Even though luck does play a significant role in sports betting, there’s a ton of skill and strategy involved in becoming a long-term winner. In this guide we’re going to break down the best strategies for betting on sports to help you turn a consistent profit with your bets.
A lot of people love putting money on their favorite team or player, or taking bets with long odds in search of a really big payday. Betting like that is okay if you’re just looking for entertainment but it’s usually going to result in losing more money than you win.
We don’t know you personally but we’re going to assume that you’re like us and prefer winning.
This article is going to show you exactly how to do that by providing easy to follow, step by step instructions on how to use the most popular and powerful sports betting strategies and systems.
We’ll explain popular concepts like hedging, betting the middle, betting against the public and the zig zag theory and we’ll also give you our best betting tips and strategies for popular sports like NFL football, NBA basketball, NHL hockey and MLB baseball.
Consider this a broad overview of the best ways to bet on sports. You can continue your studies in more detail with our comprehensive guides to each betting strategy.
Sports Betting Strategy Quick Tips
Here’s a rundown of the quickest and easiest tips our experts could put together. If you want to start betting immediately, make sure to put these tricks into action:
- Learn basic odds – Whether you’re betting online or live, you have to learn the basics. Check out our crash course in betting odds to get up to speed.
- Have a betting bankroll – We’ll go into more detail later but we can’t stress enough how important it is to maintain a separate bankroll for betting.
- Diversify your action – It’s always better to spread your money out over more bets to help overcome bad luck and reduce variance.
- Avoid longshots and parlays – When you get a bigger bankroll it’s okay to make a few longshot bets but when you’re starting out they’ll be a big drain.
- Bet the underdog – One of the most common edges you can find is when a popular team is overhyped. Bet the underdog for better value and a bigger payout.
Key Beginner Concepts
As a beginner, it’s important to focus on the basics. Once you learn good fundamentals you can take on more complicated bets.
To get you started, here are some quick and easy basic strategies to hardwire into the sports betting circuits of your brain.
Focus on One Team
This is a simple idea but it’s more powerful than you might think. It is much more valuable to be an expert on one team than have an average amount of knowledge on many teams. The more you know about a specific team the better you’ll be able to understand good value when you check the newest betting odds.
As an expert on your team you will be in-the-know in terms of any important news and if you are able to spot something before bookmakers can change lines you can gain value. This is especially true in smaller non-marquee leagues.
If one team is too restricting, at least limit yourself to betting on just one league.
Study Teams’ Records Against the Spread
A common stat you’ll see a lot is called “ATS” which stands for “against the spread”.
It is extremely valuable to know how teams perform not just in the win/loss column but also against the point spread created by casinos and sportsbooks. Think of the point spread like a secondary competition for teams when it comes to gambling.
Teams are looking to get as many straight-up wins as possible but for gambling purposes it’s also really important to understand how they performed compared to the oddsmakers’ expectations, not just their opponents. This is referred to as a team’s ATS stat.
If a team is beating the spread more than half the time on average, it’s a great opportunity for you to bet on.
Respect Bankroll Management
This concept will pay off in any activity where you’re making decisions about how to invest your money. In short, it’s not just about the teams you bet on but the amount and frequency of your bets too.
Good bankroll management is all about protecting yourself from the inevitable cold streaks that come with any kind of gambling from time to time. The first step is creating a betting bankroll that’s separate from your regular day to day money.
If your sports betting bankroll is over $200, your average single bet size should be about 2% of your total roll. Any roll that is below $200 should stick to a maximum $5 bet size. It’s always better to make more bets with a smaller percentage of your roll riding on each bet.
These might sound like small numbers but if you want to grow your roll over time and avoid going broke, this is the way to do it.
If you’re not yet listening to the Wise Kracks podcast, you should definitely do so! Bill Krackomberger is a strong advocate for good bankroll management. Subscribe to listen to his weekly sports betting tips.
Shop Around for the Best Lines and Odds
This strategy is an obvious one but it’s also something a lot of people fail to do because it takes legwork. To put it in non-gambling terms, if one store is charging you more for bread than the one down the street, you’d be a fool not to go with the cheaper option. The catch is that you have to shop around to find the best deals.
The same holds true for sports bets. If you are diligent about shopping lines you can find better value on your bets.
Also, by virtue of the fact that you will need to create different accounts at different books you will have the opportunity to take advantage of the different promotional offers upon sign-up and first deposit. Besides that, discover the best sports betting mobile apps and top-rated sports betting sites to get started.
Ride Winning Streaks
Team and player performance in sports can be really streaky. Sometimes players are in the zone and can’t miss a shot while other times they’re as cold as ice. You can take advantage of hot and cold streaks in your betting and if you can identify them faster than the oddsmakers, it presents a big opportunity.
What is important to remember is making sure the odds are offering the right value and you’re evaluating all the factors accurately. If a team beats a series of lower quality teams while playing at home it may not be the right time to jump on the bandwagon when their next game is on the road against a top opponent, for example.
Keep track of the schedule and factors that can help keep a streak alive. Also, if you are looking to take them on a spread rather than moneyline, check to see how they’ve been faring against the spread in recent games.
Sports Betting Strategies That Work
Now that we’ve covered some of the basic building blocks of what is required for a strong sports betting strategy, let’s look at some specific examples of wagering techniques that have been proven to work when properly applied.
Hedging Your Bets
There are opportunities in sports betting where a punter can make a bet that is opposite to his original bet. It might seem weird to bet against your original bet but as you’ll see, when it’s done right it can guarantee you a profit.
- Hedging usually applies to futures bets where the odds on your bet change significantly in your favor as the season progresses, or in big parlays when you’ve won a large number of your bets but still have one or more wagers left to play.
- In both these examples you can bet against your original wager and lock in a profit, regardless of the final outcome.
- Hedging lets you sacrifice a larger potential payout in exchange for reduced risk and a guaranteed profit. By making your hedge bet larger or smaller you can play with how much risk and reward you want to take.
Let’s take a closer look at how hedge betting works and use a famous example from the 2011 MLB season.
At a Las Vegas sportsbook, a St. Louis fan made $250 wager on the Cardinals to win the World Series. At the time the Cardinals were five games out of a playoff spot with 15 games to play. A big hill to climb to even just make the playoffs.
He put $250 on the Cardinals to win the world series.
- The bet paid 1000:1 for a potential $250,000 profit.
As luck would have it, his prognostications came true and the Cardinals not only made the playoffs but won the National League Championship Series (NLCS) and a trip to the World Series to play the Texas Rangers.
The gambler was now looking at a potentially massive payday. But what if the Cardinals lost the World Series. He would get exactly zero. This is the perfect opportunity to hedge. By betting opposite to the original wager, he can lock in a profit. Let’s see how.
Let’s assume for this example that a bet on the Texas Rangers to win the World Series paid 1:1. If the gambler was able to raise $125,000 and bet it on the Rangers he would guarantee himself a $125,000 profit regardless of who ends up winning.
- A Cardinals World Series win gives him $250,000 on his first ticket, minus the $125,000 he bet on the Rangers.
- If the Cardinals lose he wins $125,000 from his bet on the Rangers.
Hedging also works the same way when you’ve made a multiple bet parlay and you’ve won most of your bets. With parlays one loss is all it takes to lose the entire parlay. If there’s just one game to go, consider hedging by betting against your original parlay bet to lock in a profit.
