Sports betting naturally draws many people who are pure sports fans. These gamblers may not have any sophisticated strategy, but they like to bet on the action anyways.
Nothing is wrong with wagering on sports for fun. But certain recreational bettors can become annoying when they overstep their bounds and start giving out poor advice.
Some of their claims border on outright lies, because they have no substantial evidence to back up what they’re saying. They often pass this misinformation off to buddies and cause them to lose money as well.
The best way to avoid falling into the same trap is by identifying the 7 biggest sports betting lies and getting to the truths.
Fading the public is easily one of the most common strategies in sports betting. This term refers to betting the opposite of the public, or majority.
The logic behind fading the public is that regular sports gamblers lose most of their bets. Wagering on the opposite side only makes sense, considering that you don’t want to be in the losing crowd.
The public normally gambles on favorites, because doing so gives them a stronger chance to win each individual bet. That said, fading the public usually involves taking the underdog.
Some bettors stop at this and immediately wager on underdogs every time just to fade the majority. Others at least consult public betting charts to see which lines are getting the heaviest action on favorites.
A quick Google search will yield many sites with public betting charts. These tools show the percentage of betting tickets on each side.
You can see that it’s quite easy to fade the public. A few minutes of research will quickly show you a number of contests where the favorite is receiving heavy action.
However, the main limitation to the strategy is that it doesn’t take odds into account. After all, your chances of winning will be affected by the price you receive on the underdog.
Pro bettors don’t just blindly take underdogs. They instead consider what odds they’re getting before making a move.
You can figure out where the sharp money is going by looking for “reverse line movement.” This term alludes to when line moves contradict public betting percentages.
Lines should seemingly move based on how many people are gambling on each side. However, sportsbooks use various factors to determine which way to shift lines, which I’ll get into more later.
For now, though, you can consider the following example on reverse line movement:
Why would a sportsbook’s line move towards Milwaukee when it’s Philadelphia who has limited action?
The first thing to consider is that a public betting chart only shows how many tickets are on each side of line. It does not, however, indicate how much money is on each side.
A professional gambler wagers more than the average recreational bettor. The reverse line movement above shows that 19% of tickets Philly likely includes some big bets.
Sportsbooks are more worried about the total amount of action on each side, especially with sharps (explained later). They, therefore, move the line towards the side with more betting tickets.
Long story short, don’t fade the public just to follow this cliché advice. You should instead consider other variables, like where are the pros are betting and reverse line movement.
Many assume that professional bettors have a huge advantage. They’re the pros, after all, and know far more than the average gambler.
But some people let these misconceptions fool them into thinking that sharps win 70% or more of their wagers. These same bettors can be duped into paying for handicapping services by experts who claim lofty win rates.
Sometimes experts and professionals can go on hot runs that see them win at a 70% clip or greater. However, nobody wins this often on a regular basis unless they’re consistently taking big favorites.
Even the world’s best gamblers only win around 55% of the time when dealing with -110 odds. The average pro is usually successful on 53% to 54% of these same wagers.
Bookmakers are very good at setting lines to counteract sharp action. Otherwise, they’d get destroyed by professionals who make huge wagers in order to capitalize on soft lines.
Sharps don’t win as often as people think. Their profits instead come from a large volume of big bets.
Anybody who claims to be winning a ridiculous percentage of their bets is merely riding a hot streak or lying. Betting lines are set up to ensure that sharps only win a little more often than recreational gamblers.
One commonly believed notion is that bookmakers ban anybody who wins regularly. While it’s true that sportsbooks prohibit certain winning gamblers, they don’t normally ban people just for being successful.
Assuming bookmakers always prohibited winners, then very few people would want to bet on sports. They’d be turned off since they couldn’t win without getting the boot.
Sportsbooks instead ban customers who pose a risk. These risks can come through a variety of means.
For starters, many bookmakers don’t want action from well-funded sharps, who can place a massive bet on one side. Such a wager exposes the sportsbook to serious risk against a successful bettor.
They also don’t like customers who place huge wagers on small markets. Somebody who bets $10,000 on a women’s table tennis match, for example, could heavily unbalance the action.
Bookmakers especially don’t appreciate syndicates, which are groups of sharps that work together. A syndicate can really take sportsbooks for a ride by placing multiple big wagers on one side.
This action causes bookmakers to adjust their lines in near unison (a.k.a. steam move). Non-professional gamblers can often make profits just by chasing stream.
Speaking of which, “stream chasers” are another type that sportsbooks commonly prohibit. These gamblers are frowned upon, because they wait for stream moves rather than using their own betting skills to win.
Of course, bookmakers can accidentally ban legitimate gamblers who just happen to be winning. But they try to avoid doing this, so that they don’t scare off good customers.
The most-commonly believed lie in sports gambling is that bookmakers try to create equal action on both sides of a line. Doing so allows them to make a guaranteed profit off the juice, which is the small commission they take from the losing side.
However, the problem is that balancing action on both sides is Impossible to do over the long run. Even when considering that bookmakers can move lines at any point, they’re hard-pressed to maintain total balance.
A bookmaker’s main goal is to ensure that they’re not on the opposite side of too much sharp money. The last thing they want to do is cover a huge imbalance while facing off against the best bettors.
Most line moves aren’t made because one side has more action than the other. Instead, they’re usually made to keep sharps from overloading a specific side.
As mentioned before, professionals make higher bets on average than the typical recreational gambler. They can quickly unbalance a line, even in small numbers.
Sportsbooks are perfectly fine with unbalanced action. In fact, they very rarely deal with a 50/50 split on both sides.
They instead just want to make sharp lines and not give the pros a great deal. If worst comes to worst, they’ll simply ban an entire group if they suspect syndicate activity.
Of course, some bookmakers are more than willing to take action from pros. These operations are known as “sharpbooks.”
They often have skilled oddsmakers working for them who know when to shift lines based on sharps. These bookmakers also do a good job of identifying pros so that they can monitor their bets.
A big reason why many people get into sports gambling in the first place is that they want to bet on the games they love. These gamblers may even have a romantic vision of earning big profits while watching their favorite teams play.
The same fans sometimes think that they have an edge over other gamblers. After all, they know the players and teams, so they must have an advantage, right?
Just because somebody is a huge New York Knicks fan doesn’t give them an edge in NBA betting. Their strong knowledge of the Knicks can pay dividends under a limited scope. But being a successful sports bettor requires more than just knowing a single team.
Research suggests that non-fans can place just as many winning bets as fans. Tel Aviv University Sackler Faculty of Medicine carried out a study that looked at gambling results on 16 Champions League soccer (football) matches.
Their research included 53 professional bettors, 34 soccer fans/amateur gamblers, and 78 people with absolutely no knowledge of the sport. The team saw no noticeable difference in betting results between the fans and non-fans.
Those who win in sports betting over the long run don’t just watch games for pleasure. They instead consider all of the important factors that go into making winning bets.
Both sports bettors and authors often cite that you must win more than 52.4% of your bets to earn profits. They contend that doing so helps you win enough to beat the “10% juice.” Bookmakers take 10% juice from the losing side in a wager with -110 odds.
Your break-even rate, in this case, would be 52.4%. Win more often than this, and you’re going to collect long-term profits.
However, sports gambling features a wide range of bets with varying odds. Not every wager is a simple point spread with -110 odds.
Moneyline bets, for example, feature a vast array of break-even points. Below you can see some of the different rates you’d need to win at to break even.
You can refer to the break-even charts found online to determine how often you must win to break even and collect profits. The key is to remember that the rate you must win at varies as the odds change.
Some gamblers have a mistaken belief that bookmakers earn serious profits off every bettor. They may cite the 10% juice discussed in the previous point as a reason why.
First off, the 10% is only taken from the losing side. Winners don’t have to pay a commission on their bets.
Secondly, the vigorish changes based on the wager. Some bets feature higher juice than others based on the odds.
This difference is referred to as the bookmaker’s margin. You can figure out margins for different odds and bets by using a sports betting margins calculator.
These handy tools allow you to enter odds for each side of a bet, then figure out the margin that the sportsbook is taking. Here are examples using wagers with American odds:
You should actually use margins calculators often in the early going so that you can quickly identify favorable bets. Lower margins mean that you won’t be paying as much to the bookmaker after a loss.
In any case, sportsbooks don’t earn massive profits off gamblers on a per-bet basis. Most bookmakers only make between 4.5% and 5% of the total handle (amount bet) for an entire year.
Sports betting is subject to several big misconceptions. Believing in some of these lies can cost you money in the long run.
This is especially true with strategies like fading the public. Betting opposite the public can be effective, but only when you get the right odds.
You also want to avoid the notion that being a fan gives you some sort of insight. While knowing the teams and players can be helpful, winning at sports betting requires a lot more knowledge.
Assuming you do become a winner, remember that you still won’t have a huge edge. Even the best sports gamblers only win around 55% of the time.
Yet another lie worth cutting through is the idea that bookmakers shift lines to balance out action. They actually move lines to avoid taking too much sharp action on one side.
The last thing sportsbooks want to do is face the prospect of losing big to pros. Knowing this can help you track sharp money and make profitable decisions based on reverse line movement and steam moves.
You should also understand that bookmakers don’t make huge profits. They instead earn small margins by taking juice from the losing side. You can use sports betting margins calculators to find lower juice and give yourself a stronger chance to win.
Being able to see through the fallacies discussed here isn’t going to make you an automatic winner. But you’ll at least be on the right path towards becoming a successful sports bettor and don’t forget you can check our sports betting sites to find the safest sites.
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