Some of the most successful handicappers believe that tracking CLV is the best indicator of a bettor’s success. By CLV, we mean how often you’re able to beat the closing line. Let’s take a random NFL game as an example:

The Eagles are on the road against the Dallas Cowboys. This line opened with the Cowboys laying 5 points. As the week progresses, the line begins to move towards the Eagles, finally landing on a closing line of +3. Closing Line Value measures your ability to beat this number. In this example, if you had bet the Eagles at the opening number of +5, you would’ve successfully beaten the closing number. 

This exercise is important because you must know where you’re successful and where you’re not. If you are consistently betting favorites and beating the closing line, but unable to beat the closing line with favorites, you’ll know where your attention should go. Furthermore, you’ll want to know the exact percentage of times in a season where you beat the closing line. Of course, this is not the only thing that matters, and plenty of sharp handicappers will tell you this idea is nonsense – but I can guarantee you they can tell you their CLV percentages.

The goal is to beat the closing line between 50%-65% of the time, at a minimum.

We all know sports bettors who think they’re more successful than they really are. While it’s not a contest, you’ll want to know exactly where you stand on a sport-by-sport basis, as well as season and yearly results. It’s easy to fall into a trance of ‘I’m great at betting the NFL’ without having legitimate, real numbers to back up your statements. Whether you ever share your records with anyone, you should know exactly where you excel and where you struggle. As an example, let’s say you start tracking your bets for the NFL, NBA, and MLB seasons. After a full season of each sport, with several hundred data points, you can begin drawing some firm, real, and accurate conclusions. You can begin focusing in on sports and markets in which you succeed and begin to stay away from markets you aren’t as profitable in. We all love betting the NFL, but if your results suggest you aren’t very good at it, what do you do? Spend more time on profitable markets. What if you find that when you bet away favorites in the NFL, you don’t beat the closing line? What if the bet loses? What if you’re consistently losing when you bet on the Chiefs? Or the Patriots? Maybe your numbers are too high or too low on these teams? What are you missing when you handicap games involving these teams?

The moral of the story here is that tracking real, legitimate results can teach you a lot about your bets, if you allow it to.

I feel obligated to discuss this reason as to why sharp bettors track their plays. It’s truly a reality check for yourself, for a lot of the same reasons mentioned in section 2. It’s much like anything in life – you can’t improve if you can’t identify what’s going wrong. Tracking your plays consistently, every time will help you identify key tendencies you have. From there, it’s up to you to correct them. Remember that a single unit is valuable, and you must guard it at all costs.

• Action Network has an intuitive app for tracking your bets.
• BetStamp is a lesser known app, but was created by fantastic people and has many analytical aspects to help you learn about your tendencies.