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Bet with the odds in your favor not as per the spread

Normal casino games are all tilted in the favour of the house. These games have an in-built advantage for the house and hence, there is only a slight probability that you will succeed tremendously. But when you bet on the outcome of any sporting event, you give yourself a reasonable chance to win your bets. While the casino games require luck, betting on sporting events requires skill. There might not be wins every time but when you play on percentages, then the regular punter is sure to have a higher success rate that his counterpart, the frivolous bettor.

There are many games which involve the spread of points that need to be taken cognisance of while placing bets. The basketball and football games are the more prominent ones which take help from this point rating system. If you would like to enjoy a little betting, some rudimentary knowledge regarding the intricacies of betting on sports will not be out of place. The Sports book, carried by the casinos, work on receiving commissions on the bets which lose. It is the Vig or Vigorish. The normal odds offered by the casinos are 11 to 10, which means that you bet $110 in the hope of winning another $100 if the bet you place is the winner. Hypothetically, your bet of $110 on the Giants placed with the casino book will net you $210 in the event the Giants win. You lose your $110 if the Giants are on the losing side. So at 11 to 10 odds, you win $210 or lose your $110. These are pretty good commissions for the casino Sports book.

What happens is that the casino has bet the same money on both the playing teams. So if one team wins, they pay $100 more and collect $110 from the other bettor. The Sports book will make a cool $110 from the loser who bet on the Giants losing the game. This means the Sports book can never lose because they are assured of $10 every bet. Since the Sports book has spread their money equally on both the teams and hence, it is of no pecuniary consequence for the book which team wins and who loses. Just to add some incentive for the bettors, the Sports book assigns a spread or a line to the odds.

Spread the Points

There is a fallacy believed that the spread of points indulged in by the Sports book is actually a margin of win which is predicted for one team to win against the other. This line is actually the calculation made by the handicapping Sports book as to how or what number will be good enough to evenly split the wagers between the two teams. For this very reason, the spread or the line may be amended as the betting progresses from the line at the opening of the betting till the end of the line at the time of the game. The Sports book wants to keep its bets very evenly spread so that no matter who wins, the book is always the winner.

There may be a chance where the bettors for some sentimental or obscure reasons lay heavy bets on a certain team. Then the Sports book has to realign its betting strategy to hedge its bets by getting some bets on the opposite team. In the event that this is not possible and at the last moment just before the book is closed, there is heavy betting in favour of one team, then the book will have a heavily tilted book which might be detrimental if that particular team wins. This is the case when many of the John Does jump on the shirttails of the winners.

This situation may arise due to miscalculation of the spread or line offered. Since a lopsided favourable line may have induced the general bettor to place bets predominantly on one team and the Sports book was not able to garner bets for the other team, this results in the casino holding a lopsided Sports book. And it could prove disastrous to the casino if the team which received the majority of bets were to win. A team which is weak may result in heavy bets being placed in its favour due to sentimental reasons. This makes the team become the favourite and there are less bets on the strong team which is the favourite in the original place. This situation gives the casino an excellent advantage at making huge financial gains. Based on this betting scenario, the seasoned bettor will refrain from going along with the general trend and bet on the other team to rake in big winnings. However, note that surprises do occur.

Seasoned handicapper at work

A regular punter will not pay heed to the sentiments of the general public but will have his personal method of arriving at handicap ratings for each of the two teams playing. He is not going to be swayed by the sentiments or the erratic betting patterns exhibited by the general public. His professional mind will have analysed the strengths and weaknesses of the two teams and in addition, calculated the odds of each team winning the encounter on that particular night. The professional bettor will first come up with his own set of odds for each of the team and then compare these with the line offered by the casino book for a match. There is a huge treasure trove of valuable and pertinent data available on the net. But it takes a lot of patience and hard work to peruse this data in its entirety. With the development and advent of computer as well as some excellent software programs, this work has been made easier and faster as well as more accurate for the professional bettors.

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