3 Basic Sports Betting Strategies

As a newcomer to the world of sports betting, how are you planning to place your bets?  Will you go with your gut feeling and choose the team or player you think will win?  Will you bet on your favorite team, letting sentiment guide your way?  A lot of new bettors start out that way, but intuition and sentiment are not real betting strategies, and they will result in you losing money over time.  Eventually, you will want to develop a comprehensive strategy that fits your personality and is ideal for the types of games you like to bet on.  Here are 3 basic sports betting approaches.  They are not enough on their own to constitute full-fledged strategies, but they should help you start learning the ropes.

1. Bet against the public some of the time

Betting against the public is a very simple, very popular betting strategy, but it is too simplistic to succeed most of the time.  When is this approach actually useful?  When the vast majority of the public—80% say, not 60%--is backing one team, it usually does pay off to back the other.  But this strategy overall is not what it used to be, and should be combined with other strategies if you want it to be useful.  This is an example of a strategy which used to work better in the past, but because of industry changes, now needs to be used only as a component in a more comprehensive system.

2. Shop for the best lines

Another important step to making consistent money from sports betting is to shop around for the best lines.  The line (also known as the spread) is the number the online betting site assigns to handicap one team.  Points are assigned to the team perceived as the underdog (negative points are assigned to the perceived favorite).  <a href="com/online-bookmakers">Online bookies</a> set different lines and odds for the same teams and events, and if you shop around for the best lines, you may find yourself winning more frequently.  This is one reason to consider opening several accounts at different betting sites.  That way you can simply bet wherever the lines are best.

3. Research analytic data.

Online, you can find a ton of statistical information on the teams involved in a game and their recent and past performance.  When you first get started, interpreting this information will be a challenge, and you will not know what to focus on.  With practice, though, over time you can start to develop an understanding for which analytics are most important.  Eventually this will give you a great edge over bettors who are simply betting their gut instinct.

The best sports betting systems can provide reliable returns again and again.  They may eventually require adjustments because of changes in the industry or changes in the games themselves.  But the more you understand about the world of sports and sports betting, the better positioned you will be to win time and again with your sports betting strategies.