The NFL Guru

While winning against sports books is tough and doing so consistently is near impossible, these tips will give you the upper hand against sports books.  If used effectively and consistently these tips will help you make you a profit as they’ve done to me.  The goal here isn’t to completely eliminate your losses, for obvious reasons, but my aim is to help you minimize them.  Here are 14 surefire ways to beat the sports books.

1.    Be prepared to lose: The odds are always against you, always.  The good news is that the usual “take” for the sports books is only 2.5 %, which means you, only have to win 53 % to make a profit.  That’s still extremely difficult to do consistently though so be prepared to take some lumps along the road.

2.    Realize you’re not smarter than the bookmakers: No offense but the amount of knowledge you have is nowhere near that of the guys at sports books.  The guys who, “make the numbers on the sides”, oddsmaker-speak for setting the point spreads on each of the games, are incredibly smart.  They know how you’re going to bet before you do, and allow for your prejudices.  Trying to outsmart these guys isn’t going to work, instead try to get these guys on your side.  We’ll get into how to get them on your side a little bit later on.

3.    Know your opponent: As a bettor you’re betting against both the sports books and every other bettor as well.  Vegas tries to get half of the betting population on either side of each game and they’ll adjust the betting lines to do so.  Therefore if you see that 90 % of the betting population is on the opposite side of you wait until the last moment to place your bet as the line will probably improve for the team with 10 % of the money.

4.    Make your own lines and then compare them to Vegas’ lines: Before you even look at Vegas’ lines for a certain game analyze the game in your mind.  A predicted score and any variables that may affect that score- like injuries or weather- then compare your line to the line that Vegas has set.  This gives you an indication of whether you’d like to bet on the game or not.  If your line is really close to theirs’ the game is basically a toss up and you should avoid it but if you get more than 3 points difference than there is potential for a win.

5.    Look for value: Don’t bet games that you can’t pick a winner.  If you’re undecided and you’re betting a game your leaving it completely to chance and you won’t win consistently by doing this.  Very few lines have any real value, and you should focus on the games that do.  Betting the ones that don’t usually results in losses.

6.    Realize the obvious pick is usually wrong: This is a concept that many bettors don’t understand or just refuse to acknowledge but the reality is that sports books don’t like to give away money.  About once every week there is a game that seems to have an obvious pick.  These are the games you want to AVOID because they are usually sucker bets.  They entice you with seemingly biased lines when really they know something you don’t- injuries that aren’t made public and really overrated teams seem to be the most common.  Don’t be the fool who gets sucked into betting these games because most of the time you’ll lose.  This can sometimes be shown by over 90% of the public being on one side of the bet.  Beware of these situations.

7.    Bet against the public consensus: The public has favorites, as do most people and sports books are aware of the public’s tendencies and biases.  Big tendencies include betting on the certain “public” teams, betting on the favorites, the over and putting too much emphasis on recent success.  These are some of the things that cause the biased lines which create opportunities for you.  Therefore you should generally bet against the public and take the opposite teams because Vegas accounts for these tendencies by putting more value on the opposite plays.  Still following?

8.    Don’t bet more than a few games each week: Some bettors seem to think that they have the best chance of winning if they bet on a lot of games.  They don’t seem to realize that by doing this you undermine your own knowledge and predictions by spreading out your bets.  Quality over quantity is crucial in betting.  Value picks will win, the rest are 50-50.  Don’t waste your time making picks on lines with little to no value.  Instead focus your time on finding good value in a few lines and bet those select few.

9.    Don’t bet with or against your heart: This is a tricky subject for some but it depends on your attitude as a bettor.  A casual bettor generally likes betting on their favorite team because it adds to the intensity of the game.  While this is good and fun for a casual bettor, you won’t win any money by doing this.  If you plan on winning you can’t worry about who you like or dislike- it just comes down to 53 guys that you think will beat another group of 53 guys on a particular day.  No allegiances can come in between you and your winnings.

10.    Look for trends: Many sites like covers.com provide lists of trends for each game.  The key is finding the most relevant and important trends and applying them.  If a team is “32-3-12 following a home loss on Sunday night games while playing on artificial turf” that usually means nothing, don’t let that sway your judgment.  It’s major ones like how a team is doing coming off a win or coming off a loss or playing against really good teams that matter.  Keep those in mind when you’re figuring out your lines for # 4 on this list.

11.    Shop around for the best line: Different sports books have different lines for each game.  Look for the best one for your chosen bet because that half a point that you gain could make all the difference.  In tip # 1 I told you that bookies take 2.5 % off the top, well this is your chance to eliminate that advantage.  By getting the best line each time you bet, you switch that all-important advantage over to your side.

12.    Bet on good coaches: This may seem like an odd one but in clutch situations, the better coach usually prevails.  If one coach is significantly better then the other than that gives one team a huge advantage that is usually overlooked by the general public.  Take coaches into account when making your predictions because they’re an important aspect of winning games.

13.    Beware of the parlay: Parlays are a big source of income for bookies.  They entice you with big payoffs but rarely payout.  In general, it’s best to avoid betting parlays because they shift the take of the book a lot higher. That’s really good but those games come up very rarely.  There are times when a parlay can be beneficial.  For example when a really good offense plays a really good defense, you can play the offense with the over or the defense with the under and one of those will usually pay out.

14.    Screw your instincts: They’re overrated.  Who you think is going to win is never correct just because your instincts told you so.  Some bettors claim to have success with “just betting what my instincts tell me” but that’s a load of crap.  Betting on instincts just won’t win consistently.  You may get lucky for a while but in the long run you can’t win.  Look for value plays instead of relying on uneducated, random guesses.

15.    Don’t get to emotionally invested: Often in betting, a hot streak will get you too high or a cold streak will do the reverse.  The key is to remove the extreme highs and lows and keep an even keel.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 12:55 am and is filed under Betting, Football, NFL, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.