Secrets of a Successful Sports Bettor – The Early Bird Gets the Worm

You should think of the bookmaker like a schoolyard bully. He’s bigger and meaner than you, and you don’t stand a chance in hell of beating him in a fair fight. Rather than pick a fight that you can’t win. you should seek out less formidable opposition. Instead of trying to outfox the bookmaker, your goal should be to do everything you can to be sharper than the other bettors. The bookie is going to get his money, but as long as you are one step ahead of the rest of the bettors, he’ll be taking their money and not yours.

If you look at the typical habits of successful people, very few of them roll out of bed in the afternoon. There have been several studies on the sleep habits of millionaires, and perhaps the most consistent data point is that the majority of them are out of bed before the sun comes up. Getting an early start on the day is always a good habit to get into, and in the business of sports handicapping it’s particularly important to be awake and alert when the bookmakers release the opening lines.

Some sportsbooks will offer overnight lines on select games, and these become available sometime in the afternoon the day before the contest. The opening lines are released each day at roughly 9AM ET, which of course is three hours earlier on the West Coast. Before you get the opening lines, you should have a list of teams you are interested in betting on, and an idea of what you think a fair price would be. You place a bet when you see a significant difference between the price you think is fair, and the price that is offered.

You are looking for a bargain, a team that you think is getting more points than they should be, or a team that should be a bigger favorite. You should be quite certain that the number being offered is going to move significantly in the other direction. This will allow you to win your bet, even when others who have the same side will lose with the same team because they have an inferior line. When it comes to moneyline sports, you won’t increase your winning percentage, but paying less vigorish will in the end have the same effect.

When it comes to betting on football, I like to say that only suckers bet on Sunday. The reason I say that, is that by the time Sunday rolls around your window of opportunity to get the best value has all but disappeared. That is unless you are waiting on a game where you want to fade the public money, and in that case you might just get the best deal right before kickoff. My betting strategy is based on value, and most of the time I am looking for value in comparison to the closing line. Occasionally I am looking for value versus the opening line, for example underdogs that are bet up several points from where they opened.

Some sportsbooks release NFL lines for the coming week on Sunday afternoon before the conclusion of the late afternoon games. This is normally your best chance to catch soft lines before adjustments are made. It often takes a few more days before we see any lines available for college football, but the same principal applies. While getting the best value is perhaps one of the the most important steps in successful sports betting, it’s just one of the tools in my arsenal. If you want to achieve the impossible by beating all the odds, you need to use every trick in the book.

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