Football Betting: How To Make A Pick In A Suicide Pool

There are several rules and criteria which you should follow in order to make a successful pick in a suicide pool. When as many of the rules and criteria as possible match, then that is the team (or teams) that you should pick. So, without any further ado here are the rules and criteria:

1) Never, ever involve the Minnesota Vikings. Whether you are betting for them or against them did not make a pick in a suicide pool on a game involving Minnesota. You will be wrong! It's that simple. The Vikings have a loooong history of not doing what they're not supposed to do.

You can take a situation where outcome ‘A’ happens 19 times out of 20. Chances are the one time it didn't happen was in a game involving Minnesota. You could have a situation where outcome ‘A’ happens 18 times that of 20. Well chances are that one or both of the times outcome ‘A’ didn't happen involved the guys in purple. As a matter of fact try to avoid involving Minnesota in any type of wager whether it is baseball, horseracing or it even a slot machine at your local Indian reserve casino.

Just don’t do it.

We know that sometimes you have to pick them to win or lose-like in an office pool. Well either flip a coin or ask your mother in law to decide for you because when you are wrong (and you will be) you can blame something or somebody else. 

Honorable mention to the Oakland Raiders, they're almost as bad as Minnesota.

2) Always pick the home team. Although not every home team wins, statistics will show you that home teams win more than visiting teams. Last year the home team had a record of 146-109-1 (the tie comes courtesy of the Cincinnati Bengals, thank you very much).

3) Pick a good team. Don't pick a team with a lousy record i.e. Detroit, St. Louis, Kansas City in 2008. Try picking a team that made the playoffs last year.

4) Pick a good home team with a good home record. Last season the NFC South was 27-5 at home. Carolina was the only team that went 8-0 at home all year. Atlanta lost just one game at home. New Orleans lost two at home, but one game was against division rival Carolina and the other was against Minnesota (see!). Tampa Bay went 6-0 at home before choking in their last two games against the desperate Chargers and then the lousy Raiders (see again! We're not making this stuff up).

Honorable mention goes to the New York Giants and Tennessee who were each 7-1.

5)  Pick against bad teams. Bad teams lose a lot of games but they especially lose games on the road. But there is a special exception which brings us to rule number six.

6)  Don’t pick a game involving divisional opponents even if it's a bad team on the road. In a 16 game season were each team plays two games against each of their divisional opponents, that accounts for 1/8 or 12.5% of the schedule.

You get to know teams that you play often over the years and divisional games are twice as important in the standings, plus there are a lot of grudges and revenge factors in as well. Last year the Raiders (oh, those Raiders) lost at home to the Broncos but then beat them in Denver.

The Washington Redskins finished last in the NFC East division but they beat Philadelphia in both games. They beat the Cowboys in Dallas but then lost against them at home.

And of course we all know what happened between Miami and the New York Jets with the Jets winning in week one at Miami and the Dolphins clinching a playoff berth in week 17 with the win in New York.

8) Exploit trends. For example since 2003 the New England Patriots are 18-1 after a loss and 21-2 in the month of December. They have also won 14 straight games against the NFC.

9)   Finally, enter a suicide pool more than once. After using all the criteria you may find that you will have multiple options. But there will always be upsets and if you enter a pool three or four times you can afford to lose one of your spots as chances are that a lot of other people will have taken that team as well.

If the pool you have entered in is a bit too expensive to enter three or four times by yourself, go in with your friends. You can split the winnings. It’s better to have a third or a quarter of the prize money been nothing.