п»їThese three rules will have you betting sports like pro in no time.
By Josh Appelbaum, VSiN.
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August 9, 2020 | 11:01am.
Sports betting is all about being on the same side as the smart money. You always want to be with the professional bettors, also known as the wiseguys, and never against them.
Why? Because pros win at a high rate, have long track records of success and have the respect of the sportsbooks. When they place big wagers and “get down” on a game, they force oddsmakers to take notice and adjust their lines. Smart money won’t win 100 percent of the time. But it will win far more often than it loses.
If you’re a true sharp, you are handicapping games based on your own models, formulas and power ratings in order to come up with your own line on a game. Then you’ll compare your lines to what the sportsbooks are offering and look for actionable discrepancies.
For example, a wiseguy might cap the Patriots as 9-point favorites against the Jets. If the sportsbooks open New England at -7, sharps will immediately bet New England because they’ve identified an actionable edge.
It’s often said that pros bet numbers, not teams. They bet with their heads, not their hearts, and are always looking for value. Sharps are fearless but disciplined. If value is there, they fire away. If it’s not there, they have no problem laying off.
Unfortunately, not all of us are as smart and talented as the pros. But we can still identify which side is receiving smart money if we understand the market and learn how to read line movement. Here are three tips on how to identify which side is receiving smart money, also known as sharp action.
William Hill sportsbook at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J. Reuters.
Reverse line movement: Popularly referred to as “RLM,” this is when the betting line moves away from the popular side getting the majority of bets and toward the unpopular side getting the minority of bets.
For example, let’s say 75 percent of bets are taking the Giants-Eagles Over 47 points. With such heavy support, you would expect the line to rise to 47¹/₂ or 48. However, despite this lopsided betting, you see the total fall to 46¹/₂ or 46. This would indicate sharp action hitting the Under. Remember, if it looks fishy or looks too good to be true, it almost always is.
Steam move: This is when you see a sudden overload of smart money come down all at once causing uniform line movement across the board. The key is that nearly every book suddenly moves in the same direction. If just one or two books move, that might be an outlier. Maybe the Mets open -125 and in the blink of an eye they move to -140. This would be the result of pro money hammering or “steaming” New York.
Line freeze: Normally when a team is getting a lopsided share of tickets and heavy public support, the oddsmakers will adjust the number further toward the popular side in order to limit their risk and entice betting on the opposite side. However, sometimes a team is getting a heavy share of tickets yet the line stays the same. This is referred to as a line freeze.
Maybe 80 percent of bets are taking the Lakers -7 vs. the Jazz. However, the line refuses to move to Lakers -7¹/₂ or -8. This would signal a reluctance on the part of the books to hand out a better number to the Jazz because that’s the side they have liability on.
Sharp Sports Betting.
Stanford Wong.
October 03, 2019 12:37.
Views so far: 292.
Sharp Sports Betting is a tool for those interested in winning money at sports betting. This book explains the most common sports bets, what all the numbers mean, and the mathematics behind the numbers.
Sports bettors have their own lingo. If you are new to sports betting, you will appreciate the glossary at the back of the book.
The first half of the book contains general information about betting that applies to all sports. The last half of the book has information specific to the National Football League.
This book is not a get-rich-quick vehicle. If you are looking for a magic formula in which you input data and grind out numbers that will tell you who will win tomorrow’s games, you might be disappointed in this book. But if you are facing two different ways to bet on the same team, you might find this book helpful in choosing the better alternative.
The advice in this book will help you find worthwhile sports bets, but don’t quit your job to become a full-time sports bettor.
Where to Bet Sports.
Sports betting is one of the more popular ways to gamble. In the United States, betting on sports is rapidly expanding to many states.
Outside of the United States, betting on sports is legal on the Internet and in many countries. Betting on sports enjoys the reputation of being well regulated in Great Britain and Australia.
Which Sports?
The most common way to bet on American football is against the spread. Think of the spread as being a handicap, the number of points that must be added to or subtracted from one team’s final score to induce bettors to back both teams.
The most common terms for betting sports are -110, which means risking $110 in an attempt to win $100. You give the sportsbook $110 when you make your bet, and get a receipt with the details of your bet printed on it. If your team wins, you take that receipt back to the sportsbook and receive $210 — your own $110 and the $100 you won. If your team loses, your receipt is worthless. If your team wins but you cannot find your receipt, keep looking because without that receipt you will have difficulty getting paid.
If you walk into a sportsbook, you will see a collection of numbers that at first may make no sense to you. But with some learning, you will be able to understand what the numbers mean. With a bit of study, you will occasionally find a number that jumps out at you as being a good bet.
The area where all the numbers are displayed is called a “board,” a term left over from the days when all the numbers were entered by hand on wall boards. Nowadays electronic displays are far more common than actual boards.
The first thing to notice is that the display of numbers is organized by sport. Depending on the time of year, you may find a section of the board devoted to NFL football, college football, major-league baseball, NBA basketball, college basketball, NHL hockey, golf, auto racing, and probably more. Each sport has its own system of displaying possible bets.
Generally there will be sheets of paper available with the various possible sports bets listed on them. In the event of differences between the odds listed on the sheets of paper and on the board, the board is more current. The odds on the sheets of paper were accurate when the sheets were printed, but at best that was earlier in the day and it might have been several days ago.
The main value of the sheets is to list all the bets by their unique numbers. You bet by number. You don’t say “Give me $100 on the Yankees,” you say “Give me $100 on number 302” or whatever number is listed to the left of the Yankees on the sheet of paper and on the board.
This article is the first of a series, to be continued .
Excerpted with permission from Sharp Sports Betting by Stanford Wong.
What Is a Sharp in Sports Betting?
Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images. Pictured: Paddy Fisher, Nate Hall and Ryan Field.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but not everyone is equally skilled when it comes to sports betting. Most bettors are somewhere near 50-50 (in other words, below the 52.4% clip needed to make a profit on standard point spread bets, with some lower and some higher).
And some significantly higher.
Now, the term “significantly” needs to be contextualized in that usage. No one is hitting 75% of their plays over time, for example.
But a very skilled bettor might be somewhere around 55%, and some could even approach 60%. Bettors who hold such a win rate over a long period of time are called sharps.
What Is a Sharp?
In sports betting, a sharp is a long-term winning bettor whose opinion is well respected by sportsbooks.
When a sharp bettor places a wager, sportsbooks take notice and might even move their lines as a result. If several sharp bettors come down on the same side of a game, the line will almost certainly change — even if that side is not the popular one.
How Can You Tell What Sharps Are Betting?
There are a few ways to gauge sharp action (what sharps are betting on). Some of the easiest include comparing bet percentages to money percentages as well as line movement, and from locating steam.
Our PRO Report highlights sharp action on specific games, and our Bet Signals at Sports Insights give you detailed market moves in real-time, including steam, reverse line movement and more.
Check out our new NFL PRO Report, where we highlight factors that provide betting edges — like large wagers, historically profitable betting systems, model projections and expert picks — that when combined with sharp money can powerfully detail the smartest bets on a given slate.
Bet vs. Money Discrepancies.
Something to note about sharp bettors: They aren’t in the gambling business for the thrill of the sweat (though perhaps that’s why many started). They are professionals who see sports betting as a serious source of income. As such, they aren’t just putting $25 down on a game they like.
With that in mind, comparing the percentage of tickets (bets) to the percentage of actual money on that side can give a good indication of how sharps are betting.
If only 25% of bets are landing on Northwestern in a game against Michigan, for example, but the Wildcats are also accounting for 55% of the money, there’s a pretty good chance that sharps are among that 25%.
Reverse Line Movement.
Reverse line movement occurs when a betting line moves away from the popular side, and is perhaps the clearest giveaway of sharp action.
To return to the example above, if all you know is that 25% of bets are landing on Northwestern, but you see that Michigan has fallen from -10 to -9 since the line opened, you can pretty safely assume — barring no injuries or other game factors changing — that oddsmakers are looking to take on more Michigan action because their sharper customers are betting Northwestern.
In other words, step back and ask yourself why oddsmakers would move the spread to make it easier for the majority of their customers to win this bet. They likely have either a significant monetary liability or have been influenced by sharp action. And in many cases, one means the other.
Steam Moves.
A steam move is defined by a sudden, drastic and uniform line move across the sports betting marketplace, and is usually the result of multiple sportsbooks taking sharp action on the same bet at the same time.
Steam is not easily trackable without help from a betting service, as it requires either an odds page — with live updating numbers from all across the market — to be open, or a feature like Sports Insights’ Bet Signals, which track and record each occurrence of steam in real time.
Should You Follow Sharp Action?
Since sharps are long-term winning bettors, the simple answer to this question is yes, but what makes the answer not-so-simple is that truly following sharp action is almost impossible.
Because sharp action usually results in line moves, it’s difficult to make the same bets that sharps are making.
Another danger of trying to follow sharp action is that some seemingly sharp moves can wind up being part of a greater “setup” to create a more favorable line for the bet that the sharps actually want to place.
For example, a sharp bettor or sharp syndicate (group) may attempt to cause a steam move by placing bets on a given team, only to come back with even bigger bets on the other side once the line has moved to a more desirable number.
Resources to become a sharp sports bettor?
Recommended online casinos.
Hello, can my fellow forum members point me in the direction to some solid sports betting resources and articles/literature. I'm a newbie looking to become a sharp, primarily with MLB, then if all goes decent, look into NFL and NHL betting. I really don't know all that much about sharp sports betting other than parlays are generally a ploppy play, and there can be value in betting underdogs and totals on the under. I'm primarily a +EV video poker player, so I am familiar with basic gambling principles like variance, proper bet size to bankroll ratio, etc.
What I am most interested in is how the player/team/home game stats influence the lines and how to spot soft lines, and websites that can provide good statistical information.
Also: When it is better to bet the point spread vs. when to just take the moneyline.
Hello, can my fellow forum members point me in the direction to some solid sports betting resources and articles/literature. I'm a newbie looking to become a sharp, primarily with MLB, then if all goes decent, look into NFL and NHL betting. I really don't know all that much about sharp sports betting other than parlays are generally a ploppy play, and there can be value in betting underdogs and totals on the under. I'm primarily a +EV video poker player, so I am familiar with basic gambling principles like variance, proper bet size to bankroll ratio, etc.
What I am most interested in is how the player/team/home game stats influence the lines and how to spot soft lines, and websites that can provide good statistical information.
Also: When it is better to bet the point spread vs. when to just take the moneyline.
You said the title a bunch of times. Sharp Sports Betting By Stanford Wong has a lot of good starting info.
Also: When it is better to bet the point spread vs. when to just take the moneyline.
To add to your polite inquiry. may I ask you experts.
In football, NFL and NCAA. what is the money line equation? I looked but couldn't find it. Maybe I'm not a good researcher. I'm asking for example,
If a team is a 1 point favorite, what should be the money line?
Same on the key numbers of 3 and 7. Is there a straight line correlation between the money line and the point spread, or at least a general rule of thumb? Knowing this would allow us newbies to spot "soft" lines, assuming of course we know which is the soft of the two.
Thanks and good luck this year.
this is a money line to spread converter for the NBA, NFL, NCAAF and NCAAB. it was posted by a guy who went through 20 years of data to come up with it.
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