The best sports betting sites will give you all the information you need to make informed decisions about your betting and how to maximise your enjoyment of the game.
While you may be familiar with the general betting rules for sports, there are a number of unusual situations that may arise when betting on your favorite sports teams. The key is to keep a cool head and make the right decisions – even when things aren’t going your way!
When The Spread Goes Up And Down
One of the main attractions of betting on sporting events is the fact that the line moves in one direction or the other. For example, if you bet on the Cleveland Indians to win the World Series this year, the line will almost certainly move in their direction as the year progresses. The betting public is always rooting for the home team in baseball, and the same concept applies to the other major North American sports leagues.
However, sometimes the line can move in the opposite direction to what you had initially bet on. If you bet on the Cleveland Indians in January, you will almost certainly want to back them, as they were then a long shot to win the World Series in October. But if their season ends in August or September, you might want to consider taking another look at your option, as they are then one of the best teams in the league and are almost guaranteed to make it to the World Series. In that case, you would have gained some money, but it wouldn’t be much compared to the amount you would have lost if you had backed them in January.
These types of situations make betting on sports extremely volatile, and even the most skilled and experienced sports bettors can find it difficult to make money consistently. However, if you avoid getting too attached to any one team or player, you should have no trouble winning or losing money on sports bets – at least not in the long term.
On the other hand, if you do happen to be attached to a team or player, you may find that it is extremely difficult to avoid getting emotionally involved when they do well and your team or player loses, or even worse when they do poorly and your team or player wins. In those cases, you are basically taking a bet on whether or not you are going to win or lose that which you are emotionally invested in. It may be difficult to do, but try to keep a level head and make rational decisions when facing a losing or winning situation, especially if you are emotionally involved in the outcome. It may not always be easy, but it is always essential for long-term sports betting success.
Over/Under Bets
Certain types of bets, known as over/under bets, are designed to take advantage of the fact that the line in most sports games is never known for certain. For example, if you bet on the Cleveland Indians to win the World Series this year, you are essentially betting that the total number of wins for the Cleveland Indians will be over the number of losses. In that case, you would have profited from a win/loss record that was slightly in your favor.
In a similar manner, if you bet on the Tampa Bay Rays to win the World Series this year, you are effectively placing an over/under bet on the total number of wins for the Tampa Bay Rays. This type of bet is extremely popular because they allow for some degree of risk-free betting, as you are essentially placing a wager on the total number of wins for a specific team, rather than trying to guess which team is going to win each game. If you are betting under the assumption that the team you chose is going to win, the risk of losing is therefore greatly reduced – at least in theory!
Home Field Advantage
In the NFL, for example, the home team enjoys a significant advantage when playing on their home field. This is primarily due to the fact that there are a lot more people watching the game, and therefore it is easier for the home team to boost their odds of winning by virtue of having more people on their side. If you are unfamiliar, the home field advantage in football is the difference between the total amount of points scored by the home team compared to the total amount of points scored by the away team.
Similarly, in the NBA, the home team enjoys a significant advantage over the away team, as evidenced by the fact that the total amount of points scored is usually higher when playing at home compared to games played elsewhere. This is mainly due to the fact that there are more people in the arena to witness the game, and therefore it is easier for the home team to boost their odds of winning by virtue of being at home. However, as in the NFL, this advantage is not always enough to compensate for the handicap of being on the road against an opponent who is physically superior.
Increased Action
When you visit a bookmaker’s website and look at the schedule of upcoming sporting events, you will usually notice that there is a great deal more activity on the lines for sports events that are played in the summer compared to games played in the winter. This is mainly due to the fact that there are more people playing sports in the summer, which in turn makes it easier for the bookmaker to get action on their wagers. As a general rule of thumb, summertime is the best time to place bets on sports, as the activity levels are generally higher and there are more opportunities to win money.
Paroli’s Principle
Paroli’s principle, also known as contrarian investing, states that it is often better to be against the majority and choose a side based on logic rather than emotion. For example, if you are a devout Cleveland Indians fan and you believe that they are the clear-cut favorites to win the World Series this year, it may be unwise to bet on them, as they are a highly influential team and many bookmakers may have them heavily favored in the series. In that case, it may be more prudent to bet on the Tampa Bay Rays, who are also expected to make a run at the championship this year. However, if you are inclined to believe that the Boston Red Sox have what it takes to win the World Series, it may be a sound idea to take some money off the Red Sox.
Head-To-Head
A head-to-head bet, sometimes known as a duel or two-game bet, is one in which you bet on the outcome of two games between two teams, commonly used in baseball to predict the winner of a match-up between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. If the Yankees are playing the Red Sox and you make the wager, you are essentially placing a wager on which team will win each game. If you win, you win money; if you lose, you lose money.
This type of bet is more popular in the summertime, as there are more games and more opportunities to place head-to-head wagers. In the wintertime, it is more common to see bets on the total point-spread or totals scored in individual games, as there are fewer games and fewer opportunities to place head-to-head wagers. These types of wagers are generally less attractive to sports bettors because there is a lot of volatility with head-to-head betting, as the line almost always moves in the direction of one of the two teams involved in the head-to-head bet. For this reason, head-to-head betting is more suitable for casual or recreational sports bettors who are not overly concerned about winnings or losses. Nevertheless, it is still possible to make money from head-to-head bets, as long as you are experienced and use proper strategy. However, it is not easy to make consistent money from head-to-head betting, as the line will almost certainly move in one direction or the other, which means most of the time you will either profit or lose money, depending on the odds favoring one team or the other. In the end, though, it is all about probability and statistics, and proper mathematical analysis can help you figure out which team is most likely to win a head-to-head bet, as there will almost certainly be lots of data available online regarding those teams.
Short-To-Mid-Term Betting
When most people think about betting on sports, they think about long-term wagers and multi-game wagers. However, there is also a very handy tool known as “betting calculator”, which is a free app available for both Android and iOS devices that can be extremely useful in situations where you need to place a bet quickly and do not have the luxury of placing it immediately. Using this app, you can enter the total number of points scored by each team in a game and the result of the earlier line movements and get an accurate prediction of the outcome of the game, along with an indication of the amount you will win or lose if the game ends in a tie.