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Best Way To Bet Sports

The statement I’m about to make will most certainly shock any sports bettor who reads it. While most of us are under the impression that everyone betting sports wins long term, so long as they bet often enough, this isn’t actually true.

Winning at sports betting is very challenging indeed. With standard pricing at -110/-110 on most games, the house enjoys over a 4% edge on most bets. That is very hard to overcome, especially since many. Using the media to your advantage when betting sports is heightened exponentially when betting on the NFL. The NFL is the league that gets the most coverage, by far, so there is a greater volume of media.

  • Moneylines are the simplest forms of bets. They are simply bets that pick a team to win, which team is going to have the highest score at the end of the game or quarter, or half, whichever time limit your betting on.
  • Hedging is a useful strategy even though betting on all sports isn’t the same. Futures wagers are long term bets that use a moneyline. Some individual games use a point spread while betting on other.

Wait you’re not surprised? Of course you’re not! Everyone knows the bookmaker has an advantage so more times than not sports bettors lose. However, what if there was a way that the rolls could be reversed; what if the sports bettor always had the advantage?

This is in fact possible.

Have you ever heard the term advantage player? This is a label gambling companies assign to players who only bet when the odds are in their favor.

Best way to bet sports

Even though “on average” bookmakers have a 4.55% advantage on straight bets (2.38% @ -105), the key word is “average”; advantage players find bets where the bookmaker’s advantage is negative. Whether your goal is to be a sports betting pro, or just earn a little money on the side, the first step to winning is to stop making –EV bets.

If you understand what expected value, -EV, and +EV mean, go ahead and skip down to our advice on finding +EV bets. If you’re not familiar with this concept continue reading.

Expected Value (EV) Explained

Expected value is a term professional gamblers use on a regular basis. To explain what it means in simple terms I’ll use an example. Let’s say me and you decided to have a coin flipping contest. We flip coins and you give me $1 for each outcome of heads; I give you $1 for each outcome of tails. We could flip coins for all eternity and neither of us will ever have an advantage because on average half the time we lose $1 half the time we win $1. While there will be swings back and forth, as long as we flip the coin enough times eventually we’ll both break even. This particular bet has neutral expected value.

Now let’s say I’m tired of flipping coins, and want to quit, but while begging me to stay you offer me a better deal. This new deal pays me $1.10 for every heads, and I still pay you $1.00 for every tails. What happens now is half the time I win $1.10 and half the time I lose $1.00. If we flip 100 times I should average 50 wins of $1.10 ($55) and 50 losses of $1 ($50). Every flip of the coin I have a positive expectation (+EV) of 5 cents. As the one offering me this proposition you have the opposite, every flip of the coin is 5 cents –EV for you.

Every wager made in sports betting has either a positive expected value (+EV), negative expectation value (-EV) or in rare cases neutral expected value. Winning sports betting requires avoiding –EV and finding +EV bets.

Finding +EV Sports Bets

The reasons most sports bettors don’t spend time learning the tricks of advantage players is it’s slightly time consuming, most have no leads how to do it, are overwhelmed or when they do learn it’s not actually fun. If you’re looking for something fun we suggest paint balling, a trip to the amusement park, circus or what have you. If you’re looking to actually make money then you’ll need to know how to find +EV bets.

At TheSportsGeek.com we have several articles on this topic you’ll want to read:

Teaser Betting Strategy – This is perhaps the easiest method a sports bettor can use to find bets with a positive advantage. When you also read our article on the current betting market, you’ll realize just before game time the lines are efficient. Teasers are based off the current betting lines, so no longer do you need to go do any deep analysis to find out whether as straight bet is +EV. Here find spots where teasers increase the win rate by enough and you’ll have a +EV bet. This is all described in our article on teaser betting strategy.

Prop Betting Strategy – Prop bets are generally considered the easiest wagering opportunity for sports bettors to beat. In our article on prop betting strategy I give a full break down of the prop bet “which team will score first”. After reading that article you’ll have enough information to start finding +EV bets on this specific prop. In time, as you get experience you’ll be able to solve other prop bet on your own and then beat them using as similar method to the one I show in the example.

Must Read Sports Betting Books

If you’re new to advantage betting some books that will help you greatly with the basics are:

1) Sharp Sports Betting by Stanford Wong

2) Weighing the Odds in Sports Betting by King Yao

Once you’re much more experienced and ready to take things to the next level then I strongly Conquering Risk: Attacking Vegas and Wall Street by Elihu D. Feustel. This is a book for advanced sports bettors and not a good read for anyone not already winning. It is heavily math, statistic and handicapping intensive. If you eventually decided on a career as an advantage player at some point down the road you’ll want to work to understand what Elihu D. Feustel shares in this book.

No matter what methods you use to find +EV bets, the information contained in our article on finding maximum value is a must read. Next, if you’re thinking about purchasing picks, read our article on winning without a tout. In that article you’ll also find some information on getting free picks. Use that with the earlier mention getting max value article, and shopping the market and you’ll likely be turning an easy, yet slightly time consuming profit.

With this out of the way let me now cover the easiest way to get your bankroll started: “Bonus Whoring”.

A Free Lunch in Sports Betting

If you’ve heard the saying there is no such thing as a free lunch, well think again. Here are some bonuses that sports betting sites offer to players making their first deposit:

At the time of writing this Bookmaker is offering a massive holiday bonus of 25% up to $2,500 sports + 175% up to $1,000 poker + 100% up to $250 casino. If you don’t have an account, visit Bookmaker and register using Bonus Code THEGEEK on the sign up field. After logging in, head to the cashier where the available “deposit bonus codes” will be listed. Use this code and you’ll now have the added advantage of massive free play bonus.

Bovada offers 10% cash bonus on bettor’s first deposit. The best thing about this bonus is it is instant and it’s cash (as opposed to free play). Also no crazy strings such as rollover, hold period etc, simply roll your initial deposit and 10% bonus over a single time and it is free and clear your own money to keep.

Here you can get up to $1,000 in free bonus money. Getting the max bonus is a multi step process. First sign up, and be sure to leave the Promotion Code field empty. Next follow the steps on our BetOnline Bonus page to negotiate a massive bonus with their live support.

When you combine +EV bets with free bonus cash, winning at sports betting is a cinch. The only piece of the puzzle you have left is protecting and growing your bankroll. Our best advice here, never wager more than a few percent of what you have on hand on a single game.

Once you have this all down, while it takes other sports bettors a lot of luck to win, the opposite is true for you. A bookie beating an advantage player who uses responsible bet sizing, keeps his composure during downswings while making only +EV bets, is quite difficult. Follow this and the only ways you lose is horrible bad luck!

Once again don’t forget to take advantage of the bonus at www.Bovada.lv!

We wish you the best of luck and know soon enough you’ll be shacking your head confused the same at us, whenever you hear the statement “most sports bettors lose” and clearly you won’t be on of them.

Other Advanced Sports Betting Strategy Articles:

What are the best strategies for betting on the NFL? What are some tips to make you a better NFL handicapper? How can you win more wagering betting on the NFL? We’ll aim to answer all of those questions in this article, with help from expert sports bettor J.J. Apricena.

Setting Yourself Up with a Yearly Goal

You’ve heard the phrase “keep it simple, stupid.” Here we’re going to talk about how to “keep it realistic.” Set a realistic betting goal for the NFL season. Apricena suggests to keep things to the regular season and to work toward a goal of winning 20 units.

Before you go thinking that 20 units isn’t enough, you should hear out the example that Apricena runs through because it gives you a good idea of what realistic means.

There are 256 games to bet on during the NFL regular season. Let’s say you bet on half of those, so you’ve got action on 128 games. If your goal is to hit 60%, that’s 77 wins and 51 losses against the spread (ATS). If you’re betting in units of $1,000, you’re going to win $77,000 and lose $56,100 (betting $1,100 to win one $1,000 units). That’s a difference of $20,900, so nearly 21 units won on the season. That’s a really good result and something to be proud of. Don’t believe people when they tell you that 60% isn’t a high enough win rate or winning 20 units in a season is too low. Remember, keep it realistic.

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Be Comfortable with Your NFL Betting

Way

For Apricena, his NFL-betting comfort zone means betting five games each week. That’s what he suggests for you. Although one can certainly tailor a comfort level to his own individual needs and wants, but Apricena stresses that you should not bet more than five games per week.

Apricena finds what he believes to be the best five edges on the weekly slate and bets on those games. Four of the games, Apricena bets one unit on each. For the fifth game, he bets two units. That means Apricena is betting six units per week over the course of 17 weeks for a total of 102 units wagered. Apricena says that his goal is to go 60% on the single-unit plays and 65% on the double-unit plays, putting more emphasis on games that have two units bet on them.

Overall, between setting yourself up with a yearly goal and correctly assessing your comfort level, it’s important to have a plan when betting an NFL season and to stick to that plan. Think big picture and don’t live week to week.

Use Two-Sided Lines When Handicapping the NFL

According to Apricena, it’s important to set a line for both sides of a game. He goes over some examples of how to do this and ultimately tells us that if we’re not using the logic of developing two-sides lines then we are selling ourselves short when it comes to handicapping. You should be able to come up with enough adequate reasons to bet the opposite side of a game. If you can’t, then just avoid the game altogether.

Use the Media To Your Advantage

We see it time and time again. The media hypes one team and dumps on another, and those narratives, the headlines, drive public sentiment. This is information that you can and should use to your advantage.

The Best Way To Bet On Sports

One good example of how hype can be driven by media is through HBO’s ‘Hard Knocks’ series. Every season that ‘Hard Knocks’ is produced, the team that is featured gets a lot of extra love. It’s the show’s goal to be exciting and entertaining and get your amped up for football season. That’s media-driven hype that is supposed to make you feel better about a team than you should. Recognize situations like these and act accordingly.

Using the media to your advantage when betting sports is heightened exponentially when betting on the NFL. The NFL is the league that gets the most coverage, by far, so there is a greater volume of media driving positive or negative storylines. The NFL has a rather short season in terms of volumes of games, so it can be very volatile. Don’t add to this volatility by perceiving things irrationally.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

You’ve likely heard the story about the tortoise and the hare, right? Just like in that race, the race on the NFL betting scene can be won with a slow and steady approach to it. With as much attention as the NFL gets every single week during the season, both from a fan and public perspective and from a media perspective, it’s easily to let yourself swing like a pendulum, as Apricena says it, weekly. You’re high on a team one week, then the next week you’re out on them, but then the week after that you’re back in.

In a week-to-week league with a 17-week regular season, there is going to be a lot of variance. Understand that. Accept that. Once you do, you can recognize that you should gradually adjust your perception of each team rather than sway one way or another dramatically. Approaching your NFL handicapping with a slow and steady approach will put you in a better position to win.

Build Your Own Power Rankings

It’s important to have your own power rankings for the NFL, just as was suggested by Apricena when it comes to betting on college football. The reason is that you want a way to be able to judge between good, mediocre, and bad teams. Having a ranking system allows you to better compare teams against one another.

When it comes to power rankings, there are plenty of lists out there already, but it’s important to do your own. If you want to use another list as your foundation, that’s fine, but it’s important to work through a process of developing your own system to rank the teams and adjust them accordingly. Remember, adjust your rankings gradually rather than dramatically.

With your own power ranking system in place, you can use these rankings to compare the lines Vegas or another sportsbook is providing. This is how you will best find your edges.

Don’t Get Lazy

Like anything you want to succeed with in life, you’re not going to want to get lazy in the process. That’s the entire process from start to finish. Work hard and do not get lazy. Don’t just wake up on Sunday morning, run over the games, and fire in some bets. Start your process earlier in the week by adjusting your power rankings from the week before, then start looking at injury reports from every team to see who is in, who is out, and who could be affected. Read the news and follow the media to see where the public narrative is being driven. Check in with teams and lines on a daily basis.

Best Way To Bet On Sports

All of these things matter. It’s not easy betting on the NFL. It’s the sport and league that gets the most attention from a betting perspective, so sportsbooks won’t be getting lazy because that’s how they get hammered. You also don’t want to get lazy. They say luck with when preparation meets opportunity, so prepare yourself as best you can to be in the best position possible in order to take advantage of an opportunity.

Don’t Chase Your Losses

This is something that applies to every sport, not just the NFL, but it’s a practice that is even more important when it comes to betting on the NFL. The uniqueness of the weekly NFL schedule has games regularly on Sunday night and Monday night. If you’re sticking to betting five games a week, as Apricena suggests, don’t chase on Sunday or Monday night if those games weren’t already ones you pegged as good value.

It’s easy to go 1-4 during the day on Sunday and then try want to chase your losses on Sunday night. Remember to stick to the process you laid out ahead of time. Sticking to the process over the course of the season will help you best reach your goal.

Teasers, Parlays, and Buying Points

When it comes to the NFL, there are tons and tons of bets you can make each week. There are also a wide variety of types of bets you can make. You’ll often hear of people talking about teasers, parlays, or buying points.

How To Sports Bet

When it comes to buying points, the simple rule is to just not do it. If buying points was advantageous for the NFL bettor, the sportsbooks would likely not allow it. You’re paying up for a better number, but you’re paying to much.

Best Way To Bet Sports Online

For teasers, Apricena suggests that if you do it, you stick to key numbers and two teams and only do it rarely.

Sports Betting Strategies Proven

Parlays, as Apricena refers to them, are the ultimate temptation. He also refers to parlays as “thorns in a bankroll.” If you want to make money betting sports longterm, don’t bet parlays. The prices you’re getting don’t line up to what they should really be and you’re going to be losing in the long run.