Wimbledon is a unique Grand Slam tournament, and not just because members of the Royal family are frequently in attendance. The grass surface and the timing of the tournament leads to some unique considerations for bettors. If bettors haven’t properly compensated for those differences in their handicapping then they are limiting (more…)

Each November in the U.S. brings around election season and every four years that election is Presidential and therefore important. Sportsbooks will offer political prop bets any time election season rolls around, and will offer many more when the President is being chosen. These political prop bets are not always particularly (more…)

When it comes to betting on Grand Slam tennis there are big differences between betting on men and betting on women. I’m obviously not suggesting that one is better or more worthwhile, but different rules and strengths lead to the necessity of different betting approaches if you wish to succeed equally (more…)

Each Grand Slam tournament is unique. That means that bettors need to be aware of the differences between tournaments and what they mean for handicapping. Perhaps no tournament is more different and unique than the French Open. The clay surface is entirely different than anything else. If you handicap this tournament (more…)

College World Series is an interesting event in the sports betting world. Virtually no one pays attention to college baseball during the regular season, but when the teams head to Omaha, interest is piqued and suddenly betting interest arises. It is still not a top level event in terms of a (more…)

You may think that the point spread that’s used in making lines for NFL, college football, NBA and college basketball games and the run line in MLB and puck line in the NHL are devices designed to indicate a final outcome of a specific game. That somehow those who create the (more…)

Sports bettors have the opportunity to make a range of bets, including point spread, moneyline and over/under wagers. These three wagers are considered to be the most common sports bets. They are the standard fair for those who habitually bet on sports. Overall, these are considered to be good bets for (more…)

Although the parlay is a very popular bet, there are two other versions of this wager that sports bettors should consider. Many online books offer if bets and reverse bets and both can provide the sports bettor protection from loses while allowing them to make some cash. Here’s a look at (more…)

Sometimes a handicapper picks winners at the rate of 68% and sometimes they are correct 50% of the time. It varies from day-to-day, week-to-week and month-to-month. But the fact is if a handicapper can average 55% on wins, they are going to make you money with their picks. They are going (more…)

Often you’ll hear a handicapper talk about “value” when it comes to offering a pick. They’ve got a pick that offers great value. What exactly is “value” when it comes to sports betting? If it’s a point spread pick, it doesn’t cost any more to bet on it. Where does the (more…)

Each year it seems like sportsbooks offer more and more opportunities for bettors to bet on year-end awards in different sports before the seasons start. It used to be that you could just bet on the high profile ones like the NFL MVP, the Cy Young, and the Heisman. Now the (more…)

Future bets – a bet on whether a team is going to win a league or event that is usually going to be held well in the future – are something that books absolutely love to post and take action on. There’s a pretty simple reason for that – they are (more…)

A lot of bettors – most, I would even say – don’t like betting heavy underdogs on the moneyline. They equate the large potential payouts with a high amount of risk and a low chance of paying off, and they look elsewhere – often with the heavy favorites. In many cases (more…)

Late January and February is all-star season. Over the course of three weeks three of the four major league have their all-star festivities. in 2011 the NHL and NFL even chose to have their games on the same day. When each league has their all-star game there are no other games (more…)

One of the so-called laws of sports betting that I hear all of the time is that you shouldn’t bet on teams that you are emotionally invested in. If you care then you can’t be objective, and if you aren’t objective then you are making bad decisions – or at least (more…)

When you first start out in sports betting you might get the idea that the spread for a football game is fixed – it’s set at the beginning of the week and that’s where it stays. That’s certainly how the mainstream media talks about it on the rare occasions they acknowledge (more…)

Correlated parlays are a dream concept for sports bettors – in some cases they have a positive long term expectation. In other words, if you bet these bets time and time and time again then you would make a guaranteed profit. they are like a guaranteed cash machine. Of course, virtually (more…)

We are currently in the early days of the NHL season, and in just a couple of weeks the NBA season will be underway. College basketball starts up in a while, too. It’s always exciting when a sport you love to bet on gets underway again after a long break. The (more…)

Betting games at halftime is one of the most under-appreciated and under-bet options available to sports bettors. Just think about it – before you have to make a bet on a team you get to watch them play half of the game. What happens in the first half isn’t necessarily an (more…)

Sports betting is one of the most popular sorts of gambling throughout the world because of all the different sports that can be bet on.  There are different types of bets that can be made and it can seem very overwhelming for the first time sports bettor.  However, I will outline (more…)

Angles are a big part of betting. Some people use angles a whole lot, and others don’t use them at all. Like most things in sports betting they can be very useful and profitable – but only if you use them profitably and responsibly.

The obvious starting point is to look at (more…)

Bettors who are interested in betting systems need to become effective at back testing. Simply, back testing is looking back to see how your system or angle would have performed against past games. By looking back at how it would have performed you can get a sense of whether it is (more…)

A lot of bettors like to use angles in their betting. An angle is simply a trend that has occurred in the past with enough frequency to be profitable that you use as a guide to find bets in the future. Angles can be found in every sport you can bet (more…)

One of the terms we heard thrown about a lot when it comes to sports betting is ‘smart money’. It’s a very important concept for sports bettors to understand, but it’s largely misunderstood and misused.

Simply put, the smart money is the money bet by the sharps. Sharps can be defined in (more…)

I have been thinking and writing a lot about the smart money recently. Basically, smart money is the money bet by the most prepared and effective of bettors – the true professionals. One of the more interesting – and often profitable – things to do is to try to figure out (more…)

With the NBA and the NHL seasons over and football still a couple of months away a lot of sports bettors find themselves lacking something to bet on in the summer – especially if they are not fans of betting on the endless grind that is baseball. If you aren’t interested (more…)

It’s hard enough trying to figure out if the odds for a given game are fair or attractive. It’s even harder when you have to figure out how to read the odds in the first place. There are several different ways that sports odds can be written. While they all ultimately (more…)

One of the pieces of advice that you’ll get from most experienced sports bettors is that you should only bet on sports that you are familiar with. Knowledge is obviously very important when it comes to effective handicapping, so it only makes sense that if you are betting sports in which (more…)

One of the biggest problems that new and inexperienced sports bettors have is that they don’t understand what a line actually is and how they are set. If you don’t properly understand the lines and how they work then you are not always going to interpret them properly, and that can (more…)

One of the terms that gets thrown around a lot when talking about sports betting is the ‘betting public’. The reason you hear about it so much is simply that understanding what it is and what it means can help to fatten your bottom line. Fat bottom lines are good, so (more…)

Hedging bets is something that is talked about more than it is understood. It’s also a concept that can be very dangerous because it can easily be used incorrectly in ways that negatively impact your bottom line.

Basically, hedging is just a way to reduce or eliminate the risk of a bet. (more…)

We’re about to make the transition from the time when baseball is the primary sport people are paying attention to to when football takes over. That means that sports bettors will be making the transition from primarily betting using the moneyline to primarily using the point spread. Most people seem to (more…)

One of the power factors when it comes to effective handicapping is one that is often overlooked and misunderstood by many bettors – the public action. Once you understand how the public views a game you can look at why they are betting like they are, how that is impacting the (more…)

You probably hear a lot of talk about sharp bettors. The term has reached almost mythical proportions in the sports betting world. It’s also a very misunderstood term. Frankly, people give sharp bettors too much credit. They think that sharps are people with inside information, foolproof systems, and more knowledge than (more…)