As we enter the back half of September, football season is in full swing. Nebraska is 3–0, and for at least a couple more days, Husker fans can continue believing this will be our year. Our office runs a fantasy football league and a college pick ’em pool. After a particularly poor week of college selections for me, I found myself thinking about how similar sports betting is to stock picking.

Gambling on sports has exploded in recent years as more states have legalized it. In 2024, legal sportsbooks took in nearly $150 billion of wagers. Early 2025 figures suggest the industry continues to grow at a rapid clip.

Based on common pricing in the U.S., you must win about 52.4% of your wagers to break even. That sounds manageable, just pick a few locks, right? Take the Week 3 college football matchup between #1 Ohio State and Ohio. Everyone knew Ohio State was going to roll over Ohio in that game. Sadly, it’s not that easy.

Bettors do not play straight up. They play the spread.

Oddsmakers set the spread to even the field and attract money on both sides, then adjust as bets and news hit the tape. Now the matchup looks like Ohio State −32.5 vs. Ohio +32.5. The question is no longer, “Who is better?” It is, “Are they better by more than 32.5?” Picking a likely winner is easy. Beating the spread is hard.

Stocks have a spread, too. It’s called the price.

This is where the investing lesson lives. Most of us can name strong companies: Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon, to name a few. The hard part is deciding whether today’s price already reflects how good the business is. Markets update quickly as information flows in. When a company is obviously great, the price usually says so.

So, the investing version of “Who wins the game?” is straightforward. The investing version of “Do they cover the spread?” is the real challenge. A great company can still be a poor investment if you pay the wrong price.

There are smart people building lines in Vegas and millions of bettors testing them. Even so, the efficiency of betting markets pales in comparison to the stock market. In the U.S., roughly $600 billion of stock changes hands every day (about four times 2024’s entire legal sports-betting volume), and it happens day after day as an army of professionals and their vast resources grind tiny edges down to nothing.

Picking the better team is easy. Beating the spread is hard. Picking great companies is easy. Beating the market at today’s price is hard. The most reliable way to win is to stop playing the spread and start owning the field.