Sports Betting 101- How to Bet Against the Point Spreads
Most novice gamblers end up losing their proverbial shirts year in and year out, most failures can be directly attributed to poor money management practices but many more failures are also due to a complete lack of knowledge with regard to how to handicap that particular sport and the factors/situations that come into play week in and week out. First of all a “Point Spread” is defined as a number placed on an event for wagering purposes and is often expressed in terms of the amount of points one side must spot the other side as a means of evening the playing field for both the favorite and underdog, in most cases a money-line is also attached to the same event so that one may simply wager on either the favorite or underdog to win without having to lay points, keep in mind that its usually football and basketball games that have point spreads. If there is only one bit of advice that you take from this article, I hope it is this…Keep your eyes and ears open!! I bet you’re wondering “huh” right about now aren’t you? When I say keep your eyes and ears open I am referring to the radio, the TV, and the local newspapers in your area, often local team beat writers glean information from team players or team sources and use that same information for their local radio or TV shows or for the articles that they write for the local newspapers, this same information can be very valuable to you as a gambler if you are able to dissect what is important and what is not and then act upon the important information before the rest of the world does, this gives you what is referred to as an “edge”. Get in the habit of having the local sports talk shows on the radio when you are driving or working at home on your computer, know what time the local nightly sports show comes on television in your area, pay special attention to the sports section of the local newspaper each morning over coffee or breakfast. The idea is to absorb as much information as you can through out the week and prior to game time, know who is returning from an injury or who is nursing a nagging knee or ankle injury that may slow them down, know if there are any “cluster” injuries along the offensive or defensive lines which can impact the upcoming game, know if your local team is playing at home and if there are any possible weather concerns. The point of the matter is that you have a wealth of information at your fingertips with regard to the local college and professional teams in your area and in most cases this information can be accessed by you before the rest of the betting public learns about it and you can use this to your advantage, by no means am I saying to disregard the rest of the teams in the league and not care what is going on with them, what I am saying is that if you want to defeat the posted point spread you have to look for edges and often an edge can be found by concentrating on local information about local teams. I advocate using multiple “outs” for placing wagers as a means of garnering the best possible point spread on any game you intend wagering on, in this day and age a gambler has access to many off shore sports books and it’s a good idea to utilize at least three or four of these for line shopping purposes, but remember to do your homework before simply signing up with just any off shore sports book, most are reputable but some are not. However it is also a good idea to have a local book that you can place wagers with for the express purpose of wagering against local teams, remember that local teams are also generally popular teams to wager on for the local run of the mill gamblers in your area, meaning that you must usually lay a higher point spread number if wagering on a local team thru a local book, thus the rule of thumb is to use off shore books when wagering ON local teams but use local books when wagering AGAINST local teams. If you want to defeat the point spread you have to remain ahead of the proverbial curve, this means that you must out-work other gamblers with regard to having and acting on information before they do, I personally do a ton of off-season work and I recommend that you do the same, for example, it’s a good idea to go over each teams schedule as soon as it is released for the upcoming season and finding potential bad spots for each team. By bad spots in the schedule I mean taking note of the potential pitfalls or scheduling quirks that might affect a teams performance, for example, when a team is playing on the road for a third straight week, or when a team has played two or three straight divisional games and are in line to play a non conference team next, or if a team is playing on a short week because they just played on Monday night or if a team has been bouncing back and forth from the east coast to the west coast or visa versa. Know in advance to the start of the new season by studying the schedule if a team is revenge minded against another team for an embarrassing loss or for knocking them out of the playoffs the previous year, try to study and concentrate on historical data from past divisional match ups, the reason is because divisional teams face each other at least twice yearly which means that often you can find a team that for one reason or another continues to dominate another. Know in advance to the start of the new season what players a team lost to free agency or trades and what players they added via the draft and/or free agency and don’t forget to consider any coaching changes, a complete turnover in coaching staffs is a hard thing to overcome and often means that a team will struggle in the early going of a new season because that team is still trying to learn a new system. The astute gambler will then take all of the information he or she has gathered during the off season and will prior to the start of the new season make up a set of power ratings which are then updated on a weekly basis once the regular season starts, a smart sports gambler will have a set personal schedule that they adhere to once the season is under way, keeping in mind that your off season work has already pinpointed potential scheduling problems and you have a set of power ratings in place, you can now use this information to better evaluate the opening Monday morning lines for the next week. Monday morning is also a good time to check the injury reports of each team as well as advance weather reports for the upcoming weekend’s slate of games, as the week progresses you want to continue to monitor the posted point spread as well as the latest injury and weather reports, if you have already isolated a contest that has perceived value to you and that team is listed as the favorite it is usually best to make your wager as soon as possible, on the other hand if you like a doggie in a particular contest its best to wait until almost game time to place your wager. The reasoning has to do with the way “Joe Public” bettors wager, which is usually on the listed favorite, by placing your wager early in the week (if you like the favorite) you are locking in your line before the general public has a chance to move the point spread upward, on the flip side if you like the doggie you want the public to drive the line upward so that you can get as many points as possible. I could go on and on with this article but the end result would resemble a book, hopefully you will take some of this advice to heart, the one item that I did not touch on in this article but is probably the most important aspect of gambling is money management, without some sort of game plan with regard to protecting your bankroll you will surely lose your shirt and not be around placing wagers at seasons end. Please refer to another article that I have already written simply entitled “Money Management”, the article explains in detail the system that I personally utilize as a means of protecting my bankroll over the course of a long season, one last bit of advise, remember that the betting public is generally wrong which is the reason Las Vegas is still standing, meaning that you should do your homework and follow your instincts and not those of the talking heads in the media or those of your drinking buddies. Over the past 35 yrs plus, Jim Campbell has been on both sides of the Sports Investment Business, as a entrepreneur that ran his own business, to building and maintaining a private clientele base that greatly benefits from his superior handicapping expertise in the sporting arena. Jim Campbell runs http://www.FootballForecastor.com which has been an internet based sports handicapping service since 1997, you will be hard pressed to find another handicapper that has had the kind of success Jim has had, over the past eight years he has maintained one of the very best winning percentages of any sports handicapping service. Jim Campbell finished the final four weeks of the 2005 NFL regular season with a mark of 14-5-2 ATS coming down the stretch for a winning rate of 73.68% and for the season in the NFL he finished with an overall mark of 48-33-4 ATS for a winning rate of 59.26% and that includes a perfect mark of 7-0 ATS in the NFL Playoffs, Jim has posted a mark of 6-2 ATS over the past EIGHT years with his Super Bowl selections. |
Other Betting System Articles
Slot Machines for Sale Pachislo Slot Machine sales are relatively easy to find if you are exploring which slot machines are for sale, since Pachislo is to slot machines what Starbucks is to coffee. There is a wide variety in bright colors and with various cartoon characters, but you’ll find that most Pachislo slot machine sales feature machines with the same basic fea ...Baccarat Basics Apart from being originated from Middle Ages and being one of the most popular casino games in the United States and anywhere else in the world amongst the upper class, it is also one or the most unique and sophisticated games that anyone across the world can have a shot at and enjoy it as well. And to interest a gambler’s spirit within, the sta ...Who Are The Poker Players? With the endless publicity surrounding the World Poker Tour, people are asking the question of who plays in these tournaments? There is a lot of interest in who is the person behind the cards?The idea of who plays poker online or off often sends many more conservative gamblers squirming back to their Friday Night Poker games for fear of b ...MLB Betting There are many people that enjoy betting on baseball games, but there are a lot of factors involved if you decide to do any mlb betting of your own. There is more to be considered in mlb betting than just team records. Suppose your favorite team is the Texas Rangers and they have a three game series coming up with the Seattle Mariners. You’d lik ...Jokers Wild Video Poker – Tips To Win BIG Jokers wild is one of the most popular video poker games and the reason for its popularity is its fun, exciting, fast moving and you can win more often.On average, the joker appears in around in ten hands, and it is a wild card that can be nominated as any card you want increasing the chances of winning hands.Only Jacks-Or Better a ...Should You Rebuy? Some of the Poker Tournaments are real stiff competition with good players, bad players and bad players that want to be good players getting swept to the cleaners by the professionals who enter these tournaments. The option to re-buy, i.e. replenish with a fresh stack of chips, may not always be a good bet in these tournaments.The questio ...How You Can Make Money With Online Football Gambling Sports Betting on the NFL and college football is a national pastime. Every week millions of dollars are bet on the home town favorites with local bookies. People bet even more money with online sports book agencies. Even the major news services publish all the betting stats. If you're going to bet money on games, you might as well be as informe ...How To Increase Your Horse Racing Wagering Cash Flow If You have a horse racing system that produces at least 33% Wins Or better than 66% in-the-money finishes, then You can Increase Your Horse Racing Wagering Cash Flow©. And You can realize this by simply betting 4% of Your total bank (Multiply Your Total Bank by 0.04.) on each race that was successfully processed by an effective handicapping pr ...Horse Race Betting On Line A couple of decades back, nobody would have imagined that they would be betting on their favorite race horses known all over the world in the cozy comfort of their home while watching television and eating popcorn. Horse betting on line has become a favorite of many racing and horse lovers who up until recently were moving from place to place ju ...Boston Celtics 2006-07 Preview Yet another mediocre team in the Atlantic division, the Celtics have some of the best young talent and depth in the Eastern Conference. The problem is that they do not have much else aside from Paul Pierce in the present to win games. Doc Rivers has his work cut out for him to make the playoffs in the upcoming season, and angry Boston fans are e ...Is Roulette A Game Of Chance? The game of roulette is often included in games of chance such as slot machines or keno because according to some people it is completely random. However, if you talk to someone who takes the time to track a roulette wheel, they will tell you an entirely different story.Roulette can described as either a game of chance or a game of skill. ...Why Should Anyone Use Poker Chips? Poker has been around for a long time. Lately, this does not happen only in the casinos but also in television as well. To those who want to play for fun, getting something similar to the real thing will help and that includes the poker chips.People will agree that this is better than using peanuts or toothpicks when playing the game. Chi ...Wyoming Casinos The state of Wyoming is known more for the activities it offers outdoors, than for its indoor recreational activities. From the historic capital of Cheyenne to Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming rules the outdoors. It is the home of Yellowstone National Park as well as a population of 493,782 people. This is the place where you can catch of glim ...Keno Game Basics Out of the many popular casino games that you can lay your hand on and pray, pray hard that the luck be on your side (like horse race, poker for instance), keno is one such game that will intrigue you into its trouble-free approach. Keno is basically the game from which another widely popular game lottery has evolved. The number of casino games ...Increased Gambling Addiction Cases May Cause Another Industry to be Regulated The number of individuals with Compulsive gambling addiction is growing at a rate that will devastate our economy over the next few years. This is inevitable unless local state governments enact new laws protecting their voters.The gaming industry has grown at an unprecedented rate in the last ten years; this growth at first sparked the ...Make Money from Gambling Without Gambling - 18 More Ways 31. Be a 3 card monte dealer. This is cheating people but on a small-time, street-level way.All you need is three bent up cards, a dirty towel and a group of people. I once watched one dealer work the crowd waiting for a bus at the Grand Avenue Metro Link station in St Louis.He didn't make much. The young people didn't even underst ...Getting Started: Online Gambling For people new to the world of online gambling, the web sites can be overwhelming at first. There are many gambling sites to choose from and many games to play. From Texas Hold-em to betting on horses, these sites are packed with lots to try. When gambling online for the first time, try some of the easier sites. Sites that offer poker for fun, n ...Video Poker Games Video poker is a combination of slot machines and the poker game. Though the game uses the help of technology, it remains the original poker game in essence. The game is a man versus machine battle. Here, the poker player is playing against the terminal rather than opposing players. However, the ultimate goal remains the same.An easy and ...How To Play Online Slot Machines Slot machines are the absolute most popular games played in casinos today. They are so fun and exciting; it is no wonder that they account for over two-thirds of all the casinos profit every year. People like the solitude of playing on their own and slot machines are not difficult to use. Nearly everyone can operate a slot machine and they do no ...Internet Betting Millions of people enjoy betting on sports events and many are finding that they can easily indulge their passion with internet betting. With internet betting you can place your bet with just a few clicks of a mouse. Of course you want to bet with only the best internet sites. A good sportsbook can provide you with the best place to do your bett ...
|
