An ex-footy player vs a pro bettor, I know which opinion I'd be listening to.

I totally agree with goldmember. Most so called 'experts' probally couldn't pull a profit by the end of the season to save their ass.

Most tipsters rely alot on their gut/feelings, and not the numbers. They don't know how much home advantage is worth at a particular stadium, they don't know exactly how well a team performs on the road etc. They don't know how well dogs perform on the road or at home. Unless you have the numbers in front of you, it's impossible to come up with an acurate estimate of the spread or score. If you're making rough estimates off the top of your head and not using the numbers, you have almost no hope of beating the bookies.

Mo, I think you'd have a much better chance of profiting using your own techniques etc. With the work it'll take to analyze all these tipsters etc you could be halfway through building an NRL computer model.

BTW, I'd use excel if I was you. If you do decide to create a program later, the info is already on the computer.