Atharv Kumar Blog ISP
Starting out
At the beginning, I just wanted to see if I could turn free promo money into real profit, maybe a few hundred dollars or something like that. Some of my friends had been doing it for a while, and others just recently joined, and I figured if I went about it smartly, I could do the same thing, but make more and lose less. The strategy most people use is to look at Twitter accounts that post their favorite picks for the day. If a few different people were mentioning the same player, I would check their stats to see if it made sense. Most of the early picks I made were based on points or rebounds for players who had been really consistent. Prizepicks is simple enough to understand; you can choose anywhere from 2-6 of the picks that they offer, there are goblins and demons, which are easy and hard picks, which offer less or more money accordingly, and the more picks you have in one parlay, the more money you can make. Lastly, there are power plays, where every bit of the parlay has to hit, and there are flex plays, which pay much less but give more lenience, meaning 1-2 of the picks can be wrong.
The first few bets I made went very well. My very first bet was in September, before the ISP began, and I won a 3-man power play with LeBron James Over on points, Anthony Davis Over on points, and Kevin Durant Over on points. I placed $25 on it, and all 3 players hit, so I won back 25x5. Just like that, I had made $100. Next, I locked in Rudy Gobert over rebounds and Josh Giddey over points, and both of them cleared without a problem. I was only betting five dollars at a time, but seeing a quick win made it feel like the plan was working. I was not doing anything complicated. Just picking good players and trusting the numbers. It made betting feel almost too easy at first.
Looking back, those early wins gave me way too much confidence. I thought I could just repeat the same strategy over and over, but sports are random, and even great players have bad nights. Once a few losses started piling up, I realized that just picking based on averages was not enough. It made me want to dig deeper, thinking maybe I could beat the system if I just found better information.
Using Statistics
After few wins and many losses, I stopped trusting Twitter picks and started doing my own research. I would look up player stats, minutes played, fantasy points, and even matchup data before locking anything in. I felt like if I covered every angle, I could almost guarantee a win. I spent time looking at how defenses performed against certain positions. If a shooting guard had been dropping 20 points a night and the other team was ranked low against guards, I would take the over without thinking twice.
Sometimes it worked. I would hit plays where a player crushed their line and it felt like I figured it all out. Other times, I would lose for reasons that had nothing to do with the research. A guy would get injured mid-game, foul out early, or just not get minutes because the game was a blowout. There were bets where five guys on a six-pick flex would hit easily, and one player would completely miss by a mile, ruining the whole thing.
Even though I kept losing more often than I wanted, I still thought the research mattered. I felt like if I kept doing everything right, eventually the wins would start stacking up. It took me longer than it should have to realize that no amount of preparation could fully control the randomness of a single night in sports. I was still thinking I could outsmart something that is mostly built on chance.
Bad Luck
Once I started betting more, there were stretches were it seemed like it was impossible to win, like there was an invisible force pitting the players against me. All the research was there, all the stars seemed to align, the players would hit that exact line 90% of the time, everything looked great. And still, it would fall apart. One night, I had a slip where both kickers, Chris Boswell and Ka’imi Fairbairn, needed to hit simple fantasy point lines. Both missed by just a single point. It was a free promo slip, so it was not real money, but it was another hit in a long stretch of red.
The worst losses were the ones where all the picks in a parlay hit, except for one. I had an NBA flex parlay where Malik Beasley only needed 16.5 points plus rebounds. He finished with 7. Every other pick hit, but one player ruined it. There were nights where everything would look good for three quarters, and then the coach would sit the starters, and the bet would die with it. It made me realize that even if you do every part of your research perfectly, you cannot plan for everything.
These cold streaks changed how I looked at the whole project. It stopped feeling like a strategy game and started feeling more like survival. I was not trying to be emotional about the losses. I was not chasing with crazy bets. But it got harder and harder to pretend like logic alone could beat randomness. At a certain point, I started to realize that maybe winning was not about being smarter, it was just about getting lucky on the right day.
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Finding my Footing
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One of the bigger slips I make around December is another 6-pick flex play. I build it around Donovan Mitchell, Chris Paul, Rudy Gobert, and a few others who look like solid locks. Mitchell needs 5 assists. Gobert needs 2 made free throws. Chris Paul needs a basic points, rebounds, and assists total. Everything seems like it should hit based on matchup and recent stats.
It falls apart fast. Mitchell ends with 4 assists. Gobert hits his free throws but Chris Paul completely misses his PRA line. Two or three other players also miss. It shows me that even when every pick looks strong on paper, putting that many together almost always kills the bet. One or two legs is manageable. Six is asking for a perfect storm.
This slip shows me how dangerous it is to get greedy. The payout looks great, but it does not matter when even the best planned plays miss by small margins. From this point, I start avoiding 6-pick flexes and move back to 2-pick and 3-pick bets where I have more control.
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Big Risks
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After a rough stretch of bigger plays missing, I finally hit a smaller bet by keeping it basic. I take Giannis over 27.5 points and pair it with Jalen Green over 2.5 threes. Giannis clears it in the third quarter. Jalen Green gets hot early and cashes by halftime. The slip pays out without any stress.
I find both picks from looking at simple trends. Giannis is playing without Khris Middleton, so his scoring load is higher. Green has been taking more shots with the Rockets missing key players. The whole thing comes from basic logic. No overthinking. No stacking random props just for a higher payout.
This small win shows me that steady and simple is better than chasing the huge payouts every time. It feels better to actually win than to hope for some miracle on a 6-pick. From now on, I start treating every slip like a serious choice instead of a lottery ticket.
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Learning from Setbacks
After all the ups and downs, it becomes clear that the only real way to profit is by being steady. I see that trying to hit huge flex plays does not work in the long run. The big payouts look good, but they are bait. Small 2-pick and 3-pick plays with strong logic give a much better chance to stay profitable.
I start only making bets when I actually like the lines. No forcing picks just to have action. No stretching stats to convince myself. If the matchup is good, the trend is right, and the minutes are safe, then I lock it in. If not, I leave it alone. That simple change saves me from chasing and keeps my account steady.
Betting is not about swinging for the fences every day. It is about slowly building wins over time. That is the only way I find real success doing this.
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Consistency
After all the ups and downs, it becomes clear that the only real way to profit is by being steady. I see that trying to hit huge flex plays does not work in the long run. The big payouts look good, but they are bait. Small 2-pick and 3-pick plays with strong logic give a much better chance to stay profitable.
I start only making bets when I actually like the lines. No forcing picks just to have action. No stretching stats to convince myself. If the matchup is good, the trend is right, and the minutes are safe, then I lock it in. If not, I leave it alone. That simple change saves me from chasing and keeps my account steady.
Betting is not about swinging for the fences every day. It is about slowly building wins over time. That is the only way I find real success doing this.
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One of the biggest lessons I learn is to trust my own research more than anything else. It is easy to get caught up in Twitter hype or tail popular picks. But the bets that work best are always the ones I pick based on my own understanding of the game.
I learn to look at injury reports first. Then I check usage rates and minutes. Then I look at recent trends. If a player is in a better spot because someone else is out, that is the kind of angle I look for. If a player’s line is lower than usual for no reason, that is where value shows up.
Confidence comes from putting in the work before the bet. It comes from knowing that even if the slip loses, the decision to play it was smart. When I stick to that, the wins feel better and the losses do not bother me as much. In the end, trusting the process is the only way to survive in betting.
In the end, I withdrew $455, profiting $450 in about 4 1/2 months of slightly consistent betting.
