When I opened Qoxhi Picks in 1981, I was asked more than once that if I could pick NFL winners, why didn’t I just make a living betting on the games?

My response at the time focused on my desire to share my insights and build a business instead of just being a gambler. Which, by the way, is a very lonely existence.

I have a more informed reason for sharing my information instead of just betting on my picks today. It comes down to the math of the activity.

In a typical season using the Basic Money Management strategy that has been available online since 2001, an NFL season will produce a profit of 30 to 60 percent. If I wanted to make a good living, say $300,000 annually, that means I would need to start with an opening account balance of a million dollars.

I don’t have a million dollars to put at risk … and how about the years we don’t show a profit? Two of the past dozen seasons have had a bottom-line loss. When we lost 11% last season that would meant my year’s work resulted in a $110,000 loss. Now, there have been years when the Basic Strategy has doubled the opening account balance and a million-dollar profit would be a very good year. But investing requires steady application while not expecting over the top profit margins and guarding against inevitable down periods.

Now, there is another overwhelming factor in making money while wagering on football. Money results are never as good when money is the primary objective as when the work is focused on the investment prospects for a particular game. I have noticed when I’m looking to make money my judgement is skewed, while when my attention is solely on doing the work to implement the factors I know point to winners, the results are always better.

I do the work and allow Qoxhi clients to utilize the plays to generate profits.

Two things are important when looking to win while gambling … it’s not about the money and it’s all about the money.

It is not about betting to try to win money, but instead it is wagering on selections that are derived not from need but intelligence.

This is not double-talk.

If you are like most individuals who wager on sports, you will put more money on the games you are most sure are going to win. The problem with that is the games you are most sure are going to win are very likely the same games the players involved in the action are confident they are going to win. Those games, and we have decades of research to prove this, are the same contests that are most prone to have motivational factors that dull the favored team’s play.

If someone is thinking about money, they gravitate to exactly the wrong plays. If someone is focused on the strength of a point spread play, money success will follow.

Now, in a good season we will win about 70% of our Top Plays and 62% of overall selections. When we lose that 30% of our strongest plays we will have plenty of critics thinking it was a bad choice because the bet-on favorite won and covered. Our losses will consistently seem like a bad pick, but those “bad” picks win 70% of the time.

Winning is found in making the hard choices. And they are a lot easier to identify when focused on the elements of the game instead of the amount of the wager. The Basic Money Management strategy available online is there to shift my clients from wagering on what they think and instead follow the regimen of investing on what works.