Handicapping Sports Betting Futures Plays

October 5th, 2010

Sports betting futures plays are often dismissed by more serious handicappers as poor values by definition. They’re most frequently associated with rank amateurs looking for a big payoff with little risk. For example, a player might be entranced with a +10000 payoff should St. George, Utah be awarded the 2020 Summer Olympic games. While that would definitely be a nice payday, the problem is that the “true odds” of St. George, Utah hosting the Olympics is well in excess of a million to one. That means that even the huge ‘plus number’ offered represents an underlay situation and a poor wagering value.

For the more serious bettor, there’s a number of obvious problems with futures wagers. They require that your wagering ‘capital’ be tied up for months. Furthermore, once you’ve placed your bet you’re at the mercy of injuries, suspensions, trades and the other numerous factors that can spell defeat for a sports team. It’s no simple task keeping up with these variables on a day to day basis, and predicting them over a longer term is the province of psychics and not sports handicappers.

Despite their downsides, futures bets have an important place in the investment oriented sports bettor’s arsenal. The ‘prime directive’ for serious sports betting is to think of it not in terms of wins and losses, but in terms of value. Futures wagers frequently present opportunities to lock in line value and create overlay situations. In some cases, judicious use of futures can produce situations in which a bettor can realize a profit from any outcome! Below are some basic concepts for properly using futures wagers to maximize value.

The early bird gets the worm. The early bettor gets the value: Many sports books offer non-sports proposition bets, including entertainment based wagers like the Academy Awards. Someone who enjoys following the industry and keeping up-to-date on whats happening in Hollywood can get a decided edge over the bookmaker, who doesn’t have the time to stay juiced in to industry news and gossip.

Some books even take bets on the major awards like ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’ before the nominations are actually announced. In this situation, a bettor who can read the ‘buzz’ on which films will be nominated can find substantially better values before the nominations are announced.

The way the film industry works makes futures bets of this sort particularly appealing. Release schedules for films are set well in advance, and the cut off date for Academy Award consideration is the end of the calendar year. That way it’s easy for a handicapper to isolate a number of serious Oscar candidates out of the hundreds of films released annually. With more work, that can be narrowed down even more and once a workable number of potential winners has been reached it’s just a matter of shopping around for the best value.

Taking a position for profit: Now well turn our attention to sports and how to use the futures wager there. As I noted above, sports inherently presents more variables than the film industry. Furthermore, the top teams are usually not priced for value. Currently you can get +650 on New England to eventually win the 2010 Superbowl. The Patriots are certainly capable of winning, but the value just isn’t there.

The place to find value in this sort of proposition is to look at the less obvious teams. A few years ago an associate of mine took positions on several teams NHL that started slowly, including the Calgary Flames at 40/1. By the end of the regular season they were down to prices as low as 5/1 or 6/1.

This play didn’t necessitate a crystal ball or a Canadien genie with a profound interest in hockey–instead, it was a simple matter of determining teams that offered true odds of championship success that were lower than the price offered in the future bet. At prices like 25/1 or 40/1 its possible to back several dark horse ‘candidates’ and if one or more enjoy postseason success it presents a number of opportunities to hedge and guarantee a profit.

Don’t forget the field. Many bettors dismiss plays on the field in a futures wager out of hand, thinking that the wager represents all of the entrants not good enough to justify an individual price. If you pay attention, however, you can frequently use a field wager to your advantage. Shortly after Dale Earnhardt’s tragic death at the 2001 Daytona 500 I found a sportsbook that was offering a field wager on the NASCAR rookie of the year award at 15/1. Richard Childress Racing hadn’t officially announced Harvick as the fulltime replacement for Earnhardt, but the word on the streets strongly suggested that would be the case. I knew that Harvick was a talented young driver (he was the 2000 Busch Series rookie of the year), but the unique situation with a rookie driving for one of the best financed and most experienced teams in the sport was too good to pass up. I made the bet on Harvick at just the right time, since after he was announced as the replacement for Earnhardt the line dropped to 5/1. After he won his first race (in his third race) the line dropped to 2/1 and by mid season the field was a -250 chalk.

While this sort of situation is unique, there have been other situations where ‘the field’ presented good values. At one point, it wasn’t unusual to find a ‘field’ bet on NASCAR road races that included the road course specialists like Ron Fellows and Boris Said–meaning you could bet these ‘ringers’ and several others with one bet! Again, these opportunities don’t come around often but the value they present justifies paying close attention to them.

Of course its crucial to shop around for any futures book play to find the best price. It’s a smart thing to do on any wagering proposition, but the price differential on futures wagers often vary widely from book to book. A little bit of work can produce a significantly better price which means more value.

Ross Everett is a widely published freelance writer specializing in sports handicapping, auto racing, travel and fencing. He is a staff handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is in charge of providing daily free sports picks to a number of websites and broadcast media outlets. He lives in Southern Nevada with three dogs and a wombat.

NFL Preseason Handicapping Basics

August 3rd, 2010

Among the sports betting public there’s a lot of conflicting opinions about betting NFL preseason games. That’s not really surprising, since there doesn’t seem to be much middle ground on the subject. Overly cautious handicappers would argue that preseason football is a poor wagering opportunity. Some of the more obnoxious tout services would have you believe that short of a fixed game there is no greater “lock” that preseason football. Like most things that produce such polarized opinions, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. Preseason NFL football is a unique proposition for the sports gambler, but when approached with caution, discipline and knowledge it can yield some profit.

The opponent of preseason wagering would suggest that its a bad wagering opportunity by its very nature alone–simply stated, the games don’t count meaning that the motivation and focus of individual teams is always in question. It’s hard enough to identify teams that are in a desirable ‘spot’ during the regular season, the often conflicting agendas of personnel evaluation, playbook testing, and injury prevention found in the preseason makes it impossible. All told, this uncertainty makes it very undesirable to get financially involved with preseason NFL games.

But like the old saying goes “every dark cloud has a silver lining”. And the divergent agendas at play in preseason football can be seen as precisely why it is a good wagering opportunity. For example, say the Superbowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers are set to play an ‘also ran’ team like the Houston Texans. By regular season standards, the Steelers would almost certainly be favored. In the preseason, however, they’ll often have a different agenda for the individual game. A “better” team has more concern about protecting key players. and usually has fewer personnel decisions to deal with. They don’t need to worry about implementing coaching changes, or creating ‘team chemistry’. As a result, ‘better’ teams frequently approach preseason games as a mere annoyance.

Now, lets look at the other side of the equation. A “lesser” team by regular season standards might have a number of starting spots or key backup spots up for grabs. They may have new coaches to impress, or new offensive or defensive coordinators whose schemes they’ll have to implement. Certainly, winning any games”whether or not they count in the standings”are of utmost importance to losing teams trying to turn things around. Finally, a bad team can gain a lot more psychologically from beating a playoff team than the playoff team can from beating a doormat. A struggling team that is destined to lose a lot during the regular season won’t have a lot of bright spots, so a preseason win against one of the league’s elite can mean a lot more.

While some teams could care less about the result of preseason games, few want to enter the regular season having lost them all. In light of this fact, a successful preseason situation that has stood the test of time is to bet on teams that lost their first two exhibition games outright. This situation has produced a winning percentage right around 60%.

Perhaps nothing determines a team’s approach to the preseason more than the philosophy of the head coach. Some coaches simply hate to lose anytime they line ‘em up to play football, and as a result their teams are usually good preseason bets. Bill Parcells was famous for the preseason focus of his teams. Not surprisingly, many who worked with Parcells earlier in their careers are now carving out their own records of preseason success. This sort of dominance isn’t lost on the linesmaker and a coach like the Giants’ Tom Coughlin (a former Parcells assistant) will have his ATS success will definitely been factored into the pointspread. Still, a motivated team that wants to win is always worthy of consideration.

One of the best tools that a handicapper has at his disposal during the preseason is the Internet. Actually, it’s a great tool year round but during the preseason it is invaluable. The best source of information on coaching philosophies, game plans, injuries, lineup changes, etc, are the local sports pages of NFL teams. Basically, the situation during preseason is that there is a lot of interest in the team and a lot of anxious beat writers looking to write stories. The problem is that there is little in the way of real news, and for that reason you’ll find the sort of minutiae on teams and players from which you can often extract relevant handicapping information. Even if there aren’t any nuggets of handicapping gold, you can at least get a feel for the coach’s goals for the game and the amount of playing time that key players will see. Sometimes coaches will come right out and say who will play at what juncture of the game, and will occasionally go on record that personnel decisions like evaluating all of the guys they’re considering for the backup defensive secondary jobs are more important than winning. Clearly, operating with this knowledge is a distinct advantage and operating without it can be fatal. There’s nothing more frustrating than betting on a team only to have them look like they could care less whether or not they win the game. During the preseason, however, it can frequently be prevented with some simple research and analysis.

In conclusion, there are certainly strong opportunities for profit in NFL preseason wagering but its essential to understand that it cannot be approached in the same manner as the regular season. And, as always, its important to remember that there will be more strong opportunities down the road and that discipline and rigor in handicapping is just as crucial in the preseason NFL as it is at any other time of the year.

Ross Everett is a experienced freelance writer specializing in travel, casino gambling and sports handicapping. He is a staff handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is responsible for providing daily free sports picks. In his spare time he enjoys fine dining, fencing and deep sea diving. He lives in Las Vegas with four dogs and a pet coyote.

Get Prizes And Fun Playing Games Online

June 28th, 2010

Online gaming is real pleasure. There are hundreds of online sites where any person, young or aged, might go and run any game for free without any fees or other obligation. There are a lot of choices offered these days.

Most of these web sites offer us with the greatest gaming experience, in order to capture our gaming business. In fact, there are loads of people who take this game severely, and get loads of money from it.

There is a pretty element of destiny necessitated in winning in any online game. But evenly important are your talents and experience you have in playing that proper game. Blackjack is another such online game that allows you to win healthy sums of money while having pleasure.

Blackjack is one of the selected games where you have control over, rather than permitting your destiny to rule the game. In fact, blackjack is supposed to be the heart of the gaming methods.

Online gaming has turned lot cheaper and easier to play. Cyberspace has for certain made a sizeable share to the gaming world by letting individuals to relish the sport handily without getting to move out of their doorsteps. With limited mouse clicks you are all set to make some grand pleasure and fun moments.

You no more have to book flights to see good casinos when the identical experience can be had within the four surroundings of your house. All the rules and regulations are identical as online gaming combined with unrivalled fun and convenience.

While online gaming has not interchanged offline gambling, it has certainly summed to the pleasure ingredient, and augmented the popularity of the sport. Gaming industry is a great industry today, and Cyberspace has a major function to play in this prospering industry.

You are assured to get entertainment as there are good options found on net sites. You must be actually assured that you will have superb time playing your best-loved games of any type. You should get loads of pleasure and also receive prizes while performing an online sport.

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Diamond Sportsbook Tips

May 5th, 2010

On the internet sports’ betting is about the rise and growing every and each passing day. It has been estimated that by 2007 the on-line gaming industry will enhance to more than ten billion dollars and growing strong.

Everybody wants in on a piece from the action but it really is acquiring much more and additional complicated to uncover relevant info you’ll be able to trust and count on pertaining to on the web sporting activities betting. Below we are going to enable you to discover the athletics betting info you have to have prior to you risk your difficult earned dollars.

Primary let’s begin with where you’re planning to do all of your sports activities betting on the net. You’ll find more than a thousand sportsbooks around the web these days and most with the internet sites are full of misleading facts which will hinder you rather than assist you to along the way. Maddux Sporting activities has excellent books listed on our web site, why take unnecessary risks when betting on the internet. When we define top quality in an on the net sports activities betting sportsbook – the excellent we appear for contain longevity, perks, economic stability, overnight odds, fast pay outs, reduced juice and higher limits amongst other factors. There’s sadly only one particular book that has all of these functions and that’s the Pinnacle Sportsbook. Pinnacle is number a single sportsbook around and it’s a ought to have for the novice and also the advanced bettors.

Should you be just beginning out from the world of on-line betting and are still learning the method, you might not need to have all with the issues listed above in a sportsbook at very first. Issues for instance higher limits, overnight lines and such may perhaps not be as significant to you within the beginning stages. Even so, longevity and economic stability ought to be of utmost significance and that is certainly precisely why we only suggest several books. After all the point of betting would be to assure you get paid whenever you win, appropriate?!

Most on the other books listed on our web page provide six on the seven excellent traits that we have outline above and they’re all rated an A in our opinion. The a person good quality that some of them lack is “reduced juice” and as we mentioned above, for anyone who is just beginning out then this will not be as critical to you proper now.

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Have A Low Budget? Consider This Form Of Entertainment

February 18th, 2010

Moving to a location far from your house town is a means to refreshen yourself and get rid of your work related tension. Different persons will have different tastes about where they desire to travel.

If you do not have a great budget to expend, you will still have a lot of choices similar to travel. No question that traveling is costly but I want to tell you about new alternatives ready.

The options I’m talking about are about the virtual entertainment ways found for you. For instance, you can walk in virtual locations and be in touch with real individuals who roam around in such virtual locations.

If you are going especially for gaming and playing casino games, you should have greater alternatives in the virtual domain. There are websites that extend the correct same or even greater choices plus incentives for games like blackjack online.

While you are still suggested to practice the identical care while playing online or offline, you really have better selections ready online and you are even able to find sites that provide you massive bonuses, as huge as $100 for new members.

Tens of thousands of masses journey to places such as Las Vegas just to see casinos and play their favored blackjack games. If you are on a limited budget and may be good to be amused and still not get to travel, then live blackjack games can be a pleasurable surprise for you.

There are also virtual places where you may take the figure of a strong character and fight with other members. Thus there is a great deal of travel involved in such live games so that you need not have to travel for fun.

Even if you have a lot of options available online, there is nevertheless nothing as great as the real natural travel. But whenever you are on a small budget and need to brush up your mind rapidly, you will be ready to have utilized the online web sites and virtual locations instead.

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