With these, you’ll be profitable over the long term. Without them, you’re going to lose all of your money.

Confidence

Here’s the number one thing that you need to remember when betting - it’s your money. You’re not betting with my money, so you shouldn’t strictly be doing what I tell you. That’s why I don’t send out actual slips.

You should only be putting money on plays that you feel confident in. If you aren’t confident in it, skip it. I’m not going to hit 100% of my plays. I will lose at times. It’s inevitable.

We can look at my plays from yesterday just to show you that my most confident plays aren’t always my best plays. Here’s how they performed:

• Favorite 6: 3-2-1

• Second 6: 4-2

• Last 6: 4-2

My WORST section was my favorite six. If you just wanted to look at my favorite plays, I went 1-2 on those. My favorite play by a wide margin was Quentin Post, which hit. Generally, I don’t have one play that I love significantly more than the others like last night. The next two were Sean Pedulla and Erik Stevenson, which didn’t hit.

I appreciate everyone following along on this journey. We’ve had some awesome results on PrizePicks. The truth is, I don’t have a crystal ball. I’d love to tell you that I know what’s going to happen, but that just isn’t the case.

I will always tell anyone my favorite plays if you ask. I have no problem letting you know which plays are my personal favorite, but that shouldn’t change which ones you like the most.

You’re gambling with your own money, and you should only make bets that you feel comfortable with.