Whether you’ve been around the sports betting game for a while, or are new and also have been following the advice found on this site, chances are you have been to sites like Covers.com while doing research on upcoming games. Chances are you’ve also noticed the little « consensus » tidbit next to each game, telling you which team the public thinks will win. You might see that a team has a 70% popular opinion and feel like that may be a pretty good bet that you should make. While nothing is ever certain in the world of sports betting, this feeling is generally incorrect.

One of the most important concepts to be aware of when betting on sports is this: if the public won more than they lost, sports books would cease to exist. That is simplifying things just a little, simply, but usually that’s a true statement. Casinos and sport books are within business to make money–lots of cash. Whenever they are losing money in a particular area, they will either change the guidelines or stop offering it entirely. Since the world of online sport books is alive and thriving, it’s then safe to assume that they may be making money and that, in the long run, the public loses their cash.

I’ve been telling people to subscribe to the theory of reverse general sediment for years now. As will be the case with a great deal of the advice I’ve offered here at SportBooksReview, I’m not suggesting that men and women blindly bet against the team with higher public support every night–just keep it in mind when doing your investigation. You can find some situations where observing the public consensus and comparing it to line movement may be very eye-opening, and they are the situations where you can pounce.

Since we discussed in our Line Movement article, there are many of aspects that could cause sport books to move the line. One particular factor is one team getting decidedly more money wagered on it than the other, creating a scenario where the books would lose a large amount if one team wins. Books would want to have a peek at this website a nice, even amount of cash bet on both sides of a game, in order that regardless of what team wins, they will come out on top due to the juice (newbies: betting $110 to win $100, the $10 will be the juice). This really is why it’s really a great idea to take a quick peek at the consensus percentages along with the line movement for the games you want to bet on–there can sometimes be some very useful hidden information to give you one advantage.

When doing your investigation, if you happen to determine a game where the general public is extremely heavily betting on one team, say 70% or higher, yet the line did not move from it’s original number, in which case you have to ask yourself why which is. In the event the public is betting most of their cash on a team, however the books do not move the number to attract betters for the additional team, then it’s telling you something. Either the books are confident that the public will lose, or even the big-money sharp betters have already made their bets on the other team. Either way, this is a significant red flag. Again, do not blindly bet your money on this strategy, but there will be situations where these numbers are too strong to ignore.

In general, I like fading the public–especially when there is a strong public consensus betting on the underdog in a game. While you surely already know, the common theme of my articles is research–we’re discussing your hard earned money here, so it’s extremely important that you make every effort to locate one advantage prior to making your bet. As will be the case with a great deal of my advice, this isn’t meant to be a one-size-fits-all strategy, but part of a bigger overall strategy of doing your homework and ultimately finding solid money-making opportunities. If you follow the advice I have offered in the article and combine it with some of my other strategies, you will win money–the only question is: the amount?