The Mikolas Method

Joe Mikolas had a problem. By 1972, his fondness for betting on football was beginning to cost him dearly and the time had come to put an end to that sort of thing. Which didn't mean that he would have to back off completely. Joe's troubles, you see, couldn't be laid at the feet of Sunday's pros, for he'd always found the National Football League no harder to handicap than horse races featuring Secretariat. Instead, the villains of the piece were Saturday's heroes. No matter how much time he spent analyzing upcoming games, Mikolas and college-football bets went together about as well as Scotch and ginger ale. As a result, autumn Sundays invariably began with Joe seriously behind for the weekend; and although he would often manage to wipe out his losses of the day before, you know what the smart-money boys say about catch-up football.

Mikolas four years ago set out upon what seemed to be a fool's errand: the improbable search for a winning college-football betting system.

Now, don't laugh. During 1973 and 1974, Joe's system hit on 60.6 percent of his picks (slightly better than 15 wins to every 10 losses), a percentage any inveterate plunger would gladly settle for. Still, the rush of skepticism you're feeling at the moment is understandable: Faced with college football's many imponderables and variables, it just doesn't seem possible to come up with a reliable betting system.

Before we get to Joe and his system, a few words on the subtleties of point-spread betting.

Football point spreads were established to make every game played between every school a 50--50 gamble, a far more sporting proposition than merely choosing which side will win or lose. To illustrate: If the University of Oklahoma's football team, perhaps the nation's finest in '75, were to play West Virginia University this fall, the Sooners would be at least a 25--1 favorite, which would prompt minimal betting activity on a win/lose proposition. But when expert handicappers install Oklahoma as perhaps 42 points better than West Virginia, an intriguing element is introduced: Who's to say a fired-up team of Mountaineers can't beat the spread by "holding" Oklahoma to a score such as 45--7? From a 25--1 bet offering little in the way of gambling appeal, an Oklahoma--West Virginia match--up has been transformed into an attractive pick-'em bet.

Bookmakers will now get their fair share of betting action. And "vigorish," the ten percent commission they tack onto customers' losing bets, is all they need to clean up. Aided by the vigorish (and figuring that most bettors risk the same amounts each time out), bookies can win less than 47.6 percent of the time and stay even, while their customers have to hit at just over 52.4 percent to achieve the same result. If you consider that point-spread bets essentially resemble 50--50 coin flips, the law of averages indicates that over the long haul, a bookmaker and his clients will both win approximately the same number of bets--and at that rate, the bookie eventually has to have you in his pocket.

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For almost a decade, Mikolas felt he had the key to a college-football betting system; he just didn't know where it fit in. That key was the home-field advantage, which handicappers judged to be worth anywhere from three to ten points a game. Mikolas thought its value was often more than that; he never forgot a complaint once lodged by a Rice lineman after his school was humiliated by Arkansas at the Razorbacks' home field in Fayetteville. As Mikolas recalls it, the Rice player said. "It's no wonder we got whomped so bad. What with 90,000 folks layin' on those lurid hog calls and wearin' red, we just naturally started fumblin' all over the place."

Although odds makers take such possible breakdowns into account when figuring point spreads, Joe felt he could award home teams a constant point total, which would then become part of an equation to be applied to all college football games. After experimenting with 1--15 points as the Home Field Point Advantage, he settled on 14. But he didn't know how to figure it into a betting equation.

One spring afternoon six months later, while watching The Dating Game out of sheer frustration, it suddenly came to Joe. Shouting. "Eureka! I've found it!" (or words to that effect), he grabbed a pencil and began scribbling furiously on the backs of old envelopes, canceled checks and book-club circulars. Within a few hours, he was ready for the start of the 1973 college-football season. "That year, I bet 261 games and wound up with 160 wins and 101 losses," he says. "In '74, I bet 262 games and did almost as well--157 winners. 105 losers. If the match adds up, I'll bet every game on the board."

Which is a major violation of foot-hall gambling's oldest axiom: Anything over eight bets a day is considered sucker play. For that reason, if you're a heavy bettor and you use the Mikolas Method this fall, there isn't a bookie in the business who won't give you the ring off his pinkie just to get your action. And maybe more. Says Joe: "In 1974, a friend of mine named Jack--a $1000--a-game bettor--used my system, meaning that every Saturday he was giving his bookie about $25,000 in business. As a concession, Jack got the guy to give him one point per game off the spread, meaning if Jack bet a seven-point underdog, he automatically had eight, and if he went with the favorite, he only had to beat six, right? Well, for three weeks in a row. Jack absolutely demolished the man. After the fourth weekend, his bookie suddenly left town and hasn't been heard from since."

To make use of the Mikolas Method for any given game, it's necessary to have the following information at your finger tips: last year's score, this year's game site, the starting time and the point spread. The most convenient sources of such data are weekly betting sheets, legally sold and widely available in major cities; but readers who want to work the Mikolas Method as a free exercise in gamesmanship can find the requisite information in any number of sports publications and newspapers. (One hedged bet here: Newspaper point spreads such as those syndicated by Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder often differ from actual betting lines by up to one and a half points a game.) Once you've gathered the necessary information, you're ready to begin.

The Method

1. First, scan the week's list of games and cross off those that match schools that didn't meet the previous year, Without this standard of comparison, the Mikolas Method can't be employed. Normally, no more than 40 college games are nationally listed and, except for the first Saturday of the season (when the number can reach 20), no more than 15 games each week will feature opponents who didn't play each other last season.

2. When college teams fall behind by 28 points or more, games have a way of getting out of control and ending in lopsided scores such as 62--7, as was the case last autumn when Oklahoma chewed up Oregon. No matter how much of a rout last year's game was, the maximum prior score to record under the Mikolas Method is 28--0.

3. To set up the Mikolas Method equation, follow betting-sheet style and list home teams below visitors and the previous year's scores in parentheses. To illustrate, we'll use the '74 Clemson-Texas A & M game, played at the Aggies' home field in College Station. In '73, Texas A & M won the game, 30--15:

Clemson (15)Texas A & M (30)

4. Next, add 14 points (the Home Field Point Advantage) to the previous year's score of this year's home team:

Clemson (15)Texas A & M (30) + 14 (H.F.P.A.)

5. Now add the point spread to the underdog's total or subtract it from the favorite's. (In '74's Clemson--Texas A & M encounter. Clemson was a 10-point underdog.) When that's done, total up your computation score:

Clemson (15) + 10 (point spread) = 25 Texas A & M (30) + 14 (H.F.P.A.) = 44

6. The 44--25 computation score favoring Texas A & M is not indicative of the probable margin of victory, for the point spread has already been figured into the equation. The computation score tells you only one thing: which team to bet. A computation-score differential of three to 21 1/2 points calls for you to place your usual-size bet. In the above case, the Mikolas Method showed the choice to be Texas A & M. which won the game, 24--0--and covered the point spread of ten.

7. When the computation score results in a difference of 22 points or more, double your average bet. As illustration, in '74, Indiana (which had lost to Michigan State by a score of 10--9 in '73) was a ten-point underdog at home against the Spartans. The Mikolas Method equation looked like this:

Michigan State (10) = 10

Indiana (9) + 14 (H.F.P.A.) + 10 (point spread) = 33

The computation-score differential of 23 points qualified the game for a double bet. Indiana lost the game, 19--10. but beat the point spread. Mikolas estimates that in double-bet situations, his system's efficiency goes from slightly better than 60 percent to just over 62 percent.

8. Bet underdogs as early in the week as possible, favorites just before game time. Primarily, this is done to give you maximum leverage if a game you've selected is played in foul-weather conditions, which generally result in lower scores and a last-minute lowering of the point spread. If the Mikolas Method shows your choice in a game to be a 21-point opening-line favorite and if by game time the field is a muddy quagmire, the spread will almost certainly drop by at least a point. If the favorite's margin of victory turns out to be 21, you now win a bet you'd have lost if it had been placed early in the week. The reverse holds true for underdogs in the same situation.

9. Be alert to the possibility of a "middle," a betting maneuver that can bring you a windfall with only minimal financial risks. By way of explanation, let's project into the current season. Last fall, Texas A & M, a two-point favorite at home, beat the University of Texas 20--10. This year, the game will be played at the University of Texas and. for the sake of illustration, let's say that the opening line on the game will favor Texas A & M by seven points. The Mikolas Method equation:

Texas A & M (20) -- 7 (point spread) = 13 Texas (10) + 14 (H.F.P.A.) = 24

The computation score of 24--13 dictates a wager on underdog Texas, which means your bet is placed early in the week. On Thursday, a freak accident occurs during an A & M practice: The Aggies' best defensive lineman inadvertently runs into the starting quarterback and both are injured too severely to play on Saturday. As a result, by Saturday morning, the odds on A & M have fallen from seven to three and a half points--and a situation calling for a middle has now presented itself. If you go ahead and bet A & M as a three-and-a-half-point favorite (you already have Texas as a seven-point underdog) and if A & M wins by four, five or six points, you win both bets. The most you can lose in this situation is the ten percent vigorish a bookmaker collects on your one possible loser. (For example, if A & M wins 24--14 and you've bet $100 on each side, you win $100 on A & M and lose S100 + $10 on Texas.) Notes Mikolas. "The only time I recommend trying to middle a game is when the betting line switches by at least three points."

10. If you bet big money, deal with a minimum of three bookmakers. This is advisable, says Mikolas. because your three bookies may all quote different point spreads on the same game, a reflection of how their clients are betting on the contest. If. for example, UCLA opens up as a seven-and-a-half-point favorite over Stanford and practically all of a bookmaker's customers like Stanford, he'll have to lower the spread to seven or perhaps six and a half in hopes of attracting UCLA money (if bookmakers wanted to go out on a limb, they'd be bettors). Should the Mikolas Method favor going with UCLA, you now have the game at an attractive price.

11. Don't be influenced by "inside information." If the information is any good, it will be reflected in the point spread--and even then it may be worthless. "I've gone against the inside information on every occasion where it contradicted my method, and I can't say I'm sorry," Mikolas reports. "In '74, the so-called smart money was heavily on Kansas State to kick the hell out of Missouri, an opinion based on inside information from Big Eight Conference handicappers to Las Vegas odds makers. Everyone I knew went with Kansas Slate, including my friend Jack, the $1000-a-game bettor who uses my system. But my computation showed the bet to be Missouri--and Missouri took K State apart, 52--15. The same kind of thing happened when everyone but me backed North Carolina State against North Carolina. North Carolina won, 33--14. The biggest argument 1 got all year, though, was when my system showed that Texas would easily beat Arkansas, It did, too--38--7."

And that's the story on the Mikolas Method.

Mikolas gave us his paperwork for the '74 season, and the math checks out. Assuming the same held true for '73 as well, the question finally comes down to whether two winning seasons prove out a system's worth or signify nothing more than a long lucky streak. In an effort to find out what the smart money had to say about the Mikolas Method, I laid it out for Jimmy the Greek at his home in Las Vegas. After studying the system for ten minutes, Jimmy said, "If a guy's crazy enough to bet this thing, he should tell his bookie about it in advance, 'cause the bookmaker will gladly give the guy the use of a limo. No system can beat the point spread."

There finally seemed to be only one sure way to give the Mikolas Method a fair test: Play it for a season. Supplied with $1000 of Playboy's money, that's what I did last fall.

I've been betting on football since 1969 and, until last season. I'd always stayed away from college games. I did that mainly to keep myself from thinking I'm a football junkie, which I am. On any N.F.L. Sunday, I'm up before nine o'clock (whether I've gone to sleep at midnight or at five), quickly out of the house and back with the San Francisco Examiner. and then it's coffee and a 15-minute look at the TV and sports-section pregame roundups. (Gotta check for weather and any late injuries.) I'll often research weather conditions. Let's say I'm interested in the Bills at home. If we're into November, I'll call Buffalo information for the number of the downtown Holiday Inn (every city seems to have one) and, after mentioning that I'm flying in from California that day, I'll ask what the weather's like. Buffalo's operators are very nice about that sort of thing. By 9:45, I've phoned in my bets, and from ten A.M., when the West Coast begins watching its first N.F.L. game, until four P.M., when the second game ends. I don't budge from the couch. I have cable-TV service, and occasionally I get to see four ball games. I try to resist the temptation to bet TV games just because they're televised, but I don't often abstain.

My bets are phoned in to my friend Richie, who passes them on to one of the bookies he deals with. Richie is from Philadelphia and is now a financial consultant in Los Angeles, Since I live in Sonoma. 50 miles north of San Francisco, and since Richie and I often compare stats, rumors and opinions of sportswriters who handicap for bettors' journals, such as Football News, my autumn telephone bills usually hit $200 a month.

Bettors should not be confused with fans: a bettor roots only for his money.

The reason I still bet the pros is that I'm good enough at it not to go into hock--and, more important, I love the action. Football is an interesting enough spectator sport, but when you've got money riding on them, the games become almost fascinating to watch, Bettors quickly become sensitized to pro football's more subtle nuances and inner rhythms, a heightened awareness that's triggered all season long by a number of standard game situations (such as having a ten-point lead late in the fourth quarter with your team favored by four--and knowing that the dog will score its gimme touchdown and thus screw up your day).

Now, with Playboy footing the bill and Mikolas pointing the way, I was more than happy to go up against the colleges last year, In fact, I could hardly wait for the season to begin. But the very first thing I felt was a rush of larceny. Screw participatory journalism: I could, after all. keep track of the Mikolas Method without actually betting it. If Joe's system turned out to be a bummer, I'd be up $1000 and nobody back at Playboy would be hip to it. (Bookies aren't famous for issuing receipts.) On the other hand, if the Mikolas Method came up aces, you can imagine the incredible self-loathing I would feel at winding up with a measly $1000 instead of a real bundle. I figured that if Joe's creation logged a season record of 150 wins to 100 losses, a system of graduated bets could easily result in a profit of $7000 to $10.000. Although the Playboy advance represented a Marantz receiver and a B.I.C. turntable, I decided not to nickel-and-dime myself out of a possible Porsche.

But if I was going to be a boy scout about that $1000. it was, nevertheless, incumbent upon me to search for an edge, and one angle quickly presented itself. The most crucial part of any football bet is, of course, the point spread, and with that in mind. I got in touch with Richie and two other gambling friends. Mike in Philadelphia and Kenny in New Orleans. My plan was for the four of us to compare point spreads each week and, after I'd run through the Mikolas calculations. they'd get my money down in the city offering the best price. Unfortunately, Mike had tapped out at the end of the baseball season--he's really a degenerate gambler--and was no longer on speaking terms with his bookies. And Kenny backed off after I mentioned that it's a Federal offense to transmit betting information across state lines. (What will the FBI think of next?)

That left Richie and me to clean up all by ourselves. Richie shopped around I.A. for our point spreads and confined himself to going with the Mikolas Method's double-bet selections. But I had no need for such trilling. I decided to bet the system flat-out, starting at $75 a pop and working my way upward.

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Joe had told me that the first full week of college action would offer only a limited selection of games matching schools that had played against each other the previous fall. Richie and I came up with 11 bets, and on Saturday morning, September 13, 1975--we definitely had a sense of history about it--I flicked on the radio and tuned in to the very first of my Mikolas wagers, Stanford at Penn State, with the Nittany Lions (beautiful nickname) rated a seven-point favorite. The paperwork called for a bet on Penn State:

Stanford (20--'74 score) + 7 (point spread) = 27

Penn State (24--'74 score) + 14 (H.F.P.A.) = 38

A piece of cake: Penn State won, 34--14, and I was up $75. There were two afternoon double-bet situations: Kentucky, a 12 1/2-point choice over Virginia Tech, covered by winning 27--8, and Indiana, a five-point pick over Minnesota, won by six, 20--14. I had two other afternoon winners, Northwestern over Purdue and Army over Holy Cross, but I also had three losers--Wisconsin, Illinois and Kansas. My afternoon bookkeeping: up $525 (three wins at $75, plus two double bets of $150), minus three losses at $75, including ten percent vigorish ($225 + $22.50). I was now up $277.50 and with any kind of break on the three night games, I'd be off to a fast start.

The evening action didn't pan out. North Carolina State, a three-touchdown favorite, was blown out by Wake Forest 30--22, and Houston, a double-bet ten-and-a-half-point choice over Rice, also took gas, 24--7, South Carolina salvaged what was nearly a disaster. The seven-point underdog Gamecocks held that betting line, losing to Georgia Tech by only six, 23--17. My joy had been tempered, but the first weekend was over and I was ahead $105. No complaints.

College football's second Saturday offered a Mikolas line-up of only nine games--and the results left me feeling like Marlon Brando's Zapata just after Joseph Wiseman slinks off and leaves him staring up at 9,000,000 federales who are about to begin blasting the shit out of him. Would you believe only two winners? !Ay, Chihuahua! I was down $435 for the day, and I immediately telephoned Mikolas.

"I don't understand it," Joe told me. "Maybe it has something to do with the new N.C.A.A. rule that allows visiting teams to carry only forty-eight players."

"But, Joe," I said, "six of my seven losers were home teams."

The third weekend brought more grief. Five winners, eight losers and another $375 down the tubes. Week four seemed to confirm that the system was strictly from hunger: only four winning bets in 11 games, and $210 more was sent air special to Los Angeles. At that point, double bets were 6--5, but overall, the Mikolas Method had logged a calamitous mark of 17--27, and I make it 3--2 that your mother can do better. I'd now donated $915 toward the cost of a bookie's Cadillac, and my own dreams of a Porsche had turned to dust. It was time to punt: I'd had enough.

The week after I became a real-money dropout, Joe's system--I kept book on paper--was a $30 loser (14--13), but then, on October 18, the figures read 16 wins, 10 losses, and if I'd been betting my $75 a game (and allowing for a 2--2 split on double bets), I would've picked up $360. The following week, Joe's selections were good for 13--12 and, more important, 5--2 on double bets. That would've been worth $195. The Saturday after that, I would have won another $202.50 (14--10), and on November eighth, I would have rolled up my biggest score of the season; the system was 17--13, including seven double-bet wins against three losses. If I'd had the cash or the courage to hang in, the bottom line on the eighth would've read plus $480. I began to feel as if I were being rebuked by Nemesis for having heeded Jimmy the Greek, but just as I was working my way into a towering funk, the Mikolas Method turned around again and closed out the season with losing slates of 16--16), 10--12 and 3--5.

Which in no way left me feeling vindicated for having turned tail. When I added up all the figures, the system had finished with an over-all record of 120 wins and 118 losses; but because the double bets had turned out remarkably well, my season net loss would have amounted to only $217.50. Considering the abominable start, Joe's creation Hadn't done all that badly.

I happen to think the Mikolas Method has more than a modicum of validity but needs further refinement. Specifically, an adjustment must be made for football programs that undergo significant change from one year to the next. That doesn't happen very often: but when it does. Joe's system isn't geared to cope with it. For instance. Wake Forest was 1--10 in 1974, but last fall, the school finished with a 4--7 record, and three of its losses were by a combined total of five points. Because of its awful '74 performance, however, Wake Forest was a double-bet Mikolas underdog in games where the point spread was as low as three. As a result, the Deacons were responsible for three of the system's 21 double-bet losses. If a point factor had been introduced to compensate for the team's improvement, those particular games might have added up to a $450 profit instead of a $495. loss, a switch of $945. That, as any bettor will tell you, is your season right there.

Wake Forest notwithstanding, the Mikolas Method's double-bet picks did inordinately well. I finished with a 30--21 mark in that department, for a 58.8 percent win ratio. (Mikolas was 33--23, or 58.9 percent.) This is the third straight season that Mikolas' doubles have finished solidly in the black, and I'm of the opinion that these four-or five double bets a week will not prove hazardous to your financial health. In fact, if I'd stayed exclusively with double bets in '75, I would have come away with winnings of $1035. That's not exactly a Porsche, but it would have been the Marantz receiver and the B.I.C. turntable. Maybe two turntables, just for the hell of it, 'cause there's no way Playboy could have pried that $1000 back.

As it is. I wound up with the BIC. Not the turntable--the cigarette lighter.