This article is the second in our series of sports betting articles. You can read the first article that deals with the introduction here. I’ll be talking about how betting varies among sports. And this will help you understand how each sports better and how to properly place your bets.
Sports Betting And Football
Football is one of the most popular sports in the United States. You can follow and bet on college and professional football games. However, the highlight of the sport is the bowl games as well as the NFL playoffs. People bet more on football than any other sport. And something as trivial as a missed point could be the source of your happiness or anguish. Sports betting at its finest.
Avid football bettors pay the utmost attention to injuries, especially those of star players. But football is a team sport and a seemingly obscure player’s injury can sometimes affect the team. College football is another thing entirely as the teams are more prone to emotional highs and lows.
Basketball Bets
Just like football, you can bet on both college and professional games. Also, point spreads, parlays, and teasers also apply to basketball. However, one major difference between football and basketball is the number of games. And a person experienced in sports betting will take advantage of this.
The longer season of basketball allows you to obtain more information which may improve your chances of winning. There is also the concern of fatigue for basketball bettors. And this is because NBA teams play many games consecutively in different cities. So, they are always on the road. NCCA is very competitive and sometimes unpredictable. It causes true madness across the country.
Sports Betting And Baseball
Baseball is different from basketball and football in that sports betting on baseball doesn’t include college games. But there are 162 games in a season and that’s not including the playoffs and world series. So there is no shortage of betting opportunities in baseball. Baseball doesn’t have the popularity of football and basketball in sports betting. But betting on baseball can be fun and rewarding.
You’d have to be a fan of baseball so you can have a much better chance of winning. And going through team statistics can be a rewarding venture.
How About Some Boxing Bets?
Boxing utilizes a money line for all the matches. You can go through the first article to have a better understanding of the money lines. There is also the option of Prop bets. And prop bets has to do with the number of rounds a fight will reach or whether there will be a knockout. The truth is there isn’t a lot of betting opportunities in boxing. And this is because there aren’t a lot of big matches.
Sports Betting As It Applies to Hockey
There are actually two types of betting in hockey. The first is the money line bets while the second is called a puck line. A strange sports betting name? Nah, you just aren’t familiar with it. What a puck line does is to add goals (such as 2,3) to the underdog score. Then, it combines that with a money line for betting. Finally, the puck line gets decides the winner by adjusting the actual game score.
Handicapping – The Basics
Sports betting can be fun at times. But serious bettors put in some work. You have to put aside any emotion or sentiment. There is no favoring your favorite team. If you want to be a successful bettor, then you have to be familiar with handicapping. And handicapping involves gathering data or intel (sorry, I’m a sucker for military lingo).
You then use these data and player statistics to determine the probability of a game’s outcome. And we’ll be discussing the various methods (unofficial) of handicapping below
Fundamental – Here, the handicapper is concerned about the strength of one team against the weakness of another, You might notice that the receivers of a team are very tall (football) while the cornerbacks of the opposing team are unusually short. And this means the first team could earn you a point spread win.
Statistics – It’s all about numbers here, pal. Most people involved in sports betting dig into numbers to have an edge. Some bettors even invent and track their own unique statistical measurements. And they evaluate players and teams using their methods.
Technical – Here, the bettor is concerned about trends. The idea here is for the technician bettor to identify situations where a team performs well or not. By scouring through past records, the bettor may be able to identify indicators to know when a team performs well or poorly.
It’s common to see bettors using all the methods of handicapping above. Smart handicappers are generally successful at sports betting.
Strategic Handicapping
Handicapping is a lot of work, But it can greatly increase your chances of winning if you are disciplined and objective. Sentiment has no place in sports betting. You need to lock your emotions in a tiny box and put it far away. Below are tips that can help you:
- Avoid the exotics.
- Pick a sport and stick to it. If not, you’ll be a jack of all trades, master of none. And you need expertise to be successful in sports betting.
- Don’t dwell on losses. Also, don’t chase losses.
- Ignore tout services.
- Disregard trends and focus on key numbers.
- Shop for the best line and manage your money.
- Don’t overreact.
Final Thoughts
Every bettor wants to be a profitable bettor. And with all I’ve discussed in this article, you should be closer to becoming a profitable bettor, Sports betting is fun but also requires some work to improve your chances of winning.
Bet smartly, bet responsibly.