How to Bet on Sports
If you’ve come here looking to learn how to bet on sports you’ve come to the right place. Hopefully once your done with our articles that we like to call sports betting 101 you will be much better educated on the subject of sports wagering and ready to beat the bookie!
When one first approaches either an online sportsbook or one in in a Las Vegas casino, it can be a bit overwhelming. First, we suggest that you become familiar with sports betting terms so you can understand the sportsbook industry lingo.
So you wanna bet some games. Are you going to make your selections blindly based on what you read in the newspapers or hear on ESPN? Initially, this is probably how most bettors start. This is also how most bettors lose. If your going to bet on sports and break even or even get a sniff of winning, your going to have to handicap the games. This is sort of like stock picking. You wouldn’t blindly buy a shares in a company without looking at their past statistics and performance, right?
Sports handicapping consists of many different variables. There is no real right way or wrong way to ‘cap games either. What works for one guy may now work for the rest. However, there is some common ground that we must all consider if we want to be successful in picking more winners than losers.
For starters, you will need to be patient.
While the bookie puts out every game on the board as a bettable game, there are very few games that offer value. You only want to be on a game in which you feel that you have an overlay. (information and odds in your favor).
You must be very well disciplined.
Avoid playing games in which your favorite team or favorite player is playing. These factors and can will skew your vision and created a biased opinion which will end up costing you.
Check out stats on how both teams have played lately.
See who is hot and who is cold. Break it down even further by figuring out what players are hot and which are cold. Do this for approximately the last 5 games in baseball, 3 games in basketball/football. Also know how teams do on the home vs. the road.
Other factors to be heads up for include checking lineups before the game starts to make sure key players aren’t sitting, injury reports, weather and more. You will see lots of trends and angles on the web, but don’t make a play based solely on that info. What happened years ago really has no bearing on what happens today. It’s very rare in professional team sports that one team “owns” another as well, so beware of those type of stats.
Don’t put alot of weight into trends and angles.
The past is the past and very few trends lead to what will happen in the future.
Bet on bad teams!
That’s where you’ll often times find the best value when battling a pointspread! Note that spreads that look too good to be true usually are! Go against these and reap the benefits over the long term.
Avoid betting on too many games.
The sportsbooks are forced to put out lines on each and every game, you however have the advantage over them because you aren’t forced to bet on every game! While it’s fun to do so for “action” reasons, it’s murder to your bankroll.
Don’t bet on your favorite teams
You may have a natural bias towards your favorite team that will cloud up your rationale when cappping the game.
Avoid sucker bets.
You wouldn’t bet the big 6 or big 8 at the craps table because they don’t give you odds. Well why would you bet a sucker bet where the odds are stacked against you in sports betting? Namely, we’re talking about avoiding gambling on teasers and parlays. Their fun but hard to beat.
Stick with situations in which you have “the edge”.
This will amount to long term profits which is the only way to approach sports gambling if you want to be a winner! Take our advice!
Know teams starting lineups, injuries, and weather situations.
This info can be key! How’d you like to bet on the Giants and find out Barry Bonds is riding the pines? Yuck! Steer clear of Teasers and Parlays! – More than 70% of teasers wins would have won anyway! Your just throwing away juice! Besides, it’s hard enough to win one game much less two!
Find out what teams play more motivated off a loss.
There are many teams that will come back and open up a can on their next opponent if they were beaten on their home court in their last game or if their current oppenent ran up the score in the last meeting. This is a great angle that can actually work if the team shows motivation off situations like these.
Watch for line moves.
If there is significant movement in odds or point spread, there is a reason. Often times it’s a lineup issue but other times it may be that one side of the game (one team) is getting pounded with action so the oddsmakers are moving their lines accordingly to try to make the other side attractive to bettors to jump on and bet. Find out the reason why the line moved and if it’s got good reasoning behind it, consider betting it yourself, but not if it’s moved too much.
Lastly and most importantly, you will need to know how to manage your bankroll. Don’t bet the whole thing on one game unless your a thrill seeking action junkie who is ok with losing it all. Don’t bet it all chasing losses you have incurred either.
Your average bet should be no more than 2-3% of your current bankroll.
This means that if your bankroll is $1000, you shouldn’t be betting more than 20-30 dollars on any one game. You are going to hit highs and lows while gambling. You need to be able to sustain the bad times and stay afloat, hence the importance of managing your loot correctly. You wouldn’t get your paycheck and go blow it all on the first day would you?
Sportsbook Beginners Guide
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