Betting Against the Public

If you are new to the world of sports betting, or at least new to trying to pick a strategy for your betting, you will quickly hear about betting against the public.  This is also called “fading the public,” and is among the most common and simple betting strategies out there.  If you look at any basic site about betting techniques, it will be prominently listed as a reliable method almost every time.

Betting against the public is exactly what it sounds like.  Whatever team the public is backing, just bet on the other team.  The logic here is that online betting sites are still in business because the public consistently loses.  Why?  The public tends to bet on their favorites, on the over, and on teams which the media is inflating.  Bookies in turn shade the lines, adding points as needed to profit off of bets on favored teams by making them more expensive.

In theory, this strategy should work.  When you bet on the underdog instead of the over, you are on the same side as the house, and should profit alongside them.  In reality, though, this isn’t a strategy that can consistently work over the long term.  Betting against the public often works better than betting alongside the public, but think about it.  If winning consistently were really this simple, wouldn’t everyone be doing it?  Before you start thinking about how complicated that would make things (after all, there would no longer be a public favorite at that point), acknowledge that winning is never that simple.

For one thing, public opinion can vary quite a bit.  If 80% of the public is backing one team, you would be more likely to profit backing the opposite team than you would if only 60% of the public were backing the public favorite.  Another consideration comes back to shading the lines.  When you bet against the public, you are actually betting against the lines the online betting websites have been shading—the teams or players they have been making more expensive.  The thing is, online betting sites aren’t shading the lines like they used to.

Why the change?  Back in 2005, online bettors started discovering that all they needed to do to profit was head over to odds tracking websites and find out what number the sharp betting sites were offering.  This has caused online bookies to adjust the way they do business over time, making fading the public an inefficient strategy to continue using. 

Simple strategies like this also fail over time because they are too simple.  You need a much more comprehensive strategy to succeed at sports betting time and again.  Something this basic will cause you to lose money.  If you want to win, find or develop a complete strategy for betting that is based on logic and which can deliver over the long term.  And one thing you can bet on is this—it isn’t going to be something that your average Joe knows! Read about the 3 top betting strategies or check out UK's top betting sites that don't disappoint.