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Welcome to the Football Forecastor, home to Jim "Dirtydog"
Campbell, who is considered one of the nations most prolific sports
handicappers, we specialize in NFL and College Football handicapping
and take sports betting to a whole new level by treating sports
wagering as an investment...take a ride with us on the "Money
Train" today!!
How to bet against the point spreads:
How
to Bet against the Point Spreads
by
Jim Campbell of Footballforecastor.com
Most
novice gamblers end up losing their proverbial shirts year in and
year out, most failures can be directly attributed to poor money
management practices but many more failures are also due to a
complete lack of knowledge with regard to how to handicap that
particular sport and the factors/situations that come into play week
in and week out.
First of
all a “Point Spread” is
defined as a number placed on an event for wagering purposes and is
often expressed in terms of the amount of points one side must spot
the other side as a means of evening the playing field for both the
favorite and underdog, in most cases a money-line is also attached
to the same event so that one may simply wager on either the
favorite or underdog to win without having to lay points, keep in
mind that its usually football and basketball games that have point
spreads.
If there is only one bit
of advice that you take from this article, I hope it is this…Keep
your eyes and ears open!! I bet you’re wondering “huh” right
about now aren’t you? When I say keep your eyes and ears open I am
referring to the radio, the TV, and the local newspapers in your
area, often local team beat writers glean information from team
players or team sources and use that same information for their
local radio or TV shows or for the articles that they write for the
local newspapers, this same information can be very valuable to you
as a gambler if you are able to dissect what is important and what
is not and then act upon the important information before the rest
of the world does, this gives you what is referred to as an
“edge”.
Get in the habit of
having the local sports talk shows on the radio when you are driving
or working at home on your computer, know what time the local
nightly sports show comes on television in your area, pay special
attention to the sports section of the local newspaper each morning
over coffee or breakfast. The idea is to absorb as much information
as you can through out the week and prior to game time, know who is
returning from an injury or who is nursing a nagging knee or ankle
injury that may slow them down, know if there are any “cluster”
injuries along the offensive or defensive lines which can impact the
upcoming game, know if your local team is playing at home and if
there are any possible weather concerns.
The point of the matter
is that you have a wealth of information at your fingertips with
regard to the local college and professional teams in your area and
in most cases this information can be accessed by you before the
rest of the betting public learns about it and you can use this to
your advantage, by no means am I saying to disregard the rest of the
teams in the league and not care what is going on with them, what I
am saying is that if you want to defeat the posted point spread you
have to look for edges and often an edge can be found by
concentrating on local information about local teams.
I advocate using multiple
“outs” for placing wagers as a means of garnering the best
possible point spread on any game you intend wagering on, in this
day and age a gambler has access to many off shore sports books and
it’s a good idea to utilize at least three or four of these for
line shopping purposes, but remember to do your homework before
simply signing up with just any off shore sports book, most are
reputable but some are not.
However it is also a good
idea to have a local book that you can place wagers with for the
express purpose of wagering against local teams, remember that local
teams are also generally popular teams to wager on for the local run
of the mill gamblers in your area, meaning that you must usually lay
a higher point spread number if wagering on a local team thru a
local book, thus the rule of thumb is to use off shore books when
wagering ON local teams but use local books when wagering AGAINST
local teams.
If you want to defeat the
point spread you have to remain ahead of the proverbial curve, this
means that you must out-work other gamblers with regard to having
and acting on information before they do, I personally do a ton of
off-season work and I recommend that you do the same, for example,
it’s a good idea to go over each teams schedule as soon as it is
released for the upcoming
season and finding potential bad spots for each team.
By bad spots in the
schedule I mean taking note of the potential pitfalls or scheduling
quirks that might affect a teams performance, for example, when a
team is playing on the road for a third straight week, or when a
team has played two or three straight divisional games and are in
line to play a non conference team next, or if a team is playing on
a short week because they just played on Monday night or if a team
has been bouncing back and forth from the east coast to the west
coast or visa versa.
Know in advance to the
start of the new season by studying the schedule if a team is
revenge minded against another team for an embarrassing loss or for
knocking them out of the playoffs the previous year, try to study
and concentrate on historical data from past divisional match ups,
the reason is because divisional teams face each other at least
twice yearly which means that often you can find a team that for one
reason or another continues to dominate another.
Know in advance to the
start of the new season what players a team lost to free agency or
trades and what players they added via the draft and/or free agency
and don’t forget to consider any coaching changes, a complete
turnover in coaching staffs is a hard thing to overcome and often
means that a team will struggle in the early going of a new season
because that team is still trying to learn a new system.
The astute gambler will
then take all of the information he or she has gathered during the
off season and will prior to the start of the new season make up a
set of power ratings which are then updated on a weekly basis once
the regular season starts, a smart sports gambler will have a set
personal schedule that they adhere to once the season is under way,
keeping in mind that your off season work has already pinpointed
potential scheduling problems and you have a set of power ratings in
place, you can now use this information to better evaluate the
opening Monday morning lines for the next week.
Monday morning is also a
good time to check the injury reports of each team as well as
advance weather reports for the upcoming weekend’s slate of games,
as the week progresses you want to continue to monitor the posted
point spread as well as the latest injury and weather reports, if
you have already isolated a contest that has perceived value to you
and that team is listed as the favorite it is usually best to make
your wager as soon as possible, on the other hand if you like a
doggie in a particular contest its best to wait until almost game
time to place your wager.
The reasoning has to do
with the way “Joe Public” bettors wager, which is usually on the
listed favorite, by placing your wager early in the week (if you
like the favorite) you are locking in your line before the general
public has a chance to move the point spread upward, on the flip
side if you like the doggie you want the public to drive the line
upward so that you can get as many points as possible.
I could go on and on with
this article but the end result would resemble a book, hopefully you
will take some of this advice to heart, the one item that I did not
touch on in this article but is probably the most important aspect
of gambling is money management, without some sort of game plan with
regard to protecting your bankroll you will surely lose your shirt
and not be around placing wagers at seasons end.
Please refer to another
article that I have already written simply entitled “Money
Management”, the article explains in detail the system that I
personally utilize as a means of protecting my bankroll over the
course of a long season, one last bit of advise, remember that the
betting public is generally wrong which is the reason Las Vegas is
still standing, meaning that you should do your homework and follow
your instincts and not those of the talking heads in the media or
those of your drinking buddies.
Our goal here at www.footballforecastor.com
is to hit the 60% win mark year in and year out with our NFL and
college football selections, in the big picture few handicappers are
able to achieve this lofty goal on a consistent basis. I shake my
head in wonderment on how they get away with such outrageous claims
when I see the Saturday morning scam-you-cappers on TV or in the
advertisements listed in the USA Today newspaper touting win
percentages of 75% or 80% over the course of a season.
The simple truth is that only the very best handicappers
consistently produce seasonal results that fall within the 55% to
60% range much like we do here at footballforecastor.com year in and
year out, my advise to all new clients is to use extreme discipline
in the amount of games you wager on each week, you must also adhere
to good money management techniques in order to get through the
peaks and valleys of a long season.
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