It really is a game of skill. And that's killing the industry. The good players, with a big bankroll and computer support, can win. Everybody else is a sucker. Like the stock market. So the suckers are bailing.
Yeah, but in most games of skill you have some system in place to ensure your best players don't drive away the worst. When money gets involved things become murkier though.
It's not about tying their arm behind their back, it's about putting skilled players against skilled players. In pretty much any skilled game you have rough tiers that people of similar skill level face eachother.
In general, high school teams don't play against pro teams. And if they do, we don't call the high school team "suckers" if they lose.
> The good players, with a big bankroll and computer support, can win.
That's pretty much the key to winning on these. Whenever they interview a 'big winner' they all seem to do the same thing - play a bunch of picks for each bet to spread out their chances. This of course is not what the little guy does or can do. There's so much 'luck' involved that you have to spread it out to have any hope of any sort of consistent winning.
That's also why there are more multi picks vs single-only picks available. The big guys can then buy bunches of entries in multi-pick contests.