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Latest: NHL Picks

About Us

Headshot of JonHey guys, my name is Jon. I’m a 37-year-old father of two young children, and I’ve been a Leafs fan for as long as I can remember.

My first memories of NHL hockey are cutting out newspaper articles from the Leafs’ 7-game loss to St. Louis in the 1986 playoffs. My first clear memories are the Leafs blowing a 3-1 series lead against Detroit in ‘87, and those awesome Oilers and Flames teams in the late ‘80s.

Being a Leafs fan has made for a lot of years of heartbreak and frustration, but there are the good memories too, like the back-to-back conference finals in 93 and 94 under Pat Burns, and then a few years later under Pat Quinn.

I grew up in a religious home and I wasn’t even allowed to watch NFL football on Sundays. Somehow, I still ended up becoming a huge fan of sports betting. My OAC paper in phys-ed class was about Proline (one of the provincial sports lotteries in Canada)!

In fact, Proline was all that I knew about sports betting and I played Proline for years until finally giving up. I was pretty good at picking winners, especially underdogs, but I got frustrated with always coming within one game of winning money. So many tickets were lost because of the stupid Proline tie in football, when the team I picked won but not by more than 3.

About 10 years ago, Derek introduced me to online sports betting. Once I learned that you only had to bet one game at a time and that the odds were really good too, I got into it in a really big way. I’ve learned a lot about bankroll management and different betting strategies, and now I use sports betting to supplement my income. The extra money comes in handy with two kids in daycare, that’s for sure.

Derek and I decided to build this site because we love doing NHL betting and we love sharing that experience with others. If we can help others avoid the years of frustration that I suffered through playing Proline, even better!

Hopefully you learn a bit on NHLTips.ca and can make a few bucks following our free NHL betting tips, or making your own picks from what you learn from us.

Good luck.

Jon


Headshot of Derek

Hi, I’m Derek. I live in Burlington, Ontario which is about 30 minutes from Toronto. I’m 41 and I’m married with two small children.  

I never really got into Proline when I was younger as I figured out pretty quickly how rigged it is and how terrible the odds are. I played it a little bit but got frustrated pretty quickly by having to win multiple bets to cash a ticket. And when I could find edges the government was quick to take the game off the board.

I decided to start betting online but I didn’t know what I was doing. So I just tried to do it on my own and got burnt quickly. I opened up a Sports Interaction account in 2003 and confidently walked to the Western Union and sent them $100. I then went home and bet $25 on the Blue Jays and they lost. The next day I put $25 on another team (can’t remember who) and they lost as well. The next day I put $50 on the Cardinals because I was positive they would win… and that lost too.  

And with that my bankroll was gone.  

So I decided I needed to learn more about sports betting and managing my money if I had any chance of winning over the long run. I’ll never forget the night that everything changed for me. I was sitting on one of those big exercise balls browsing the Internet on my laptop and I started searching for how-to articles on sports betting. I stumbled upon a few excellent resources which covered various topics about how to be a successful sports bettor: money management, odds, juice, betting units, etc. and I was hooked. I think I read articles for about 7 hours that night – I couldn’t stop.  

The rest, as they say, is history. I figured out pretty quickly what I was doing and put a sound betting strategy in place. I started small, leveraged sportsbook bonuses in the beginning, and built my bankroll steadily over the years.

One of the keys to being successful and greatly reducing your stress level is to manage your money properly. It’s the most boring topic in the world but it’s SO important. It actually doesn’t matter how good you are at picking winners if you can’t manage your money. In the end, you’ll go broke.

I’m fairly conservative and won’t bet more than 2% of my entire bankroll on any one game. I almost always bet 1% of what I have available and I consider 2% my really strong bets.

As long as you know how to pick winners consistently and are managing your money properly you’ll have a lot of fun and less stress betting on sports. It’s not uncommon for me to go to bed at night with loads of money in pending bets. But I sleep great, because my overall risk is low. It’s not really that important if I win or lose that night because I’m good at what I do and I believe in the process. I believe in the plan. 

Good luck to you!

Derek.