Betting on season win totals in college football is an increasingly popular and attractive option. It used to be that season win totals seemed like a gimmick bet, but increasingly they are looked at as a place to find real value by serious bettors. You have to tie your money up for the whole season, but you don’t mind doing that if the risk is relatively low and the potential return on investment is attractive. When you are looking to make season win total bets there are some mistakes you will definitely want to avoid, and some things you will definitely want to do. Here are five tips to help college football handicappers dominate the season win total market:
Don’t buy into the hype – As the college football season approaches there are teams that the media will jump all over. They will tell stories about how great the team is, and how they can’t possibly lose any games. The media will tell you that their players are superheroes and their coaches are infallible. In most cases, of course, that’s not true. A lot of NCAA football teams that enter the season riding a massive wave of hype will be forgotten by November, and even those that do well won’t be as perfect as the media will suggest. The hype can be seductive, but if you want to succeed as a sports bettor over the long term with win totals you absolutely must block out all that noise and form your own opinions of what teams are capable of. The media is in the business of attracting eyeballs, not providing realistic, accurate assessments.
Be wary of the over on public teams – The betting public is very predictable, and one thing you can be confident they will do in most situations is to bet the over on public teams pretty much regardless of where the total is set. The oddsmakers obviously are well aware of this, and they use that tendency to set the totals as aggressively high as they can. That doesn’t mean, of course, that you can’t bet the over in these cases anyway if you think that that is the way to go. It just means that you need to be very aware of the decreased value on the over in these cases, and you have to be absolutely certain that the bet still makes sense given the inflated total. On the flip side, though, you can’t give in to the urge to blindly bet on the under because of the inflation on the over. There is no guarantee that there is value there despite the big number. There are no shortcuts – you just have to handicap the football team and do what is warranted.
Look closely at schedules – People will make their futures decisions based on how good the team seems to be. Talent is important, but even more important in college football is who the team has to play. A pretty average team can win a lot of games if they are playing a very weak schedule, and a pretty good team can wind up with a lousy record if they are playing a very tough set of games. The schedule is probably the most overlooked aspect of season win total handicapping, and the place where you can find real value.
Look for serious value – When you are playing games or single game prop bets during the year then you might be willing to tolerate slim value on your bets. When you are looking at tying your money up for three months in college football futures, though, you can’t afford to make bets where the value is tight. You should only make season win total bets in which the value is very high because otherwise you could make a much better return by using the money to make bets during the season. If you think a team is going to win eight games then you might want to bet them if the total is at 6, but you won’t want to touch them if it is at 7.5, for example.
Look beyond the bright lights – The majority of sports bettors will only look at the big names programs in the high profile conferences when they are considering those bets. The more action on a given team the more likely the total is accurate and the harder value can be to find. Smart bettors know that the places where the betting volume is much lower are the places to look for nice value. Instead of focusing on teams like Florida, Alabama, Michigan, Notre Dame or USC you might find much more attractive bets looking at the lesser teams in the major conferences, or at teams in smaller conferences. Most bettors pay no attention to obscure teams, so if you do your homework on them and handicap appropriately you can be positioned very well when you place your bets.
