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

One of the most significant concepts to bear in mind when betting on sports is this: if the public won more than they lost, sports books would cease to exist. That’s simplifying things just a little, keep in mind, but typically which is a true statement. Casinos and sport books will be in business to make money–lots of money. Should they are losing money in a particular area, they are going to either change the guidelines or stop offering it entirely. Considering that the world of online sport books is alive and thriving, it’s then safe to assume that they can be making money and that, over time, the public loses their cash.

I’ve been telling people to subscribe to the theory of reverse popular opinion for years now. As will be the case with a whole lot of the advice I have 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 your mind when doing your research. You will discover some situations where observing the public consensus and comparing it to line movement may be very eye-opening, and these are the situations the place you can pounce.

As we discussed in our Line Movement article, there are various of factors that can cause sport books to move the line. One particular factor is just one team getting decidedly extra money wagered on it than the other, creating a scenario where the books would lose a big amount if one team wins. Books would want to have a great, even amount of cash bet on both sides of a game, to ensure that no matter what team wins, they’ll come out on top due to the juice (newbies: betting $110 to win $100, the $10 will be the juice). This is why it’s a good idea to take a quick peek at the consensus percentages together 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 research, if you happen to see a game where the general public is quite heavily betting on one team, say 70% or higher, yet the line did not move from it’s original number, then you have to ask yourself why that is. In the event the public is betting most of their cash on a team, although 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 general public will lose, or even the big-money sharp betters have already made their bets on the additional team. In any case, this really is a major red flag. Again, don’t blindly bet your money on this strategy, but there will be situations where these numbers are too strong to ignore.

Generally speaking, I like fading the public–especially when there’s a strong public consensus betting on the underdog in a game. When you surely already know, the common theme of my articles is research–we’re talking about your money here, so it’s extremely critical that you make every effort to find a benefit before you make your bet. As is the case with a lot 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 within this article and combine it with some of my other strategies, you will win money–the only question is: how much?