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 what a betting angle is. Essentially, and angle is a trend. Angle bettors will identify a trend that has been profitable in the past, find situations in which that same angle is occurring in a future game, and bet it in an attempt to make a profit. It’s easiest to understand with an example. Let’s say that over the last 10 seasons college football teams that have won but not covered two games in a row fail to cover their third game if they are favorites 60 percent of the time. If you found a team that had won but not covered two in a row and was a favorite, then, you could be very interested in betting against them because over the long term that would be a profitable bet. That would be called betting an angle.
If you are interested in betting angles then here are five things you’ll really want to keep in mind. If you blindly bet angles without considering these factors then you can easily be throwing your money away:
Test, test, test – One of the interesting things about betting angles is that they often aren’t nearly as logical as you might think they are. Something might sound like it makes a lot of sense, but when you test it it might not actually prove to be profitable. Before you trust any angle, then, you need to go back and test it over as many games as you can. The larger the sample size the better, so make sure that you go back as far as you possibly can. If something has happened seven times in the last 10 games then it’s not a very powerful trend because the sample size is so small. If it has happened 7000 times in the last 10000 games, though, then you are on to something. When you are tested you want to make sure that you go as far back as you can and test as many games as you possibly can. It can be tiresome, frustrating work, and often times you’ll end up after spending a lot of time testing without a usable angle. It’s much better to figure out that something isn’t profitable in the testing stage, though, than it is to find out by watching your bankroll evaporate.
Make sure you are looking at root causes – When you are looking at angles it is very important that what you are looking at is actually affecting the outcome of games, and not just a coincidence of circumstances. The best way to explain this is with an example. Let’s say that you are an NFL bettor and you have noticed that when quarterbacks for the Giants, Patriots Bills and Texans have completed more than 65 percent of their passes two games in a row they are very likely to cover the third game. Based on that you might want to test whether that is true for all teams. You might want to test whether the results are still profitable at 60 percent when there is a much bigger number of games to choose from because a lower completion percentage is easier to achieve. You might want to choose if the results are even more compelling if they have completed 70 percent of their passes. There are lots of different directions you could go with this one. What you wouldn’t want to do, though, is conclude that teams that have dark blue on their uniforms are likely to cover their third game after completing 65 percent of their passes two games in a row. The fact that they all have blue uniforms is just a coincidence and doesn’t have any impact at all on the outcome of games. That is obviously an extreme example, but when you look at angles you’ll be surprised at how often they deal with factors that aren’t actually relevant to how games end.
Keep re-evaluating to make sure they are still working – Angles can work for a long time, but it is common for angles to work less effectively as time goes along. There are a few reasons for this. First, if an angle is popular and used by a lot of bettors then sportsbooks are going to take steps to limit the effectiveness of that angle over time. More significantly, though, sports just change over time. Coaching gets better, training gets better, and strategies and schemes evolve. If teams consistently keep getting beaten in one particular situation then they are going to identify that and find a way to change it. If an angle was profitable 10 years ago then it isn’t valuable for you until you have tested to be sure that it is still profitable now.
Constantly, creatively improve – The worst thing you can be when betting angles is complacent. If an angle is working well for you now then you don’t want to get lazy and just keep betting it until it doesn’t work anymore. Instead, you want to constantly be thinking about what you could be doing that is even more successful. Is there a way that you could further limit the angle so that the winning percentage is even higher. Is there a way you could expand the number of games you play with the angle so that it is less profitable on each game, but that is more than made up for by the number of games? Is there a slightly different angle that could work even better? You need to be creative to identify possibilities and then test to see if they make sense.
Don’t follow blindly – I said this in the introduction, but it is so important that I wanted to mention it again. If you are just following angles blindly then you aren’t likely to succeed over the long term. As we have said you constantly need to be testing and refining your angles to make sure that they work well and don’t just sound good. You also need to make sure that the game that the angle has identified actually makes sense. Sometimes and angle will point out a team or a game that just doesn’t make sense for other reasons – a serious injury to a key player, for example. By eliminating games that don’t make a lot of sense you can make fewer losing bets, increase your win percentage, and increase the overall effectiveness of your angle betting. In short, don’t feel like you have to make a bet that is likely not to win just because an angle tells you to. Angles are most effective when used as betting guides not betting rules.
