Most novice gamblers end up losing their proverbial shirts year in and year out, most failures can be directly attributed to poor money management practices but many more failures are also due to a complete lack of knowledge with regard to how to handicap that particular sport and the factors/situations that come into play week in and week out.
First of all a “Point Spread” is defined as a number placed on an event for wagering purposes and is often expressed in terms of the amount of points one side must spot the other side as a means of evening the playing field for both the favorite and underdog, in most cases a money-line is also attached to the same event so that one may simply wager on either the favorite or underdog to win without having to lay points, keep in mind that its usually football and basketball games that have point spreads.
If there is only one bit of advice that you take from this article, I hope it is this…Keep your eyes and ears open!! I bet you’re wondering “huh” right about now aren’t you? When I say keep your eyes and ears open I am referring to the radio, the TV, and the local newspapers in your area, often local team beat writers glean information from team players or team sources and use that same information for their local radio or TV shows or for the articles that they write for the local newspapers, this same information can be very valuable to you as a gambler if you are able to dissect what is important and what is not and then act upon the important information before the rest of the world does, this gives you what is referred to as an “edge”.
Get in the habit of having the local sports talk shows on the radio when you are driving or working at home on your computer, know what time the local nightly sports show comes on television in your area, pay special attention to the sports section of the local newspaper each morning over coffee or breakfast. The idea is to absorb as much information as you can through out the week and prior to game time, know who is returning from an injury or who is nursing a nagging knee or ankle injury that may slow them down, know if there are any “cluster” injuries along the offensive or defensive lines which can impact the upcoming game, know if your local team is playing at home and if there are any possible weather concerns.
The point of the matter is that you have a wealth of information at your fingertips with regard to the local college and professional teams in your area and in most cases this information can be accessed by you before the rest of the betting public learns about it and you can use this to your advantage, by no means am I saying to disregard the rest of the teams in the league and not care what is going on with them, what I am saying is that if you want to defeat the posted point spread you have to look for edges and often an edge can be found by concentrating on local information about local teams.
I advocate using multiple “outs” for placing wagers as a means of garnering the best possible point spread on any game you intend wagering on, in this day and age a gambler has access to many off shore sports books and it’s a good idea to utilize at least three or four of these for line shopping purposes, but remember to do your homework before simply signing up with just any off shore sports book, most are reputable but some are not.
However it is also a good idea to have a local book that you can place wagers with for the express purpose of wagering against local teams, remember that local teams are also generally popular teams to wager on for the local run of the mill gamblers in your area, meaning that you must usually lay a higher point spread number if wagering on a local team thru a local book, thus the rule of thumb is to use off shore books when wagering ON local teams but use local books when wagering AGAINST local teams.
If you want to defeat the point spread you have to remain ahead of the proverbial curve, this means that you must out-work other gamblers with regard to having and acting on information before they do, I personally do a ton of off-season work and I recommend that you do the same, for example, it’s a good idea to go over each teams schedule as soon as it is released for the upcoming season and finding potential bad spots for each team.
By bad spots in the schedule I mean taking note of the potential pitfalls or scheduling quirks that might affect a teams performance, for example, when a team is playing on the road for a third straight week, or when a team has played two or three straight divisional games and are in line to play a non conference team next, or if a team is playing on a short week because they just played on Monday night or if a team has been bouncing back and forth from the east coast to the west coast or visa versa.
Know in advance to the start of the new season by studying the schedule if a team is revenge minded against another team for an embarrassing loss or for knocking them out of the playoffs the previous year, try to study and concentrate on historical data from past divisional match ups, the reason is because divisional teams face each other at least twice yearly which means that often you can find a team that for one reason or another continues to dominate another.
Know in advance to the start of the new season what players a team lost to free agency or trades and what players they added via the draft and/or free agency and don’t forget to consider any coaching changes, a complete turnover in coaching staffs is a hard thing to overcome and often means that a team will struggle in the early going of a new season because that team is still trying to learn a new system.
The astute gambler will then take all of the information he or she has gathered during the off season and will prior to the start of the new season make up a set of power ratings which are then updated on a weekly basis once the regular season starts, a smart sports gambler will have a set personal schedule that they adhere to once the season is under way, keeping in mind that your off season work has already pinpointed potential scheduling problems and you have a set of power ratings in place, you can now use this information to better evaluate the opening Monday morning lines for the next week.
Monday morning is also a good time to check the injury reports of each team as well as advance weather reports for the upcoming weekend’s slate of games, as the week progresses you want to continue to monitor the posted point spread as well as the latest injury and weather reports, if you have already isolated a contest that has perceived value to you and that team is listed as the favorite it is usually best to make your wager as soon as possible, on the other hand if you like a doggie in a particular contest its best to wait until almost game time to place your wager.
The reasoning has to do with the way “Joe Public” bettors wager, which is usually on the listed favorite, by placing your wager early in the week (if you like the favorite) you are locking in your line before the general public has a chance to move the point spread upward, on the flip side if you like the doggie you want the public to drive the line upward so that you can get as many points as possible.
I could go on and on with this article but the end result would resemble a book, hopefully you will take some of this advice to heart, the one item that I did not touch on in this article but is probably the most important aspect of gambling is money management, without some sort of game plan with regard to protecting your bankroll you will surely lose your shirt and not be around placing wagers at seasons end.
Please refer to another article that I have already written simply entitled “Money Management”, the article explains in detail the system that I personally utilize as a means of protecting my bankroll over the course of a long season, one last bit of advise, remember that the betting public is generally wrong which is the reason Las Vegas is still standing, meaning that you should do your homework and follow your instincts and not those of the talking heads in the media or those of your drinking buddies.
Over the past 35 yrs plus, Jim Campbell has been on both sides of the Sports Investment Business, as a entrepreneur that ran his own business, to building and maintaining a private clientele base that greatly benefits from his superior handicapping expertise in the sporting arena.
Jim Campbell runs http://www.FootballForecastor.com which has been an internet based sports handicapping service since 1997, you will be hard pressed to find another handicapper that has had the kind of success Jim has had, over the past eight years he has maintained one of the very best winning percentages of any sports handicapping service.
Jim Campbell finished the final four weeks of the 2005 NFL regular season with a mark of 14-5-2 ATS coming down the stretch for a winning rate of 73.68% and for the season in the NFL he finished with an overall mark of 48-33-4 ATS for a winning rate of 59.26% and that includes a perfect mark of 7-0 ATS in the NFL Playoffs, Jim has posted a mark of 6-2 ATS over the past EIGHT years with his Super Bowl selections.