Savage, Oh there would be some capper that had an "angle" on what you said being false. You're right, if they bet their own picks they wouldn't have to sell the picks. If they were real gamblers and had any balls at all they'd be sitting at a poker table using some skill. Instead they feed off people actually pay them money for these "games of the year" (seems like every day is their "GOY.")
I was picking games in Nov and Dec and was on a 17-0 run (luck) - now since the bowl games I'm still playing with house units but my profits fell. It's 50 % luck and with college it's way too much emotion to gauge.
Path-17-0 is not to be taken lightly.
It sounds like at the very least you can at the very least hold your own with the great majority of cappers based on your own knowledge.
In any case, as I have said before, the "best" cappers are for the most part those who have the marketing "skills"(a nice term for the best line of bullshit) to get folks to buy their picks.
I took one look at Ness's 27 unit game on Missouri along with a few other sycophant services which followed, and said to myself "No way a team which was 13-2 going in should be an 11 or 11 1/2 point dog to another team which was 14-2, or at the very least a game which has GOY status."
ps the problem is that many services see a line like the Missouri line last night and just assume it is a linetraper trap and don't consider that there are also just as many linemaker mistakes.