How to become a professional bettor |
Posted: February 6, 2018 |
Situational and emotional Some handicappers look at special situations and figure out how the teams may be positively or negatively affected. According to SportsGambler these situations may be due to motivation and the emotions of the players involved in the game. Examples are teams that are especially motivated while their opponents are not expected to bring the same intensity to the game. The Eagles’ first game in the 2006 NFL season against the Cowboys and Terrell Owens is a good example. The Eagles as a team were especially motivated and fo- cused on the game; they wanted revenge against their old teammate. Meanwhile the Cowboys, other than Owens, probably looked at the game as just another NFC East divisional game. Handicapping the emotions of teams is more valuable in “physical” sports such as football and basketball. Handicapping emotions is less important in base- ball, where exerting greater strength may not necessarily favor the player. Hitters who are playing more intensely than normal do not necessarily perform better than normal. Pitchers who are throwing harder may have less than normal command of the strike zone. Feel To handicap by feel is to examine a team and get a feeling based on what the handicapper has seen in the past. For example, a bettor may say “Peyton Manning has never won a big game in the playoffs, and he never will. I’m going to bet against the Colts because Manning will choke yet again.” This is probably how most people handicap games. Of course, most people are not winning sports bettors. I am not convinced that you can beat the current sports betting market by feel alone. Futures Betting futures is different because the bets take a long time to be decided. It also requires a big bankroll and patience in finding favorable lines. A good futures bettor needs to handicap the teams and do a good job of projecting lines into the future. He also needs to have a solid understanding of the basic math needed for sports betting. Relative-Value Players Relative-value players do not need to handicap well in order to have an edge in sports betting. Instead, they use other information to help them make money. This includes the use of historical information, simulations, logic and comparable lines in different markets. Database keepers Database keepers have large databases of games with lines, results and other information they think is pertinent. Some database keepers use this information as part of their handicapping process. Others use this information for relative-value plays in side bets. Examples of side bets are the first half and the first quarter in football and the run line in baseball. With access to so much information, database keepers can look at historical results to figure out how the actual point spread, money line or total is related to the side bet. The bigger the sample size, the more comfortable database keepers are with their results. Database keepers invest time and/or money keeping their databases current. They have to be proficient at inter- preting the data; having a good database but interpreting the data incorrectly pro- duces negative-EV ideas and bets. Buying points Getting positive EV by buying points in a football or basketball game requires understanding the value of each point. Database keepers can get these values from their historical databases. You can also get these values from other sources that do not require a massive database. Long ago, point buyers off the 3 in the NFL did well because some sportsbooks allowed bettors to buy any half point for just ten cents. When the line on an NFL game is 3, buying the dog to +3.5 or the favorite to -2.5 for just ten cents is worth- while due to the frequency at which the favorite wins by exactly 3. Bettors could blindly bet both sides off the 3 and have positive EV. Nowadays most sportsbooks have made it more expensive to buy off the 3. Teasers Relative-value players can beat teasers (parlays with additional points added to each team, but with worse odds) if they have a good idea of the distributional frequency of the possible results of the game at hand. This is similar to the knowledge required for buying points. No handicapping is necessary, but with the inclu- sion of good handicapping, the relative-value player can add some teasers that are not as obvious or eliminate the worse teasers from his portfolio. Handicapper/Relative-Value Overlap Handicappers and relative-value players can arrive at the same conclusions using their particular styles of analysis. Some people can combine the skills of handicapping and relativevaluation to come up with picks. Here are some strategies where the skills of handicappers and relative-value players can overlap.
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