STFC and "sheep" pickers: why going chalk is actually the best strategy for most wins in a month

On Streak for the Cash, many players consider following the "sheep" pickers (those blindly following the favorite with the majority of the picks) a bad strategy. But are favorites really over favored by STFC players? This premise depends upon the reasoning behind what percentage should back each side of a prop: should the percentages accurately reflect the probability of each respective side winning, or should the larger percentage simply take the favorite? I.E. If the favorite wins 70% of the time, should 70% of picks back the favorite? Since the goal of STFC is to simply pick winners (and you don't have to consider value or losing money), the best strategy is to maximize your expected number of wins. With this in mind, the "sheep" are actually playing the ideal strategy: even if one side's chances are slightly above 50%, they're the better pick.

This theory is backed by the numbers: I analyzed 6,799 STFC picks between 2010 and 2011, and the favorite won 54.54% of the time. When I broke down these picks by sport/league, only in one instance did the favorite have a losing record: 9-13 (40.91%) in Auto Racing. In every other category, the favorite "sheep" pick won more often than the underdog. I also analyzed 1,649 picks from 2013, and this trend continued: 52.82% of the 2013 favorites have been winners. And the more confident the pick, the better the result: for all 2013 props with 75-100% of the picks backing one side, 56.22% of these favorites have won, compared to sides with 60-75% of the picks (46.29% correct) and 50-60% (47.09% correct).

Keep in mind that this strategy is ideal for picking most wins in a month, but not necessarily for getting a "streak". The premise behind Streak for the Cash is that each prop is close to 50/50, and  you need 27 wins in a row to win the grand prize "stash". Even if you are able to find an advantage of picking the favorite that has a 55% advantage every time, the chances of getting 27 correct picks in a row are .0000097%. If each prop is truly 50%, this falls to .00000075%. Basically, you have to get extremely lucky no matter what "strategy" you employ. However, when the goal is to get the most wins in a month, you want to maximize your expected number of wins: and picking the favorite every time is the way to go.