Myth of Sports Betting: To Win, You Should Bet the Better Team
To Win, You Need To Ditch the Better Team
Statistically, the average bettor tends to bet favorites. That’s a major mistake, and here is why.
First, the average bettor tends to overstate the relative strength of the league’s better players and teams. What pro handicappers know is that there is actually enormous parity in the league, with not that much difference between the best player in a position and also the worst.
When a team of slightly worse gamers is much more motivated than a group of slightly superior gamers an outright upset is possible. Most certainly, it is possible for the”inferior” team to cover the point spread.
Secondly, the point spread will nullify any obvious scrimmage edge (skill or power benefit ) a team has over its opponent. In the 1999 and 2000 seasons, by way of instance, there were 167 matches in which the point spread was seven points or more (games in which one group’s edge over the following was perceived to become large ). While the underdog won only 36 of those games outright (21.6 percent), the underdog covered the point spread in 83 of those games (while linking it in six): a success rate of 51.6 percent.
Third, by gambling an underdog, you’ve got a significant part of sport strategy on your side. NFL teams do their very best to win a match. Accordingly, in the past few minutes of a match, a team that’s leading seldom takes much danger to score additional points. Instead, it targets hanging on to its lead. The group that is dropping, on the other hand, usually tries to score until the bitter end. When a bettor has obtained a popular that is beforehand but not covering five minutes or less to proceed, that bettor is in trouble.
In 20 years of handicapping the NFL, I’ve yet to stumble upon a long-term winning bettor who does not bet largely underdogs.
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