How to Win Betting Football
How To win Betting Football
You want to learn how to win betting football this year? Tired
of always coming out at the wrong end of the figure column?
Tired of combing the net for free nfl picks Well, sit back, read
this article, and by the time you are finished, I guarantee you
that you will be a tough player for the sportsbooks to beat.
Don't expect miracles. It can take many years to become a
seasoned pro. However, by following some simple guidelines, you
can drastically improve your play and be well on your way to
becoming a "sharp" and certainly will do better than randomly
playing the free picks you'll find on the net.
There are three keys to being successful betting sports.
1) handicapping/picking winners
2) money management
3) line value
With all three, you need DISCIPLINE
All three are equally important. I've seen plenty of very good
handicappers go broke because they weren't able to manage their
money and weren't able to understand line value. Of the three,
handicapping is probably the LEAST important. Those that are
able to spot value and know how to manage their bankroll, can
win without the slightest clue how to handicap a game.
But let's start with handicapping. Of course there's allot more
to handicapping than I am going to be able to talk about here.
But what I will do, is give you some key pointers to point you
in the right direction and instantly improve your chances of
winning.
We'll start with power ratings. You need a number to beat a
number. Nebraska is playing Florida ST and Fla St is -6. Is that
the correct number? Or is that a number put up in an attempt to
get even action on the game? Sometimes, it's both. But the games
you're looking to bet are the games where the number/pointspread
is NOT the actual difference between the two teams, and there
are plenty of opportunities to find these games. That's where
our power ratings come in.
I keep my own power ratings. Allot goes into them and I couldn't
possibly teach you here in the space I have. But you don't need
to keep your own power ratings. There are some ratings available
for free, or for a few bucks, and all do a decent job. The Gold
Sheet is one such publication. They have been keeping power
ratings for decades and do just about as good of a job as
anyone. Teamrankings.com is another source of power ratings.
Just do a google search for football powerratings and you'll
find plenty, and some of those are kept by some very sharp
mathematical minds.
Once you have your ratings, you can assign a line to each game
on the card for the coming week, and then compare it to the
actual betting lines. You're looking for significant differences
between the power rating and the betting line. Those are the
games you want to zero in on.
But you can't just use a power rating. That's just a starting
point. From there you need to to take a look at other factors
that could influence the game. Weather, injuries, revenge,
etc.etc. For example, you may find a significant difference
between the power rating and the line, but further research may
tell you that the reason for the big gap is a key injury in the
game.
I mentioned revenge above. In my opinion, psychological factors
in games are often overlooked but can be absolutely HUGE in
determining the result. Particularly in college football. Maybe
it's revenge for a blow out at the hands of their opponent the
year before. Maybe one coach said negative things about a player
on the other team. The list goes on and on but any bulletin
board material is worth looking in to. Coaches routinely use
these motivational factors when they prep their teams for
upcoming games, and these motivational factors work!
I once played on a hockey team that lost 19-2. Three weeks later
we played the same team again and beat them 6-0. Why? Because
for one thing, our coach had us wanting blood/revenge for the
19-2 drubbing we took 3 weeks earlier. He had us in a frenzy.
Another key factor was Bobby Orr was going to be at the game
that night. Our team knew about it. The other team didn't. What
kid doesn't want to play well in front of Bobby Orr???
Now had you been able to bet on this game, and had been able to
find out Bobby Orr was going to be there, and added in the HUGE
revenge motive we had, you could have cashed a nice bet on our
team who would have been a fairly good sized underdog going in.
All things being equal, the other team was probably better than
us. They may have beaten us 9 out of 10 times. But there was no
way they were going to win that particular night.
Situations like this arise each and every week in college
football. Take note.
Trends are another misunderstood area. To me, trends are 90%
useless. There may be one or two trends worth their weight, but
the majority of the trends you'll find printed on the net or
elsewhere are trends that are discovered AFTER the fact. It's
easy to go back over a large sampling of games and find trends
that WOULD have won had you played them from the starting point.
You may read a trend that says some college football team is
10-0 against the spread after losing by more than 20 points the
week before. Well that's just great. But who knew that when they
were 1-0 after losing by 20?? Further more, you could start
playing that trend now and go 0-5. But guess what, you'll still
see that trend hyped next year. It will say that the team is
10-5 after losing by more than 20 the week before. Hey, 10-5
still looks good doesn't it?
You get the point. Forget trends. 90% are garbage and the ones
that are meaningful, everyone knows about them, INCLUDING the
oddsmakers, so this is already reflected in the betting line.
One last tip in the handicapping department. A method you can
use to isolate solid selections each weeks is the yards per
point method. It's a very simple, yet very effective way to come
up with your own number on a football game. I've written a
separate article about YPP.
If doing the above work doesn't appeal to you, there is one
other thing you can do. Hire a handicapper. Now granted, 90% of
the so called professional sports services are complete jokes.
But there are a select few. Contrary to what you may think,
using someone else's selections isn't taboo. Some of the most
successful sports bettors in the world aren't handicappers
themselves. They have professional handicappers which they hire
to work for them. Now these handicappers aren't the commercial
handicappers you see in magazine ads or on TV on Saturday
mornings. They are generally professional bettors and players
themselves, and look to fatten their own bankrolls by going to
work for one of the big money players that are out there,
generally receiving a percentage of the win or a free roll on
their plays for a certain amount per play.
While you won't find one of those guys, you may be able to find
a handicapper who can consistently win. In which case, you would
then need to focus on the other two key factors involved with
winning. Money Management and Line Value.
For more information on betting on sports, please visit Bettorsworld.com