An Introduction to Sports Betting Strategy
The purpose of this article is to introduce US sports bettors to sports betting strategy. As you may or may not know “sports betting” is a completely different beast than other gambling industries such as poker, backgammon, and skill game gambling. The major difference is the number of opponents. In poker, at any given time, there are hundreds of thousands of players logged in playing real money poker online against one another. In sports betting, there are really only a couple hundred real bookies (the others are small scale or laying action off to a bigger bookie).
Poker, Backgammon, and Skill game players are willing to share, as helping a few opponents (in exchange for profit or prestige) to get better does not reduce their profits from playing on a significant level. In sports betting you’ll find this is far less the case. As there are only a few hundred opponents, all of which are linked together in one way or another, sports bettors make money taking advantage of their common opponent’s weaknesses (soft lines, line moves, bonus terms, odds etc. etc.). So while you might find poker books, poker training sites, poker coaches etc., all willing to share their tips and help make others great, you won’t find this in sports betting.
Don’t let what we’ve shared so far discourage you too much. The good news is that while you won’t find all you need to know laid out for you in an exact how to guide, there are several good sources of sports betting strategy. Most are willing to share a little, and it’s not too hard in a relatively short time to learn enough to be beating a bookie.
The little we’re willing to share on sports betting strategy can be found on our page: Sports Betting Tips, and in the rest of this article. The information contained is unique, we strongly suggest reading both.
With the introductions out of the way, let’s now get into some methods of sports betting strategy.
Line Shopping + Bonuses Method: While some might not consider this actual sports betting strategy, we can tell you in sports betting we know more winning bonus whore line shoppers than we know winning handicappers. Basically, this method involves having an account at every sports book possible and then shopping all games on the board to look for soft lines. When you find a sports book offering a line better than what all the others are offering, you blindly bet that side.
The Fade Method: This method of sports betting is to bet the opposite of the biggest square you know. Also, if you see all commentators on ESPN taking the same side against the spread on a game, it is generally smart to go the opposite. Bookies are smarter than sports analysts, sports fans etc. and those betting against the bookie generally have the same information you do. In such as case, take the opposite side of the square and bet with the book.
System Plays: We’ve covered a few examples of system plays in our article sports betting tips. For example, one point better on basketball, NFL basic strategy teasers etc. See that article for more details.
Having covered a few methods that will help a person get their feet wet betting sports, we’ll now cover external sources for sports betting strategy:
Sports Betting Strategy Books: While a bit outdated, still the number one must read book on sports betting strategy is Sharp Sports Betting by Stanford Wong. Weighing the Odds in Sports Betting by King Yao is another good book, as is David Sklansky’s chapter on sports betting in Getting the Best of It and Roxy Roxborough’s book Sports Book Management.
Sports Betting Strategy Forums: There is a lot of bad sports betting strategy on forums; however, sifting through it all, you’ll also find some gems. Our favorite of these is the twoplustwo.com sports betting sub forum. Their sticky post is a great read for anyone interested in sports betting strategy, and some of its content has been used in part throughout our website.
For more on sports betting strategy, read the other pages on our website where several gems can be found.
