Overview: How to use the Hilton Contest for contrarian handicapping

Every so often we remember a theory that we have been tipped off about but had not for a number of reasons taken the time to check it out. Now you can join us in this research in progress. The theory here is bet against the public plays at the Hilton Superbook Contest in Las Vegas.

Thanks to our friends at NSS, they post the contest results plus a weekly grid of how many times a team was picked by the collective contestants. They rank the plays with the top 5 highlighted in blue. Here are the NFL Week 12 selections and results.

The grid can be found here: http://www.nss.net/hilton_lines.asp

Week 12 Results

1. Pitt -6.5 L 21-16
2. Colts + 6 L 27-39
3. Cleveland -1.5 L 15-31
4. Lions +7.5 W 10-13
5. Bills +9.5 L 0-35

As you can see going against the "public" plays here would have netted +2.9 units.