Whether you have been around the sports betting game for a while, or are new and 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 public thinks will win. You may see that a team has a 70% general sediment and feel like that might be a fairly good bet that you can make. While nothing is ever certain on the globe of sports betting, this feeling is generally incorrect.

Among the most significant concepts to take into account when betting on sports is this: if the public won more than they lost, sports books would cease to exist. That is simplifying things sneak a peek at these guys little, as always, but most of the time which is a true statement. Casinos and sport books are in business to make money–lots of money. 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 is then safe to assume that they’re making money and that, over time, the general public loses their cash.

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

Even as we discussed in our Line Movement article, there are many of factors that may cause sport books to move the line. One such factor is one team getting decidedly more income wagered on it than the other, creating a scenario where the books would lose a large amount of cash if one team wins. Books would want to have a great, even amount of money bet on both sides of a game, so that regardless of what team wins, they will come out on top as a result of the juice (newbies: betting $110 to win $100, the $10 will be the juice). This really is why it is a great idea to take a quick peek at the consensus percentages in addition to 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 see a game where the general public can be very 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’s. If the public is betting most of their cash on a team, but 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 the big-money sharp betters have already made their bets on another team. No matter what, this is a major red flag. Again, don’t blindly bet your hard earned money on this strategy, but there will be situations where these numbers are too strong to ignore.

In many instances, I like fading the public–especially when there’s a strong public consensus betting on the underdog in a game. As you surely already know, the common theme of my articles is research–we’re talking about your money here, so it’s extremely important that you make every effort to locate a benefit before you make 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 larger overall strategy of doing your homework and eventually finding solid money-making opportunities. If you follow the advice I’ve offered in this article and combine it with several of my other strategies, you will win money–the only question is: just how much?