Pennywise Picks was formed in 2001 by a former sportswriter who, over the course of his years in the business, discovered some quantifiable trends in college football. These trends, when rigoroursly tracked, revealed inadequacies in the betting lines that casinos place on games. These inadequacies may be exaggerated by the fact that casinos move their lines in an attempt to balance the amount of money that is wagered on each side of a contest.

Thus, by finding a game in which one can combine certain statistical advantages with a fortuitous movement in that game's betting line, one can do quite well against the spread.

We have won 56.7 percent of our college picks since we began archiving them on the site in 2004. (We won 66 percent of our college picks in our first two seasons.) We only started making pro picks in 2005, so everyone we have made is archived here. We have won 62.4 percent of them. Our overall winning percentage since 2004 is 58.6 percent.

Once the decision was made to become a service available to the public, a debate ensued between our founders. Should we charge exorbitant fees (as the majority of pick services do) and have a small, wealthy client-base, or should we draw interest by making all of our picks free to the public for the first few years of our existence, so that we might prove our worth before asking anyone to pay a subscription fee? Thus, here we are, entering our fourth year online and all of our picks are free. All of our picks are archived. We are proving ourselves. We hope you enjoy our site! Go forth and prosper.