About Lines with Landon

Who writes it

I’m Landon Folkers. I build the model, run it every week, and write the letter myself. I’m a software engineer and data scientist with a passion for football. I spent hours every weekend doing my own betting calculations by hand, trying to find an edge and make sure my money was on the right side of a number. So I built this model years ago and have been sharpening it ever since. Now I put what it finds in front of you.

How the model works, briefly

It prices every bet on the board against the number the book is actually hanging, using NFL play-by-play back to 1999 and closing lines for every game in that span.

On player props I stopped trying to out-guess the book. The market is the starting point and the job is to find where it is wrong, not to replace it — so the model begins at the book’s own number and corrects it from there, using what a price tends to miss: how a player has actually been used lately, the wind, who is at home. Correct nothing and you get the book’s number straight back, which is the honest default. And everywhere my projection has been measured to add nothing, it gets no weight at all.

Then almost everything gets thrown away. Most of the board does not clear, and that is the model working correctly rather than failing.

The standards every number has to clear

These are the rules I hold myself to, and they are the reason the letter is shorter than it could be.

• Every rate is graded at a real posted price, not an assumed −110. A bet at a price you cannot get is not a bet.
• Sample sizes are published beside the numbers. A hit rate without an n is a claim, not a measurement.
• Probabilities are corrected before they are printed. The model’s raw confidence has been measured against what actually happened, and the published figure is the corrected one — which is lower.
• If it does not clear, it does not ship. A market can go weeks without a play. The letter says so rather than filling the space.

Why I publish it

I share this because everyone deserves an edge, and everyone deserves to be shown smart bets each week. I do this research and modelling for myself — but if I can help you beat the books, I’m more than happy to share it.

What this is not

It is not a tip service and it is not a guarantee. Betting markets are priced by professionals, most bets lose, and anyone promising otherwise is selling something. The honest version of this product is a small number of bets with the reasoning and the price attached, and the discipline to say nothing in the weeks when nothing qualifies.

If you want to see the arithmetic before you see the picks, the guides are free and carry their own sample sizes, and the calculator will price any bet you like.

Contact

Questions, corrections and disagreements are all welcome — reply to any issue of the letter and it reaches me directly.