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NFL Betting

By: bestwebguide.net
MAr 05, 2008

NFL Betting

Betting on sports is certainly fun, but being successful at it, and eventually managing to turn pro is an entirely different ballgame. The golden age of the sports betting professional is right now though. There's so much information available on so many channels, that it has probably never been easier to handicap a match-up from every perspective. Take the NFL for instance, which is the most popular sport from a sports wagering point of view. There are countless sites on the internet that deal with NFL odds, betting tips and handicapping. While the information is out there indeed, very few websites actually bother to teach rookies how to use the available information.

In order to ever understand why successful handicapping works like it does, one needs to understand the basics behind the book's actions. Simple straightforward handicapping will never do. You need to reverse handicap games, that is, you need to take the bookmaker's actions into account, as well as the factors that influence his actions. You see, just handicapping the game the best way you can and then placing your money on a team according to your best judgment, places you in a flock with the squares.

The way squares go about their wagering is negative EV gambling, which means there's no way you'll ever make money like that in the long-run.

If your goal is not to make money in the first-place, but rather to just have some fun, then don't read on. You've probably already reached your goal, and I can respect that. If you do intend to make money though, you need to take a long hard look at the whole system, from an entirely different perspective.

Why did I say that square betting was a negative EV undertaking? Because the bookmaker's utmost goal is to balance the game as well as he can. That means he'll aim to get an equal number of bettors on both sides of a game, so that he can pay out the winners with the losers' money and keep the vig. Do you know what a perfectly balanced match-up translates into? A 50-50 coin toss. Something that a huge mass of people agree 50-50 on, can only be called that.

Now then, you lay the odds on a coin-toss, because you risk slightly more money on it than what you expect to win (because of the vig). If you bet on the line, you're faced with pretty much the same situation, only the bookie won't adjust the spread, he'll tinker with your return instead. Let's get back to the spread though. If you use reverse handicapping, you'll be able to take advantage of situations when the wager that you're placing is not on a coin-toss. As I said above, the bookie moves his lines to balance the game. When there's a sudden influx of square money on one side (usually that of the favorite), he overcompensates, thus giving birth to the hidden value.

Favorites are always big with squares. Even if they play on the road, against a potent underdog, they remain magnets for square money. In such situations though, statistically speaking, they're not all that hot SU, and they're worse ATS. Knowing that, and knowing that you should count on a square money influx, you should be able to exploit the hidden value. More often than not though, it's not that simple. The bookie himself expects the square money to start coming in, and he might just kill the value, by covering the bets himself or in some other way. Still though, he might also prepare for the sharps to hit the other side of the bet as soon as the squares create the hidden value.

The possibilities are numerous, and the difference between a good positive EV bet and a poor square-level one might be a mere matter of nuances. That's why one needs to be true "insider" to be able to locate value. Other tips for hidden value bets would be: unpopular types of bets, and unpopular games.

In order to make the most of your time spent playing poker, you need to make sure you have EV+ on your side. To do that, signing up to a rakebackdeal is imperative.

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