Although there aren't too many big secret strategies to sports betting, there are a couple strategies that can better your odds of winning money while betting on sports. Below we will go over some important strategies that you should look to implement when you are sports betting. These sports betting strategies will not guarantee that you win money, of course, but should help you understand what it takes to become a winning bettor.
Before we get started it is important to understand that the sportsbooks (both live and online) take "juice" on the bets, meaning that the betting is never actually a true 50/50. There is a standard 10% juice that you must take into consideration when you are betting on sports. If you stick to betting the spreads with the standard -110 odds you will need a 52.4% win rate to break even.
Basic Sports Betting Strategy:
There are a couple basic sports betting strategies that bettors should stick to in order to become winning sports bettors. The first one is to try and stick to single bets. Sportsbooks allow you to combine bets, which are called parlays, increasing the payout of the bets. Combining bets reduces your chance of winning, and shouldn't be done often, if at all. Most winning sports bettors will do single sports bets 99% of the time. The next basic sports betting strategy is to stay within your limits. Once you have decided how much you can afford to lose with your sports bets (we will call this your bankroll) you will want to make sure that you don't end up betting more than that. A general sports betting bankroll strategy is to bet with 2% of your bankroll for each bet, and never more than 5% of your bankroll. For example, if you set aside $1000 on the month for sports betting, you should never be betting more than $20-$50 per bet. Often people will try to recuperate their sports betting losses by betting big on an event they think is a lock to happen. This is a poor strategy and will more often then not result in more money being lost.
Line Shopping Sports Betting Strategy:
When betting on sports for a profit you cannot simply just bet on your favorite teams, or who you think will win certain games. The lines or odds listed with each game or event must be taken into serious condition. Winning sports bettors search for lines that they think are overpriced orunder-priced, and then act on them. This takes quite a bit of skill, as you are almost playing the role of an oddsmaker . An example of this may be if you thought a NFL football spread should be set at 2.5, when the lines were released you realized that the spread was set at 4.5, giving you an edge to bet on the underdog. Now you must realize that oddsmakers are professionals, and it takes a lot of smarts and skill to find edges in sports betting lines.
Another part of line shopping refers to actually searching the different online sportsbooks for differences in lines. Although most sportsbooks will have very similar lines, there may be the odd time that one sportsbook is behind in changing their lines and you can catch a significant difference in lines. To take advantage of this you need to be signed up to a handful of the best online sports betting sites, allowing you to check the lines at each site.
Sports Betting Systems Strategy:
Probably the best strategy you can use when betting on sports is signing up for a solid Sports Betting System. Certain sports betting systems are better than others, but we have rated all betting systems available online and provided our visitors with links on how to get a hold of the systems. These sports betting systems will give you free picks based on a system, that has a proven winning percentage. If you take action on these systems you will most likely see profits from sports betting. Of course there is always the risk that the system begins to perform poorly and you do not win as much as expected, but that is a risk you have to take when using a betting system. Just remember to follow the other sports betting strategies listed above, such as only betting 2-5% of your bankroll, when using these systems.
|